Kevin J. Anderson

Esta obra escrita por Brian Herbert y Kevin J. Anderson nos presenta el universo de Dune, 10.000 años antes de lo acontecido en las obras escritas por Frank Herbert y nos muestra un universo completamente distinto al que conocemos si somos lectores de su obra principal. Las máquinas pensantes se han apoderado de casi todo y la raza humana lucha por sobrevivir a la extinción.

Por ser el comienzo de un trilogía que en definitiva va a definir los inicios de los distintos actores presentes en la obra principal de su padre, la cantidad de detalles y personajes es bastante amplia. Puede ser algo complicado de leer ya que hay varias líneas argumentales pero la forma de separarlo por capítulos casi episódicos ayuda a que la lectura sea un poco más amigable. Lamentablemente a mi parecer aunque la disfrute creo que hay exceso de detalles o ideas que se van a ir desarrollando a lo largo de toda la trilogía, hay esbozos de todo, como queriendo tratar de mostrar en un solo libro todo lo que planean desarrollar más adelante, es un poco agotador por momentos.

Algunos personajes me parecieron bien desarrollados e interesantes, Serena Butler y Vorian Atreides por ejemplo, mientras que otros quedaron en la nebulosa, Xavier Harkonnen. El desarrollo del robot Erasmus, como uno de los antagonistas, me pareció de lo mejor, completamente odiable y despreciable.… (mais)

After reading Sandworms of Dune, I can finally set down the entire Dune Chronicles. I read The Legends of Dune trilogy, The Houses of Dune trilogy, Frank Herbert’s original 6 volumes in the Dune Chronicles and the concluding two volumes by his son and Kevin Anderson. This was a reading project that took me a couple of years to complete. I was unimpressed by Legends, found Houses to be entertaining, the original Dune is still a classic and the next four to be worth reading. FH’s last volume, Chapterhouse Dune was not as good though it ended on a very interesting note that I wish (as many others do) that he had been able to follow up on it. The last two volumes, Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune by BH and KJA were a slog to read - I found them frustrating.

So what annoyed me in Sandworms? The colonial attitude that the universe is for humans to do with as they wish without thought of other lifeforms. Resources are there to be used by humanity. I also found this attitude to be extended to women which was odd as women think of each other as resources to use both in breeding programs and as axlotl tanks.

Axlotl tanks! What an abhorrent idea. In the Houses trilogy and in the first couple of volumes of Frank’s original Dune books, the idea of using women simply as incubators was treated as something awful. By Sandworms, it had become normalized and offered sort of like a career choice to women. What a sad thing to suggest and it made no sense to continue with the technique. Using the axlotl tanks to resurrect characters long dead because they had special properties that might help humanity defeat the thinking machines sort of made sense when the thinking machines were a threat. But at the end of Sandworms, there has been a reconciliation between human and machine. What is the point if dehumanizing women to simply be incubators. Once the threat was removed this abhorrent technology should have been completed dismantled. It made no sense to me that it should continue.

And at the end of Sandworms the Bene Gesserit breeding program is apparently going to continue? Why? That also makes no sense! The BG breeding program had as its goal to produce the Kwisatz Haderach but by the end of Sandworms, the BG have committed to not producing another KH. So what is the point of continuing the breeding program? Why is it assumed in the book that this sort of positive eugenics is a good thing? Something that kept coming up in the books is how prescience and controlling the future becomes boring and static and that what makes life worth living is being surprised. A breeding program tries to avoid surprises - the point is to control what offspring are produced. This did not make sense to me that it should continue.

I did not like the appearance of an ultimate Kwisatz Haderach. What made the idea of a KH interesting was that the individual would be uniquely gifted and that they were the result of careful breeding. But now it seems in Sandworms that KHs are all over the place and can be engineered by ghola engineering. The KH is no longer unique and became, for me, a boring concept even though at the end of Heretics of Dune, Frank Herbert did something really interesting with Miles Teg. But the character - the idea - didn’t develop well for me in subsequent novels.

I also did not appreciate how the Dune Chronicles ends with the other memory of the BG referred to as racial memory. I thought other memory was supposed to be something developed in humanity and not localized to a particular race.

Finally, at the end of Sandworms, there is supposed to be a great rapprochement between thinking machines and humans. But the ultimate KH gives the homeworld of the thinking machines to humans to do with as they see fit. Humans yet again get to colonize a world that was not theirs to begin with. And then, “thinking machines” are simply used by humans as workers to rehabilitate/terraform/rehabilitate worlds inhabited by humans. But there is no sense that these machine “partners” with humanity are given any agency. If they are thinking machines don’t they have their own goals/dreams/aspirations?

Very disappointing end to something that had such auspicious beginnings in the original Dune.… (mais)