Children of Dune – Entry #1

Let me start with the cover to this book.  We must own a collector’s item because it mistakenly says on it that it is “Book Two in the Magnificent Dune Chronicles” and it is most certainly not book two!  Look at the picture of the book cover!

Anyway, Children of Dune is filled with intrigue resulting in what can often be difficult-to-follow storylines.  However, I found it much easier this time around.  Perhaps this is the case because of “gaps” filled in by both Paul of Dune and Winds of Dune.  Whatever the reason, it is certainly more enjoyable than I recall.

And, as has been the case for each book, I notice more details thank in the past.  Or maybe I notice them because I understand how things fit together better.

I didn’t recall that early in this book Leto II reveals how the planet was transformed into Dune.  The passage below is Leto speaking with his sister Ghanima.

“The sandtrout,” he repeated, “was introduced here from some other place.  This was a wet planet then.  They proliferated beyond the capability of existing ecosystems to deal with them.  Sandtrout encysted the available free water, made this a desert planet … and they did to survive.  In a planet sufficiently dry, they could move to their sandworm phase.”

(Children of Dune, p. 32)

And not too much later, we find the first recitation of the Litany Against Fear in this book (p. 49).  I love the consistency of this Litany throughout the saga over thousands of years.

A storyline in this book that drew me in so much more this time around was of The Preacher: how we discover that this is Paul Atreides and learn how he came to be in this state.  When he is brought to Salusa Secundus to meet with Farad’n to discuss “religion”, the Preacher demonstrates incredible insight into leading the Imperium.  He also shows his love and respect for Duncan Idaho, saying “he is a jewel beyond price” (Children of Dune, p. 90).

We also are given insights, although difficult to follow, into how Leto plans to guide the future for human kind.  The following was said by Leto II to Lady Jessica:

“Leave absolute knowledge of the future to those moments of déjà vu which any human may experience.  I know the trap of prescience.  My father’s life tells me what I need to know about it.  No, grandmother: to know the future absolutely is to be trapped into that future absolutely.  It collapses time.  Present becomes future.  I require more freedom that that.”

(Children of Dune, p. 94)