House Corrino is the third book in the Prelude to Dune
trilogy written by Frank Herbert's son Brian, and Kevin J Anderson. The
first two books being House Atreides and House Harkonnen. House Corrino
takes up where the second finished, essentially completing the description
of Duke Leto Atreides' life, and describing the events that lead to the
transfer of control of the desert planet Arrakis from House Harkonnen to
House Atreides, as occurs at the beginning of Frank Herbert's book Dune.
On the royal planet Kaitain, the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV succumbs
to an unfortunate combination of paranoia and megalomania, with fatal
consequences for a newly discovered half brother, and a number of innocent
planets. His preoccupation with 'his' artificial substitute for spice
leads almost to the destruction of the Empire. On Dune, Liet Keynes and
the Fremen continue to strike against the Harkonnen overlords while
waiting of the appearance of the messiah that will free them. On Caledan,
the concubine Jessica has conceived the boy she will give to Leto to heal
his broken heart. She is unaware of her Bene Gesserit sisters plan to use
the daughter she was ordered to conceive to create the Kwisatz Haderach,
the messiah they have been attempting to breed for centuries. Also on
Caladan, a now semi-mechanical Prince Rhombur Vernius, with the help of
Duke Leto and his forces, is ready to liberate his unhappy home world of
Ix from the tyranny of the Tleilaxu Masters.
So, how was the book? The standard and quality of the writing was as
good as the first two, but it left me disappointed. I am afraid I felt
this to be the weakest in the series. There simply aren't enough story
lines left over from the first two volumes before the start of the novel
Dune proper. The emperor's attempt to develop an artificial spice using
the Tleilaxu is an important thread throughout all three books - at one
point, there were plans to call this book The Spice Wars. However, I
cannot help feeling that the whole thread of the Tleilaxu takeover of Ix,
and the subsequent attempts by Prince Rhombur to recapture it, are just so
much padding. This may go some way to explain the unconvincing description
of the re-invasion of Ix. It feels more like the capture of a small town
than a planet. Ironically, when I reviewed House Harkonnen, I said that
"pleasantly the book was not a filler". Unfortunately, House
Corrino is. Don't be completely put off though. There are some highlights
in the book. If you have read the first two, then I suspect most will want
to complete the exercise. Best to wait for the paperback.