I’m not sure what happened, but I drifted through this book without being drawn in and invested in the characters like I was with the first. Maybe I prefer origin stories and the struggle into power rather than anything that might happen to somebody at the top. (Which was the case here with the main characters being rulers of the universe.)
It still felt rich with careful detail, as though Frank Herbert might have studied how water and sand interact for weeks before writing a single sentence describing them in a scene.
Despite some memorable imagery and plot twists, I wasn’t that into this book. I believe the forward (or some intro written by Herbert’s son) set me up to be shocked by a main character’s turn toward darkness that was met with an outcry from fans. This was no Walter White situation, however, so a Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones fan might not find anything shocking about the character arcs.