Review - Dune Messiah 🏜

Dune Messiah is the 2nd book in the six-part Dune series by Frank Herbert. I planned to just read the first book in the Dune series,Dune, before watching the Denis Villeneuve film adaption that was going to arrive in November 2020. I figured that having read the book would help me enjoy the movie. Hell, I eventually found out that having read the book was essential for deriving any pleasure out of the mostly incomprehensible David Lynch adaption from 1984. The Villeneuve adaption never came out in November 2020 though thanks to COVID-19, and who knows now if it’ll ever hit cinemas.

So I figured that I might as well keep reading the read of the series while waiting ~12 months for the film to come out, and I was happy to do that because I’d loved the first in the series, Dune.

Unlike the first book, Dune Messiah is not an epic hero’s journey. Paul is emperor, and so it’s now really all his to lose. He’s having trouble with his newfound powers, and much of the conflict within the book within Paul’s mind.

I couldn’t have expected a re-run of Dune, and the structure and style of this 2nd in the series is still great, but I didn’t love it the first time round. Now that I’ve read the third in the series, Children of Dune, I’d say that my ranking of them would be.

1. Dune ✭✭✭✭✭
2. Children of Dune ✭✭✭✭✩
3. Dune Messiah ✭✭✭✭

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