Who Are The Two People In The Garden In Chapterhouse Dune

Chapterhouse Dune

Description

The desert planet Arrakis, called Dune, has been destroyed. Now, the Bene Gesserit, heirs to Dune's power, have colonized a green world-and are tuning it into a desert, mile by scorched mile.

Chapterhouse Dune is the last book Frank Herbert wrote before his death: A stunning climax to the epic Dune legend that will live on forever.

A Macmillan Audio production.

Science Fiction
Fantasy
All categories

About the author

Frank Herbert (1920-1986) created the most beloved novel in the annals of science fiction, Dune. He was a man of many facets, of countless passageways that ran through an intricate mind. His magnum opus is a reflection of this, a classic work that stands as one of the most complex, multi-layered novels ever written in any genre. Today the novel is more popular than ever, with new readers continually discovering it and telling their friends to pick up a copy. It has been translated into dozens of languages and has sold almost 20 million copies. As a child growing up in Washington State, Frank Herbert was curious about everything. He carried around a Boy Scout pack with books in it, and he was always reading. He loved Rover Boys adventures, as well as the stories of H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and the science fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs. On his eighth birthday, Frank stood on top of the breakfast table at his family home and announced, "I wanna be a author." His maternal grandfather, John McCarthy, said of the boy, "It's frightening. A kid that small shouldn't be so smart." Young Frank was not unlike Alia in Dune, a person having adult comprehension in a child's body. In grade school he was the acknowledged authority on everything. If his classmates wanted to know the answer to something, such as about sexual functions or how to make a carbide cannon, they would invariably say, "Let's ask Herbert. He'll know." His curiosity and independent spirit got him into trouble more than once when he was growing up, and caused him difficulties as an adult as well. He did not graduate from college because he refused to take the required courses for a major; he only wanted to study what interested him. For years he had a hard time making a living, bouncing from job to job and from town to town. He was so independent that he refused to write for a particular market; he wrote what he felt like writing. It took him six years of research and writing to complete Dune, and after all that struggle and sacrifice, 23 publishers rejected it in book form before it was finally accepted. He received an advance of only $7,500. His loving wife of 37 years, Beverly, was the breadwinner much of the time, as an underpaid advertising writer for department stores. Having been divorced from his first wife, Flora Parkinson, Frank Herbert met Beverly Stuart at a University of Washington creative writing class in 1946. At the time, they were the only students in the class who had sold their work for publication. Frank had sold two pulp adventure stories to magazines, one to Esquire and the other to Doc Savage. Beverly had sold a story to Modern Romance magazine. These genres reflected the interests of the two young lovers; he the adventurer, the strong, machismo man, and she the romantic, exceedingly feminine and soft-spoken. Their marriage would produce two sons, Brian, born in 1947, and Bruce, born in 1951. Frank also had a daughter, Penny, born in 1942 from his first marriage. For more than two decades Frank and Beverly would struggle to make ends meet, and there were many hard times. In order to pay the bills and to allow her husband the freedom he needed in order to create, Beverly gave up her own creative writing career in order to support his. They were in fact a writing team, as he discussed every aspect of his stories with her, and she edited his work. Theirs was a remarkable, though tragic, love story-which Brian would poignantly describe one day in Dreamer of Dune (Tor Books; April 2003). After Beverly passed away, Frank married Theresa Shackelford. In all, Frank Herbert wrote nearly 30 popular books and collections of short stories, including six novels set in the Dune universe: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. All were international bestsellers, as were a number of his other science fiction novels, which include The White Plague and The Dosadi Experiment. His major novels included The Dragon in the Sea, Soul Catcher (his only non-science fiction novel), Destination: Void, The Santaroga Barrier, The Green Brain, Hellstorm's Hive, Whipping Star, The Eyes of Heisenberg, The Godmakers, Direct Descent, and The Heaven Makers. He also collaborated with Bill Ransom to write The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor. Frank Herbert's last published novel, Man of Two Worlds, was a collaboration with his son, Brian.

Reviews

What people think about Chapterhouse Dune

3.5

Reader reviews

Chapterhouse: Dune picks up shortly after where Heretics left off. Rakis was destroyed by the Honored Matres, and Miles Teg sacrificed himself so Odrade, Duncan Idaho and Sheeana could escape with a sand worm. They all go to the Bene Gesserit world Chapterhouse, where they hope to get the worm to continue its life cycle and begin producing the spice. The Honored Matres continue hunting down the Bene Gesserit, and the Chapterhouse planet slowly transforms into desert.Chapterhouse: Dune is fairly inconsistent. The first third of the book is fine, but the second third is a bit of a slog to read through. Nothing really happens aside from dry dialogue and Duncan not liking being confined to a no-ship. The book picks up again towards the end with the final confrontation between the two Sisterhoods. We still get Frank Herbert's world building, but characterization is lacking. The book ends on a cliffhanger, but unfortunately Herbert passed away before he could finish the conclusion.
I loved Dune, but each additional novel in the series seems to fall shorter than the last.
Chapterhouse: Dune picks up shortly after where Heretics left off. Rakis was destroyed by the Honored Matres, and Miles Teg sacrificed himself so Odrade, Duncan Idaho and Sheeana could escape with a sand worm. They all go to the Bene Gesserit world Chapterhouse, where they hope to get the worm to continue its life cycle and begin producing the spice. The Honored Matres continue hunting down the Bene Gesserit, and the Chapterhouse planet slowly transforms into desert.Chapterhouse: Dune is fairly inconsistent. The first third of the book is fine, but the second third is a bit of a slog to read through. Nothing really happens aside from dry dialogue and Duncan not liking being confined to a no-ship. The book picks up again towards the end with the final confrontation between the two Sisterhoods. We still get Frank Herbert's world building, but characterization is lacking. The book ends on a cliffhanger, but unfortunately Herbert passed away before he could finish the conclusion.
This is a book best read immediately after Herbert's preceding volume, Heretics of Dune. This I did not do, which may have been the reason why I did not like it as much as his previous books in the series. Then again, it may have also been the repetitiveness of the book, as it seemed by the point that he had run out of interesting ideas and was just recycling the material from his earlier books. This is why reading it for me was like "Blah blah Bene Gesserit, blah blah gholas, blah blah sandworms, blah blah Duncan Idaho." Perhaps at a later point I will return to it and have a more favorable opinion, but at this point I would only recommend reading it to those who want to wrap up the original series.
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Frank Herbert's Chapterhouse: Dune begins shortly after the events of Heretics of Dune, with the Bene Gerrerit hiding away from the Honored Matres, who seek their destruction. The Duncan Idaho ghola from the previous novel works to train a ghola of Miles Teg, the Bashar who died when the Honored Matres burned Dune in the previous novel. Under the leadership of Mother Superior Darwi Odrade, the Bene Gesserit plan for war while also scattering as many sisters carrying shared memory as possible in order to preserve their order. The Bene Gesserit also keep Murbella, an Honored Matre, as a captive, working to de-program her as they learn more about their enemy from her. Dar also oversees the transformation of Chapterhouse using sandtrout from Arrakis in order to create a new Dune.Herbert's ecological focus continues to permeate his science fiction, such as in an interaction in which Dar questions the ghola of Miles Teg about whether people own a planet or whether it owns them (pg. 23). Through the Bene Gesserit and their genetic memory, he also examines the nature of history. For example, continuing the practice of beginning chapters with quotes, Herbert uses a quote he attributes to the Bashar Teg: "The writing of history is largely a process of diversion. Most historical accounts distract attention from the secret influences behind great events" (pg. 80). Further, Herbert cautions about the rise of autocracy, "It was a pattern the Sisterhood had long recognized: the inevitable failure of slavery and peonage. You created a reservoir of hate. Implacable enemies. If you had no hope of exterminating all of these enemies, you dared not try. Temper your efforts by the sure awareness that oppression will make your enemies strong. The oppressed will have their day and heaven help the oppressor when that day comes. It was a two-edged blade. The oppressed always turned, the stage was set for another round of revenge and violence – roles reversed. And reversed and reversed ad nauseam" (pg. 160). And, finally, Odrade says, "Many histories are largely worthless because prejudiced, written to please one powerful group or another" (pg. 232).As he nears Chapterhouse: Dune's conclusion, Herbert begins introducing radical changes. The Bene Gesserit successfully transform Chapterhouse into a new Dune, brining back the worms (pg. 290). Their desperation in the face of dwindling numbers from the war with the Honored Matres has, however, lead them to "cyborg" those near death, slowly breaking the proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad (pgs. 295-296). The Honored Matres employ sophisticated machinery of their own that almost certainly involves thinking machines (395-396). And, through Murbella's undergoing of the spice agony and killing of the Great Honored Matre, the Bene Gesserit blend their leadership with the Honored Matres. Sheeana, Duncan, and a handful of others do not accept this, though, and depart Chapterhouse. Sheeana's control of the worms promises to open a new threat to Bene Gesserit order, much like Muad'Dib and Leto II did thousands of years prior.Herbert intended to write a seventh Dune novel to wrap up these plotlines, but he passed away soon after publishing this book. Twenty years later, Brian Herbert worked with Kevin J. Anderson to adapt his notes for Dune 7 as Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune, but this was Frank Herbert's final entry in the Dune saga. He concludes the book with thoughts he wrote shortly after his wife's passing, remarking on life and his appreciation for the happy memories. Even though Frank Herbert never finished the saga, his reflections offer a way to appreciate the six Dune novels he shared with the world rather than miss the one he never completed.

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1 person found this helpful

I've always found Dune enjoyable though the philosophy of life grabs me only weakly. Glad to have finally finished of the original quintet.

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