Sandworms Of Dune [The Ultimate Fantasy]

No twists until the finale. The New Sisterhood, out to build an army against the Enemy, builds an army against the enemy. The Spacing Guild, set to get rid of its dependency on melange, gets rid of its dependency on melange. The Face Dancers, bent on infiltrating every institution, infiltrate every institution. The no ship, hiding and feeling until it is no longer possible, hides and flees until it is no longer possible. The Enemy machines, preparing to attack, prepare and attack.

(All right, some small episodes do attempt to mess things up. Something like throwing pebbles to derail a cargo train.)

Given all the preparation, the finale itself is rather abrupt. The weapons of the New Sisterhood, and the ships of the Spacing Guild, are all built by the traitorous Face Dancers and therefore fail as expected - two factions out. The Face Dancers themselves are all switched off when they become inconvenient (to the plot more than to the actors) - third faction out. Remaining are of course the no ship and the machines. The no ship is captured by the machines, who lead the important members of the crew into a hall where the final showdown takes place (somehow mostly ignoring the rest of the crew). And the final showdown - well, few of the irreconcilable enemies disappear and the rest decides they can live happily ever after even alongside each other.

Somewhat surprisingly, Sandworms Of Dune is an improvement over its predecessor, Hunters Of Dune. While there are still things to complain about, the plot does move forward at a decent pace. The monotonous and explanatory feel of the previous volume is pretty much gone, and the characters finally do what they were about to do for some time already.

Some things still do not make sense, both on the grand and the small scale. The New Sisterhood, a mixture of most scheming and most aggressive women in history, devises a test to detect previously unknown Face Dancers, but patently fails to apply it properly. Scytale, an immortal grand master of a race whose essential belief includes considering women less than property, ends up happily accepting an invitation to live with Bene Gesserit. Or try another one - in a war where the only thing known about the unknown Enemy is that it uses bacteriological weapons delivered by scout probes to wipe entire planets, nobody seems to be working on preventive quarantine or evacuation measures, antidotes or cures - instead, all effort is spent on developing weapons to obliterate planets ?

The way casualties are described in the book is also strange - when somebody dies, the text does not invoke much of an emotional reaction. It could be the lack of meaningful character interaction that permeates the book - the characters do not have personal lives, they only have job descriptions, and thus there is little reason to feel anything for anyone. Then again, it could be just me, not really wanting to put my hopes on the line for a book whose prequels have already trashed them so many times.