3.5
My biggest issue with this book is the time jump. I wanted to see the first couple years of Paul’s experience as emperor so we could follow him as he makes tough decisions and terraforms Arrakis. But this starts over a decade after the first book, so I feel like I missed out on a lot of interesting developments.

There’s a difference between Paul at the end of Dune trying to mitigate the harm he does in the future and Paul years and years later comparing himself to Hitler. There are many steps in between that we skipped. It would’ve been more impactful if we saw him start these wars rather than just mention the billions of people he apparently already had killed.

Sadly, I don’t know how he terraformed the planet, and I really wanted to figure out how they’d do that. But they don’t go into any detail, so I didn’t get to see them change the culture on Arrakis in real time. And I thought it was a big deal in the first book that they couldn’t leave the planet without going through spice withdrawal and dying, so to hear that Jessica just lives on Caladan again was a bit underwhelming. I would’ve liked to see her go back and figure out the logistics. I kinda missed having her around. There’s a couple instances where they recap what we didn’t see in between books, but it would’ve been better if those things were actually in the story.

The political commentary and religious discussion was interesting. It felt very similar to what was said in the first book. Nothing drastically changed my mind about the plot or characters, but I liked hearing people disagree with Paul and try to take him down. I think there’s a bunch of cool ideas in the series.

Not everything is answered because I think the next book will fill in the blanks for what happened/happens next, so it’s fine. This book is much shorter than the first one, and I wouldn’t expect it to go further than it did.

Romance, as usual, isn’t this series’ strong suit. Paul and Chani’s relationship was fine in the first book, but it kind of happened quickly when they both got visions of their future together. The thing with Alia in this one isn’t my favorite, but it could’ve been worse. It technically got more development than Paul and Chani, but I don’t like it more.

Alia used to be my favorite, but now that she isn’t a toddler, I’m not as interested in what the story is doing with her. A teenager with an adult brain is less scary to me than a baby with an adult brain, but both had the potential for some weird uncomfortable tropes. Again, it wasn’t my favorite, but it could’ve been worse. I think the exploration of her awareness was more fleshed out in the previous book, and that’s why I was more engaged with it.

Speaking of Alia, they genuinely scared me with that incest thing. There’s a part where she’s naked in front of Paul, and I was worried it would lead us in a terrible direction. I thought it might happen, and it didn’t, don’t worry. Other characters do mention it, though, and it’s crazy. I never would’ve thought “brother/sister crossbreeding must be explored” would be a phrase found in this book!

The fact that I believed this series would go there wasn’t a great sign and made me think I won’t like the rest of the series as much as I did the first one. We will see. This one definitely introduced new things about presciense I want to hear more about. There’s potential for a lot of exciting things to happen and keep my attention.

Dune Messiah - Likewise Book Reviews

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