Dune Messiah

I enjoyed Dune but when I finished it, I didn't have a sense of fulfillment after reaching the end. I wanted more so I continued with the saga in hopes of reaching a satisfying conclusion/payoff. I was vibing with Herbert's prose, so I said why not? After all I enjoyed my time with the 800 something pages, why not go back-to-back with the 350 page sequel? And I must say this time I feel much more satisfied with the ending.

However, I don't think both the books work together and complement each other in a completely seamless way. This book has quite a different structure owing to the fact that Herbert wrote it to clear up the heroic aura of Paul which was incorrectly assumed by a lot of readers back in the 60's when the first book was published. Now this is fine, but I wish he had done this in way that incorporated some of the elements that composed the structure of the first book. We should have got to see more viewpoints and explored the psyche of the other characters which were introduced in such an intriguing manner right at the start. I don't think this approach would have worked against the book in fact it would have elevated Paul's story and made the impact of that ending even stronger.

I do feel happy overall with the decision to jump into this book right after the first one, it was much better written in terms of the spoken dialogue between the characters. The inner dialogue of the characters (which is where Frank Herbert excels) is once again incredibly sophisticated, philosophical, poetic and beautiful. The world building was held back quite a lot which is to be expected in a sequel, but it was needed here.

I don't feel the need to continue the series now as I feel fulfilled and don't really care to know that deeply about what's going to happen next so I might hop off the Dune train here, on which I have been aboard for more than a couple months.