Ahira's Hangar

This is the fifth book of the classic Dune series, following God Emperor and before Chapterhouse.

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Over a thousand years after the death of God Emperor Leto II, humans have mastered the psi powers he bequeathed them and have spread throughout the known universe in the Scattering. Now realizing how stagnant Leto's prescient world truly is, they are returning to their homeworlds to reclaim the primacy they lost - and among the returnees are the Honoured Matres, a dark offshoot of the religious sisterhood known as the Bene Gesserit.

On the former Harkonnen world of Giedi Prime, the Bene Gesserit have angered the gene-manipulating Bene Tleilax, ancient rivals for control of the spice melange, by holding a ghola - a being cloned from the cells of a corpse - of Duncan Idaho in protective custody, to be used as a bargaining chip against further encroachment by the Honoured Matres. With Duncan's memories and genetically enhanced traits, the ghola could destroy all the Tleilaxu hold dear.

Also according to Leto's plan for humanity, the planet Arrakis is becoming a desert once more, dominated by the sandworms of old. An Atreides descendant named Sheeana has revived the ancient ritual of riding the beasts, but when she is punished for her upstart ways by being left for the worms to find, they leave her unharmed. This is seen by a major religious omen by the Bene Gesserit acolyte Odrande, who then takes it upon herself to further train the girl so that she might one day don the mantle of her ancestor.

But despite every effort to protect Duncan and Sheeana, attacks by both the Tleilaxu and the Honoured Matres mount. Only by abandoning their rigidly held belief in psionic reasoning for such heretical notions as loyalty and love can the Bene Gesserit survive the onslaught - and with them, their beloved homeworld.




I think this is where my mind started being blown away by the Bene Gesserit. This organization has lasted for thousands of years at this point, and still plays for power. I know it is clear as early as Dune that these women think in terms of generations rather than years, but still...
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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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I remember reading this when it was first published, but remember little other than Sheeana and the sand worms.

So I started my reread today. The first few chapters are very heavily into Bene Gesserit politics, so maybe that is why I do not remember things very clearly. It is sort of hard reading it now - it would have been a lot harder for me to read it some twenty years ago when I was just a kid.

I've struggled with this one too in the past...but here is where the BG really start to come into their own as inheritors of the Worm's empire. Which is what they were waiting to do really.

--A

Oh yeah - the BG are master manipulators.

But again, the parts of the book that really come alive for me so far are the ones with Sheeana. She is a breath of fresh air against all of the politics, etc.

I find it really interesting, though, that humans have at last found alternatives to the Guild (the Ix ships) and to naturally produced Spice. They seem to have finally gotten away from the Butlerian Jihad teachings against technology - after thousands and thousands of years.

I take back what I said this morning. I am also starting to really get into the character of Miles Teg.

I love the way he knew exactly what Lucilla had in mind when she started to think about seducing him, and the way he sent her on her business. The sad thing is, I think that might have been the first time we had seen a RM since Jessica want to mate with a man simply because she fancied him and wanted his baby rather than because she was ordered to breed with him.

Actually, for me, as I recall, Sheeana began to pall quite quickly. I think that of the latter parts of the series, Teg is definitely one of my favourite characters.

--A

I like the Sheena chapters simply because a lot of them are set outside in the open. You are out in the desert. No skulking and hiding and neverending talking in an enclosed space.