Too much melange by the author?

I listened to the first book and loved it. Although I found the first book hard going at the beginning you drop into the new words, and now 50 years on a lot of the Arabic words the author drops in a more familiar to westerns - Haj, Jihad.

I can't help thinking though that this book is slightly addled and more of it's time - 1969! Book one seemed timeless and I was amazed that after 50 years it still felt fresh and relevant, but this one felt like something from the height of flower power and hippy trippy acid frenzies. The author seems to jump from event to event, with little to interlink the story and long, rambling, impenetrable, and frankly nonsensical passages that drift off to nowhere describing the nature of Paul’s visions of the future with a torrent of words that seem thrown together and make little sense. Maybe the author is genius and the nonsense of his passages were meant to reflect the confusion of Paul trying to read the right path in the future … but frankly I got bored of listening to long passages of babble and garbage thrown together with little attempt at a coherent story thread.

Here’s just one extract (and I could find many) that will give you an idea of how mind bendingly nonsensical it is

“He became a motionless chain of relative existence, singular, alone. Old memories flooded his mind, he marked them, adjusted them to new understandings, made a beginning at the integration of a new awareness, an new persona achieved a temporary form of internal tyranny, the masculating synthesis remained charged with potential disorder, but events pressed him to the temporary adjustment, the young master needed him.”

I won’t be listening to the rest of the saga, this just disappeared up it’s own behind. I found myself listening to it more, just so I could get it over with faster. Thankfully it was under 10 hours so less than a week of my driving schedule, if it had been longer I'd have just ditched it.

32 people found this helpful

Great Book, Great readers

Great reading. clear and easy to understand. while the reading does change a few times to different narrators i found this a good thing. A superb book explaining what happened 12 years after Paul Atreides took over Dune. As gripping as it is intricute. This is a must read for those who want to know what happened to Paul, channi and the others in the royal court

12 people found this helpful

A narrative bridge, not well executed

What did you like most about Dune Messiah?

The source material isn't as good as the first book but still a very worthy read. Sadly the decision to share the narrative between the voice actors makes the experience confusing and distracts. The original has a set actor for character and one narrator, which is much more immersive.

5 people found this helpful

What Matrix Revolution/Reloaded is to the Original

We all loved The Matrix the same way we all loved Dune.

The exact same thing happened in Messiah as it did in Matrix Revolutions and Reloaded. It got waaaayyy too preachy, mystical and messiahry with no real thread to keep it held together.

It seemed in Messiah, Paul had just become a pain in the arse teenage with too many powers where no conversation was straight forward, it always had to mention "the infinite opportunities or prescient vision" in some manner, by the end of the book it got tiring.

Duncan - "Paul, would you like porridge for your breakfast?"
Paul - "I must meditate on this Duncan. The endless outcomes from the smallest minutia of mundane choices will echo an eternity like the muddied sands flowing through the giant mouth of mystical beasts, the Worms"
Paul sat quietly focusing all his attention on whether to have porridge for breakfast as Bene Gesserit mother had taught him.

This is essentially how the book went.

17 people found this helpful

Not as good as the original book

I had heard that this book was a bit of a week link in the Dune series so I was a bit apprehensive in ordering it. However, after listening to the original Dune audio book I knew I had to find out what happened to Paul and the others.

It was always going to be a hard act to follow but the production of this audio book is not as accomplished as that of Dune. I think this is mainly because many of the more distinctive characters from the first book do not appear in the sequel. The plot starts very very slowly and the clue is in the title - it is very Messianic and almost spirtual in the descriptions of the 'oracular vision'.

That said, there are some superb original concepts in the sequel, including the ghola 'Hate' and the descriptions of the Tleilaxu culture. The book also ends very well.

I'll certainly be downloading the next one.

10 people found this helpful

Patchy narration and not well acted.

A difficult story to follow at the best of times, the narration company tries to Jazz things up a bit by moving the narrative between many different people. They ultimately fail to make it either more interesting, or easier to follow.

2 people found this helpful

Good sequel but narration is lacking

After really enjoying Dune, and the narration style of the Audible version despite its mixed reviews, I was not a fan of how Dune Messiah devoted entire sections of the book to different voice actors. Simon Vance is amazing, everyone else is lacking. The context, and pronunciation, shift and differences were too jarring and at times really took away from what is a good sequel. While I would recommend the story I can see why some people say to stop after the first book. If you loved the first book then don't let this put you off, but be warned that the narration leaves a lot to be desired.

1 person found this helpful

Dune fans only.

It's good. But a bit dry and with less colourful description as the original and best. I'm a dune fan so I enjoyed it.

1 person found this helpful

Not as good as the original.

While Dune remains one of my all-time favourite books, Dune Messiah is anything but. I had to force myself to listen on and it took 3 attempts for me to finish the book. For the majority of the book, it seemed like it was mostly just people sitting in a room discussing things with the odd bit of story outside of this. It did pick up eventually in the last 1/4 of the book which I actually did enjoy but not enough to save it for me.

Satisfying sequel

It is a satisfying sequel, although not as wonderful as the first novel. The book devekops the Dune mythology to a superior level of complexity but fails to deliver an innovative story. However, id you loved the first one, you'll enjoy this one.