All of these things are true in my opinion: people are too hard on the Brian Herbert Dune books (aka, "McDune"), the books are nowhere near as good as Frank Herbert's originals, I enjoy the McDune books the same way that I sometimes enjoy McDonald's (or really Taco Bell for me) even though I know it's not good, and it's fun to learn what happened immediately after the last Frank Herbert book even if I know it's neither the same nor as good as what Frank would have written.

Years earlier, Teg had been brought in to guard the young ghola of Duncan Idaho, after eleven previous Duncan gholas had been assassinated. The old Bashar succeeded in keeping the twelfth alive until adulthood and finally restored Duncan's memories, then helped him escape from Gammu. When one of the Honored Matres, Murbella, tried to sexually enslave Duncan, he instead trapped her with unsuspected abilities wired into him by his Tleilaxu creators. It turned out that Duncan was a living weapon specifically designed to thwart the Honored Matres. No wonder the enraged whores were so desperate to find and kill him.

Hunters of Dune

Now, nearly fourteen years later and in a vastly changed universe, the gangly teenager adjusted the study chair to a more comfortable height. Reviewing the circumstances of my own death. Again. Muad'Dib could indeed see the Future, but you must understand the limits of this power. Think of sight. You have eyes, yet cannot see without light. If you are on the floor of a valley, you cannot see beyond your valley. Just so, Muad'Dib could not always choose to look across the mysterious terrain. He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future. He tells us "The vision of time is broad, but when you pass through it, time becomes a narrow door." And always, he fought the temptation to choose a clear, safe course, warning "That path leads ever down into stagnation." In the end I think I agree with Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson in their Authors' Note when they write, "We wish Frank Herbert could have been here to write this book."

Power in the galaxy is a three-way balancing act between the Spacing Guild, who hold a monopoly on faster than light travel; the Padishah Emperor, who controls a fanatical army of Space Spartans (think 300, not Halo); and a system of alliances between hereditary noble Houses. It's especially galling for a number of reasons. Frank did all but spell out in Chapterhouse:Dune, and especially the final chapter, that Daniel and Marty were Independent Face Dancers. Also, in his books, the Butlerian Jihad (which was the topic of many of the prequels) was always described and discussed as a crusade against thinking machines, such that humanity was becoming too dependent on computers and automations and was losing their inherent creativity, talents, and abilities. KJA and BH turned this into a cheesy Terminator-esque fight between humans and robots who wanted to kill them for no reason other than, again, "just because." Apparently, reading beyond a 4th grade comprehension level is beyond these guys. They couldn't read between the lines in the original 6 Dune books, so they had to dumb it down so that they (and presumably and insultingly, we) could understand it. Stupid. And, deep in the hold of their giant ship, the refugees carry the last surviving sandworms from devastated Arrakis, as they search the universe for a new Dune.Watching images of the final bombardment now, Miles Teg wondered at what point his original body had been obliterated. Did it really matter? Now that he was alive again, he had a second chance.