From Publishers Weekly
Dune addicts will happily devour Herbert and Anderson's spicy conclusion (after 2003's Dune: The Machine Crusade) to their second prequel trilogy, Legends of Dune. A fearsome robot-engineered plague opens the tumultuous Battle of Corrin, climaxing the century-long galactic war between humans and the computer Omnius's robotic Synchronized Empire. Varian Atreides, supreme commander of the human Army of the Jihad, initiates the no-holds-barred feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen by exiling Abulurd Harkonnen for cowardice, while Varian's granddaughter Raquella molds the Sorceress survivors into a biochemically based sisterhood and Ishmael leads his people into Arrakis's sandwormy desert to become Fremen of Dune. All the Dune themes-religion and politics, fanaticism, ecology, opportunism, totalitarianism, the power of myth-exhaustively prepare the way for Frank Herbert's sweeping classic of corruptibility and survival. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From AudioFile
Scott Brick brings to life this last of the prequels to Frank Herbert's Dune series. The complications between the thinking machines and the synchronized worlds and unallied planets are coming to a head, building to a great battle. Brick re-creates many of the characters who are familiar from prior books and creates personifications of new additions with dimension and personality. He is an enthusiastic and strong narrator who makes this long and complex book accessible. Brick is particularly adept at drawing out the personality of his characters, especially Omnius and eerily human-like robots. J.E.M. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
What appears to be the end of the Herbert-Anderson Dune prequels opens 56 years after the death of Serena Butler. The Jihad offers hopes of victory over the sentient machines and peace on human terms to a war-scarred galaxy. Unfortunately, the machine leader Omnius conceives a final, desperate, and, coming from a machine intelligence, ironic plan: biological warfare that spreads devastating plagues across scores of human-settled worlds. Herbert and Anderson vividly depict the plagues' effects, although given such a large cast of characters, some readers may feel the emotional impacts of particular characters' fates are rather blunted. The action rises to a thunderous climax in the account of the Battle of Corrin, which occupies a good third of a long book but more than makes up for previous deficiencies in pacing. At the end, we understand why House Corrino sits on the imperial throne, why House Harkonnen is out of favor, why House Atreides is where it is, and why Ishmael has led the ancestors of the Fremen into the desert wastes of the planet known as Arrakis. Thence on, or back, to Frank Herbert's perdurable classic. As before, a job well done. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Following their internationally bestselling novels Dune: The Butlerian Jihad and Dune: The Machine Crusade, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson forge a final tumultuous finish to their prequels to Frank Herbert's Dune.
Dune: The Battle of Corrin
It has been fifty-six hard years since the events of The Machine Crusade. Following the death of Serena Butler, the bloodiest decades of the Jihad take place. Synchronized Worlds and Unallied Planets are liberated one by one, and at long last, after years of struggle, the human worlds begin to hope that the end of the centuries-long conflict with the thinking machines is finally in sight.
Unfortunately, Omnius has one last, deadly card to play. In a last-ditch effort to destroy humankind, virulent plagues are let loose throughout the galaxy, decimating the populations of whole planets . . . and once again, the tide of the titanic struggle shifts against the warriors of the human race. At last, the war that has lasted many lifetimes will be decided in the apocalyptic Battle of Corrin.
In the greatest battle in science fiction history, human and machine face off one last time. . . . And on the desert planet of Arrakis, the legendary Fremen of Dune become the feared fighting force to be discovered by Paul Muad'Dib in Frank Herbert's classic, Dune.
About the Author
Brian Herbert, the son of Frank Herbert, is the author of numerous acclaimed science fiction novels, including Sidney's Comet, Sudanna, Sudanna, Prisoners of Arion, The Race for God, and Man of Two Worlds (with Frank Herbert). He has also written Dreamer of Dune, a comprehensive biography of his illustrious father.
Kevin J. Anderson has written twenty-nine national bestsellers and has been nominated for the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFX Reader's Choice Award. His critically acclaimed original novels include Captain Nemo, Hopscotch, and Hidden Empire. He also set the Guinness world record for "largest single-author book signing."
Dune: The Battle of Corrin (Legends of Dune Series) FROM OUR EDITORS
The Barnes & Noble Review
From Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson comes the spectacular conclusion to their Legends of Dune trilogy (The Butlerian Jihad and The Machine Crusade), an epic saga that takes place 10,000 years before the events in Frank Herbert's classic Dune.
As the brutal galactic war between humans and the thinking machines (led by the evermind Omnius Prime) drags on, the robotic forces of the Synchronized worlds try a new technique to wipe out their carbon-based enemies. A highly contagious plague is bio-engineered and covertly sent to several League planets, where it is released into the atmosphere. Within months, billions of humans are dead or dying. As medical experts rush to find a cure for the mysterious scourge, Omnius gathers together all of its robotic fleet -- hundreds of thousands of warships -- and, in a risky endgame move, launches them all at the League's capital planet.
But because of new space-folding technology that allows ships to travel from one point to another almost instantaneously, Omnius's plans are fatefully uncovered, and the humans launch their own desperate offensive. Led by Varian Atreides, the League forces arm their space-folding ships with atomics in hopes of nuking the more than 500 now unprotected Synchronized worlds. The last planet on the list is Corrin, the stronghold of Omnius Prime and its minions of demon machines...
The Legends of Dune trilogy (especially The Battle of Corrin and its colossal battle sequence, arguably the greatest in the history of the science fiction genre) will absolutely blow readers away. These novels -- which masterfully explain the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, the Order of Mentats, the Spacing Guild, and the irreparable rift between the House Atreides and House Harkonnen -- are a must-read for any Dune fan. Like Frank Herbert's original Dune novels, these three prequels are destined to become classics.
Paul Goat Allen
FROM THE PUBLISHER
"It has been fifty-six hard years since the events of The Machine Crusade. Following the death of Serena Butler, the bloodiest decades of the Jihad take place. Synchronized Worlds and Unallied Planets are liberated one by one, and at long last, after years of struggle, the human worlds begin to hope that the end of the centuries-long conflict with the thinking machines is finally in sight." Unfortunately, Omnius has one last, deadly card to play. In a last-ditch effort to destroy humankind, virulent plagues are let loose throughout the galaxy, decimating the populations of whole planets...and once again, the tide of the titanic struggle shifts against the warriors of the human race. At last, the war that has lasted many lifetimes will be decided in the apocalyptic Battle of Corrin.
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