More of the same, or, well, actually, worse. Bleh. Having read the first two books of the trilogy, I sort of felt obligated to read this last one, if only to bring it to an end. And, well, to see how they managed to put the pieces of the prequel puzzle together.
Answer: horribly. Paper-thin characterization (with no realistic character changes of any sort to speak of), parallel plots that also fail to hold together enough (take the entire Arrakis series and the Ginaz swordmasters arc, for instance), and a poor handling of the prequel premise. Why do all of the important events in history and the founding of the influential social groups and institutions (the Guild, House Corrino, the Bene Gesserit, the Swordmasters of Ginaz, the Fremen, the Suk doctors, and so on) happen within a span of a hundred years?
I could go on and on. Plot holes abound. You do not actually get to care about any single character, except maybe Erasmus, a bit, but even then not really. Horrible writing (I feel like I could've done better, even, although of course it's harder to write well than it is to recognize bad writing, those are different things entirely).
Brian Herbert should be ashamed of this clumsy attempt at imagining the history of his father's wonderful Dune universe. Or, rather, I should be ashamed of having been fooled not once, not twice, but thrice!
On a positive note, it is done! Time to go for better reads. Really looking forward to re-reading the original series.
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