Dune Messiah

Dune Messiah is the sequel of Frank Herbert's masterpiece, Dune. It takes place 12 years after the events of the first book.
Paul “Muad'Dib” Atreides is now the Emperor of the universe and religious figure to many. After taking this position, a Jihad in his name occur that claims the lives of billions of people. This leads Paul to question his role in all of this, after vision of the future presented to him.

Frank Herbet utilize this premise to develop one of the most important themes in all of Dune, distrust of power figures. During most of the book, Herbert deconstructs the image of Paul as the Messiah (something that was already tackled in the first book, but is given for more emphasis in this one), achieving an interesting development of his protagonist, which the reader can appreciate thanks to the omniscient prose of the author, giving us the chance of seeing the point of view of several characters in the same scene.

This makes the dialogue between them fundamental to appreciate these aspects. At the same time, it generates that the reader can follow the decisions of the characters being aware of their future consequences. This is helpful considering Dune Messiah focuses most of his time on conspiracies and different political and religious factions. Thanks to this, the already interesting universe of Dune is expanded even further, without mentioning the introduction of new concepts and characters.
Like the first novel, Dune Messiah develops its characters depending on what the story needs, which can make some secondary characters feel flat and even give them no closure in their arc. This is not always the case, but it's something that the first book also have. But Messiah still manages to develop interesting main characters with internal conflicts that are tied to the main themes of the novel even with this.

This is achieved with an excellent pacing in the first ¾ of the book, giving us time to observe and understand the different situations, while allowing the characters to reflect on their actions. But Dune Messiah betrays itself in the last stretch of the novel. The pacing in this portion of the book is accelerated, without allowing us to digest what is happening or giving time to scenes that should be far more important, both for the plot and for the characters. I think it could have benefited if this section had taken up more time, even if it caused it to extended the book.

In conclusion, Dune Messiah is a good sequel to Frank Herbert's first novel in this universe, although at times it feels more like a transition to the third book. With a very good development for its main characters such as Paul and others but that suffers in its secondary ones, without giving them time to shine. Messiah manages to immerse us in this interesting universe of political and religious conflicts.
As I said with the first one, I can't wait to read the next instalment (Children of Dune) in this great saga.