Dune: House Corrino
Prelude to Dune
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
The finale to the Prelude to Dune trilogy!
Fearful of losing his precarious hold on the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam IV, Emperor of a Million Worlds, has devised a radical scheme to create a synthetic alternative to melange, the addictive spice that binds the Imperium together, a substance that can be found only on the desert world of Dune.
In subterranean labs on the machine planet Ix, Tleilaxu overlords use slaves and prisoners as part of a horrific plan to manufacture substitute spice. If this substance can supplant genuine melange, it will give Shaddam what he seeks: absolute power.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this fully satisfying conclusion (after Dune: House Atreides and Dune: House Harkonnen) to the authors' "House" trilogy, Emperor Shaddam Corrino tries to grasp greater power than any emperor before him and to rule the Million Worlds solely according to his whims. On the captured planet Ix, the research Shaddam directs into the creation of a synthetic spice, amal, that will make him all-powerful spirals out of control, putting the entire civilization at risk. Meanwhile, the enslavers of Ix must contend with threats from exiled Prince Rhombur Vernius, who wishes to rule the planet instead. Tumultuous times are also in store for the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, whose breeding plan has been thrown off course one generation shy of its end. Tension between the houses Atreides and Harkonnen builds to a dramatic showdown. While the intricacy of the first prequel is absent here, so is the filler of the second. Because Herbert and Anderson are extrapolating from someone else's ideas and characters, they tend to overuse catch phrases (like "the Golden Lion throne") from Dune and its sequels with a resulting flatness of language. The inevitable derivative features aside, this is a good, steady, enjoyable tale, and readers who haven't read the first two books can easily follow the plot. A bold, red-and-gold dust jacket, with illustration by Stephen Youll, is a real eye-catcher. Fans who will be sorry to see the end of this series will be heartened by the hint that the Dune saga is far from over.
