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A review by nightshade_novels
House Harkonnen by Kevin J. Anderson, Brian Herbert
3.0
This book was filled with action that keeps the plot moving forward. Rarely is there a dull moment. And yet I still found myself less eager to pick it up the further through the book I got. Gone is any illusion of morally grey characters. In this prequel the bad characters are very bad. There's a particular character who commits horrific acts just because he can on whatever whim he's following and this just started to grate on me. There comes a point where the shock value wears off because you come to expect it from them and it leans more towards the 'there he goes again' feeling.
There continues to be some really good world building in this book. I enjoyed seeing more of the process that creates the guild navigators. You can start to see how it is all coming together and getting the characters in place ready to reach the point where the main Dune series starts. The exploration of the Bene Gesserit breeding programme was well done and very interesting. It feels like it links well with Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse with the more in depth look at the Bene Gesserit.
There were a couple of places where the writing quality slips. There is a character or two that they needed to get rid of before the events of Dune, but it felt like they didn't really know how to do that well, so just got rid of them.
I really enjoyed the parts following Duncan's training to be a swordmaster. They were some of my favourite parts of the book. It is great to see his character develop into the man that is so important later on.
Leto's story was also really interesting; they masterfully wove in a way to get Jessica there and get her to give Leto a son, which shows Paul's origins. I really like Leto's character, so this part of the book had some of the most emotionally striking scenes. Gurney's story was the most surprising as it was absolutely brutal. It was quite well done, but I just don't like his character much.
Overall this was an enjoyable read that makes me want to pick up the next book, but I do hope that the story picks back up again.
There continues to be some really good world building in this book. I enjoyed seeing more of the process that creates the guild navigators. You can start to see how it is all coming together and getting the characters in place ready to reach the point where the main Dune series starts. The exploration of the Bene Gesserit breeding programme was well done and very interesting. It feels like it links well with Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse with the more in depth look at the Bene Gesserit.
There were a couple of places where the writing quality slips. There is a character or two that they needed to get rid of before the events of Dune, but it felt like they didn't really know how to do that well, so just got rid of them.
I really enjoyed the parts following Duncan's training to be a swordmaster. They were some of my favourite parts of the book. It is great to see his character develop into the man that is so important later on.
Leto's story was also really interesting; they masterfully wove in a way to get Jessica there and get her to give Leto a son, which shows Paul's origins. I really like Leto's character, so this part of the book had some of the most emotionally striking scenes. Gurney's story was the most surprising as it was absolutely brutal. It was quite well done, but I just don't like his character much.
Overall this was an enjoyable read that makes me want to pick up the next book, but I do hope that the story picks back up again.