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Author Herbert Completes Trilogyf-by Mark Craver Special to THE FLAT HAT Frank Herbert has finally done it. Children of Dune, the third and final volume of the Hugo and Nebula award winning Dune trilogy in 1965, ties together all the political, ecological, and emotional loose ends generated in the first two volumes, Dupe and Dune Messiah. The publishers are so sure of good sales for this work that they will not release Children of Dune in paperback.' This forces the reader to pay a rather high price for the answers to the burning questions left from the first two volumes.These answers are well worth ’ the price.Herbert has created the planet Dune, where water is so scarce that an ecologically minded hand of religious wanderers (Fremen), develops with the ultimate religious ■ goal of the reformation of Dime’s surface into a watered paradise. The Fremen worship the great Shai-hulud, Sairdworms that roam the desert, and control the addidtve spice drug melange. Rigorous natural selection of desert life has made the Fremen a fighting force beyond comparison. Through an intricate and efficient water conservation system, the Fremen wait for the Lisan al-Gaib, the savior fortold in prophecies, to bring the religious ckeam into reality.(“Hold on a minute, this sounds too much like science fiction.”Yes, ! guess so, but if we ignore it, the book could be good Inyway.”Impossible. All sciencefiction is pulp fiction.”. “Of course, you’re right, and a women’s place is in the home too.”)This prophet, Maud ‘Ditx, gains his ends in Dune Messiah and Dune through the use of time-altering melange on his highly developed psyche. Children of Dune takes place after the apparent death of Maud ‘Dib and tells of Alia, Muad ‘Dib’s sister, and Leto H and Gharima, his children, and their handling of the religious empire he built. Both Alia and the Children are born aware, in mental contact with all of their genetic ancestors. Past actions are experiences for the children and Alia, even actions done before their birth.The real virtue of Children of Dune, however is its ability to make its world the reality of the reader. Through Children of Dune, as with its counterparts, the reader recognizes aspects of his own character development as a result of environmental stress. Human choice is not abandoned though, because the multiple possibilities of future action is rooted in individual action subject to choice.The alternate paths of future actions are laid out vividly by Herbert, and the final course of events is mare than surprising. However, the gere\ical preacher who denounces Muad ’Dib’s religion, and the real identity of the planet itself, does afford some surprises.Herbert’s characters are utterly believable and tragically flawed (human). The story appears as the inevitable course of action as dictated by the actions of key individuals.Children of Dune is more than a story, it is a religious-philosophical insight into human character (Seriously?).Whenever an author can create a story through fiction that so profoundly effects and disturbs its readers, as Children of Dune does, that book deserves reading. Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune are, indeed, books to be read. Science fiction or not, they illustrate human nature in its most desperate form. In the wards of the prophet himself:Deep in human unconscious is a pervasive need for o logical universe that makes sense.But the reot universe is always one step beyond logic.—sayings of Muod 'Dib.
Newspaper Details
Williamsburg Flat Hat
Williamsburg, Virginia, US
Fri, Dec 03, 1976
Page 10
Full Page
Clipped by
Alexandria L.
NA, 16 Jan 2025
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