Sandworms of Dune
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Saturday, June 30, 2007

First Review of Sandworms 

I'm holed up in a cabin in Rocky Mountain National Park again. Today I hiked 13 miles and dictated four new chapters in PAUL OF DUNE; the scenery and the perfect weather was quite inspirational. Overall, in the four days I've been here, I've hiked a lot, edited about 200 pages in THE ASHES OF WORLDS, and written several other PAUL chapters. Tomorrow, I go home, though, so back to normal. Rebecca and her family have been throwing a large garage sale yesterday and today (so I picked a good time to avoid home.)

Though I don't have cell reception here (a blessing in disguise!), the cabin is equipped with wireless internet access. As a pleasant surprise, Tor Books just emailed this from LIBRARY JOURNAL, our first professional review of the book:

"Twenty years after their escape from the beleaguered Bene Gesserit world of Chapterhouse, as told in the late Frank Herbert's final Dune tale (Chapterhouse: Dune), the Bene Gesserit sisterhood embarks on a bold scheme to create ghola-clones that eventually awaken to the full memories of their original-of some of history's key personalities, in the hope that they can find a way to win an otherwise unwinnable war. Avoiding attempts by the machine world to locate their ship, Ithaca, proves challenging, but even more threatening is the discovery of at least one saboteur aboard the Ithaca. The future of humanity hangs on the abilities of newly created versions of Paul Muad'Dib; his mother, Lady Jessica Atreides; and the young ghola of Dune's notorious God Emperor, Leto II. Complex in structure though never hard to follow, this sequel to Hunters of Dune ties together the threads left by Chapterhouse: Dune, bringing closure to a saga of planetary birth and death and human courage and hubris. At the same time, the authors have left room for further explorations of one of the genre's most enduring worlds. Highly recommended for all sf collections."

-- KJA