I finally read Dune...What about the sequels?

It took me four or five tries but I finally made it past page thirty a couple pages ago and I'n now finishing it.

Should I look into the sequels? I've been told they are pretty terrible.



PD: Now I really want to play Dune.

Dune Messiah is pretty interesting but Children of Dune was so off the wall that I found it hard to really relate, or get "into" the book.

Too many copies of people to keep track, but there was lots of political intrigue, which to me was a big draw.

Read the first two, and stop after that. Children of Dune is the herald of Hebert's descent into WTFuckery in the subsequent books.

The first two sequels are crucial, flowing very naturally from the events of the first book, so that the totality of the first three books feels like one epic story. Everything after that is non-essential and of lesser quality. Or so I've heard. I gave up part way through God Emperor of Dune, aka Duncan Idaho, Sex God of Dune.

You'll be fine with the next two books (Messiah and Children). They basically extend the story of the families you've already been reading about; there's nothing there that will be unfamiliar.

Making the leap into God Emperor and beyond is a whole different conversation. From that point, things get weird. And long. And dense.

Here's a universal truth, though: you'll never have any reason to read any of the glorified fanfic produced by Kevin J. Anderdick and Herbert's idiot son Brian. Many of those are quite literally just unused Star Wars plots that Anderhack re-jiggered after Lucasfilm refused to work with him any longer. Thus, all the heroes are basically Jedi; there's lots of interstellar fighting (despite there being none of that in Herbert's books), etc.

The Anderdouche/Brian Herbert books are beyond terrible. If you get them for free, you've paid too much.

Dune was good, and Dune Messiah was only a slight step down. I thought Children of Dune represented a brief uptick .

Then you get to God Emperor of Dune . A major fucking slog to say the least. Not much action , it was about four times as long as it needed to be .

The last two , Heretics and Chapterhouse Dune, were actually pretty decent I thought . You could skip over God Emperor and pick those up and not miss much I think .

My coworker is a Dune fan, or maybe was. Anyway, his take on it was that stopping at _Dune_ is fine. If you want to keep going, you need to do _Dune Messiah_, _Children of Dune_, and _God Emperor of Dune_. I don't think he cared much for anything afterwards.

I myself read the other two (never read GEoD), and thought that it was a big drop-off from _Dune_, but that was 30-some years ago, when I was a teenager.

Dune and Dune Messiah. The rest, don't bother.

I love the first book and have read it several times. I eventually read Messiah, Children, and God Emperor, and they do get further away from the first book. I've never read any of them a second time (though I really liked Messiah), but I'll still read the first one over and over. (I also like the Lynch movie, but that's another story.)

Read Dune a bunch of times - awesome book and didn't want to wreck it by reading further. Maybe I'll break down and read Messiah one of these days.

Dune is best as a stand alone. Messiah was okay as an epilogue of sorts, but the rest of the books careened off into a different thing. There wee some scattered good ideas, but many would have been better served as different novels.

The more I think about it, the better Messiah seems, so check that out for the ghola storyline if nothing else. The Paul parts just felt off, he would have been better behind the scenes to highlight his importance.

since nobody knows me in person I can safely say:

Modern Dune fandom allows the story to be enjoyed on many levels with prequels and fill in books. I think there might be a couple of books that fill in between the old main series structure.

I guess they call them "Interquels" You'd have to do a bit of research to decide what to read when.

I've read them all and never been disappointed but if you took multiple tries to get through the first book you'll probably never drink the kool-aid to the level people like me have. In which case you stick with messiah and children.

Lump me in the with Brian Herbert haters--those books are complete shit. Awful, just awful. Robots. With brains in them. Sound good? Enjoy.

Unlike everyone else though, I did like GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, and I found HERETICS OF DUNE readable. Not so much CHAPTERHOUSE. Anyway, what I really liked was THE DUNE ENCYCLOPEDIA; which Brian has made non-canonical and forbidden then re-printing of, despite the tacit endorsement of his Dad. All the better to pack more turds into those prequels! Just pack 'em all full of turdy turds, yeah!

Interesting thing about Messiah: Frank Herbert himself considered it part of Dune. But it was (quite rightly) broken off into a separate novel, for purposes of length, story (the Arrakeen battle quite nicely wraps up Dune), and credibility (at the time, Herbert was fairly obscure).

Glad I read 2 & 3, but will only ever re-read the first.