The fifth 'Dune' novel tries its hardest to keep you at arm's reach
After I finished God Emperor Dune (the fourth Dune book) nearly a year ago, I told myself I was done with Dune. My impressions of that book varied from disgust to boredom. The only aspect of it that held my interest was the sheer brazenness of the storytelling. Here, Herbert was telling the story of a universe ruled by an immortal tyrant, only through the lens of lengthy discussions about abstract political theories and ruminations on human nature rather than plot, action, or character development.
It was, in a word, bizarre.
That’s enough of that, I thought, as I put the book on my shelf. Alas, following the release of Dune Part Two in cinemas (which I loved), I couldn’t help but wonder what the fifth Dune book would be like. For as much as I didn’t like God Emperor Dune, it made an impression on me I couldn’t shake.
In the end, I caved.
Heretics of Dune takes place 1,500 years after God Emperor, in a universe still feeling the effects of Leto II’s tyranny, most notably in the return of the ‘Scattering’—the descendants of the people who fled the inner worlds following Leto II’s demise.
Threatened by the Scattering are the disparate and familiar powers of the inner worlds, most notably the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax. Throw a new Duncan Idaho ghola into the mix as well as a young girl who can control sandworms on ‘Rakis’ and things are about to get complicated.
(An aside: if you didn’t understand a word of what I just wrote, I’m afraid I can’t help you. From the very first book, Dune is totally encased in its own seemingly impenetrable lore, and it only gets denser as the series progresses.)
Bear With Me, Okay?
Let’s start with a positive. The sequels after Dune are less necessary instalments in an ongoing series and more explorations across centuries and millennia of the ramifications of Paul’s actions in the first novel. Heretics of Dune is no exception, and in that regard it’s an interesting read. It feels like the reader is getting a glimpse into the world after ‘The End.’
Unfortunately, there’s no promises you’ll like what you see. The world of Heretics is bleak, not just in terms of politics and environment (although that, too) but also in terms of character. The biggest misstep this novel makes for me is having not one, not two, but three main point of view characters as Bene Gesserit.
These are cold, calculating, impossibly smart and aloof women who feel totally interchangeable and lack any relatable traits that would endear us to them.
The women of the Bene Gesserit all possess genius-level intellect, but Herbert never deigns to convey their thought processes, and I was often left in the dark as to what their true motivations were. They would regularly experience ‘revelations’ that were not explicated in the slightest and meant nothing to me, leaving me feeling kind of stupid for not being able to put the pieces together.
This is, of course, on purpose. Herbert isn’t about to sacrifice the realism of what kind of person it would take to be a Bene Gesserit for the sake of our enjoyment, but it makes for hard reading,
The enormous scale of the story is also tough to digest. There is a Bene Gesserit scheme involving Sheeana—the girl who can control Sandworms—the latest Duncan Idaho ghola, and something with the Bene Tleilax, but we are never told what the purpose of this plot is until the very end of the novel, and even then, I failed to grasp the motivation behind it. There are incredibly monumental events happening semi-regularly that seem to shake characters to their core, but half the time I couldn’t parse what was even happening.
This fumbling around in the dark, begging for the barest hint of a context clue to orient myself in the story, becomes exhausting, although I’d be remiss to mention the satisfaction I got when I did manage to put together the occasional jigsaw pieces of this puzzling plot and catch a brief glimpse of the bigger picture.
A Trip Down Memory Space-Lane
The memories of the characters we came to love in the first novel (and the second, for some) are also distant here. The Atreides bloodline and the prescience it grants plays an important role for nearly all of the point of view characters, but there is no sense of tragedy and doomed fate present in these characters; nothing that makes me empathise with them a fraction as much as I did with Paul.
Miles Teg, a military leader for the Bene Gesserit bred to look like Leto I, is really the only intriguing character in the book. He has a simple goal—protect the latest Duncan ghola from assassination—and has a sceptical view of the Bene Gesserit. The Duncan ghola also provides some much-needed grounding, but his presence is covering the same philosophical ideas explored in previous novels.
Then there’s the three Bene Gesserit. One is ‘Supreme Mother’, current leader of the Sisterhood. Her chapters are borderline indecipherable as we’re kept from knowing her motivations. Then there’s Odrade and Lucilla who both represent Herbert’s honestly half-hearted attempt at theming. They repeatedly struggle with the abstract concept of ‘love’ throughout the novel, but Herbert’s writing style is so detached and these characters so hardened that it’s tough to feel much of anything for them.
Strangely, for as much as this book is totally unknowable on a first read-through, I do prefer it to God Emperor, and I’m glad I read it. The story was oftentimes baffling and opaque, but Herbert does manage to convey this futuristic society in an engaging manner, dropping the names of devices and locations and events in a way that made me lean in. To his immense credit, Herbert’s world it totally unique and he takes full advantage of this, even if this results in a totally alien—and sometimes disturbing—experience.
There’s also a perverse joy in struggling to put together a story like this. Herbert clearly was never interested in making his books appeal to a wide audience, and even though Dune succeeded in the sci-fi/fantasy space and is now being adopted by a broader segment of the population thanks to the success of the movies, I really can’t see anyone but the most die-hard of fans reading, or even enjoying, Heretics of Dune.
Herbert’s world-building may be on par with Tolkien’s, and I really liked the first two novels, but it’s far from my favourite book series. That said, having come this far I’m probably going to read the sixth and final book soon. At this stage, I pretty much know what I’m in for, and even if I don’t love it, there is something undeniably captivating about these books.
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