Kireth
“Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual."
This was by no means a bad book, and I give Dune Messiah credit for attempting to maintain its own identity, but perhaps it suffers from being a follow-up to the truly epic Dune.
Right off the bat I was intrigued at Herbert openly laying out the conspiracy against Emperor Paul, again giving readers multiple perspectives on both sides as individuals began to politically manoeuvre themselves amongst and against each other. This was in addition to a lot of discussion on philosophy, and pondering of leadership, governments and their costs. This was where I wish the book was actually longer, and made some more concrete statements or raised interesting discussions, as I instead watched the story go in an interesting but rather straight line.
"Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time."
Moreover, the lengthy conversations and Herbert's third-person omniscient writing style that constantly changes character viewpoint sometimes made events difficult to follow, and I was left wondering what true outcomes were achieved in individual scenes. I did enjoy some of the descriptive sections, and the varying epigraphs worked well in terms of framing, but most of all I found myself rocked by the ending. Keenly moving on to Children of Dune soon!
Originally posted at kirethwritesabout.com.
“Empires do not suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become established that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual."
This was by no means a bad book, and I give Dune Messiah credit for attempting to maintain its own identity, but perhaps it suffers from being a follow-up to the truly epic Dune.
Right off the bat I was intrigued at Herbert openly laying out the conspiracy against Emperor Paul, again giving readers multiple perspectives on both sides as individuals began to politically manoeuvre themselves amongst and against each other. This was in addition to a lot of discussion on philosophy, and pondering of leadership, governments and their costs. This was where I wish the book was actually longer, and made some more concrete statements or raised interesting discussions, as I instead watched the story go in an interesting but rather straight line.
"Eternity takes back its own. Our bodies stirred these waters briefly, danced with a certain intoxication before the love of life and self, dealt with a few strange ideas, then submitted to the instruments of Time."
Moreover, the lengthy conversations and Herbert's third-person omniscient writing style that constantly changes character viewpoint sometimes made events difficult to follow, and I was left wondering what true outcomes were achieved in individual scenes. I did enjoy some of the descriptive sections, and the varying epigraphs worked well in terms of framing, but most of all I found myself rocked by the ending. Keenly moving on to Children of Dune soon!
Originally posted at kirethwritesabout.com.