Summary

Book five in Frank Herbert's magnificent Dune Chronicles--one of the most significant sagas in the history of literary science fiction.

Review

Another great book for The Dune Series. I was hesitant to start it because it's completely new characters from the previous four books, but it was worth it. Not life changing, but great for reading at night and going to a different world for a bit.

Notes

Odrade had borne nineteen children for the Bene Gesserit, Taraza observed as the information scrolled past her eyes. Each child by a different father. Not much unusual about that, but even the most searching gaze could see that this essential service to the Sisterhood had not grossened Odrade’s flesh.

Later, when Odrade spoke of returning to the woman, that memory-vision was incorporated into an essential Bene Gesserit lesson. “Love leads to misery. Love is a very ancient force, which served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for the survival of the species. Remember that woman’s mistake, the pain.”

searched out their source. That, too, was incorporated into a lesson. “Daydreaming is the first awakening of what we call simulflow. It is an essential tool of rational thought. With it you can clear the mind for better thinking.” Simulflow.

“Spannungsbogen!” Waff rolled the ancient word on his tongue: The span of the bow! How far back you draw the bow before releasing your arrow. This arrow would strike deep!

“The act of saying that things exist that cannot be described in words shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief.”

“Humankind has become infinite,” she said. “That is the true gift of the Scattering.”

Waff’s informants from the Lost Ones said the Honored Matres made sexual decisions much in the manner of the Bene Gesserit.

He spoke past a dry tongue: “It is said that what you cannot control you must accept.”

Tags: stoicism

Sheeana would learn in time that any person who lived through the decision to die evolved a new emotional balance. Fears were transitory. This new condition was interesting.

Curiosity unsatisfied tended to create its own answers. Guesses were often more dangerous than facts.

failure. If we cannot adjust our differences peacefully we are less than human.

For the in-between universe where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a dominant force. Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily events. If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made to exist. Belief structure creates a filter through which chaos is sifted into order.

Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout?

Some people never observe anything. Life just happens to them. They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.”

“You think Muad’Dib’s life was a bore?” “And the Tyrant’s, too. We think their entire lives were devoted to trying to break out of chains they themselves created.”

The mind of the believer stagnates. It fails to grow outward into an unlimited, infinite universe.”

Logic could move just as blindly as any other faculty.

began with recognition that humans were not created equal, that they possessed different inherited abilities and experienced different events in their lives. This produced people of different accomplishments and different worth.

Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept. Who enjoys appearing inept?

He lifted both fists and crashed them against the raised figure, drawing blood from his hands. “Damn them to the deepest pits of hell!” he shouted. It was an oddly mature curse issuing from the youthful mouth.

“Let us discuss it in a congenial place,” Duncan said, “Perhaps I’ll sing you a song. Not as good as old Gurney Halleck would do it but good enough to prepare for a little bedsport.”

The magnet of the Tyrant’s endless dream drew it back to the place where the dream began.

“CONFESS THY HEART AND FIND PURITY”

Seeing the hesitation, Teg blared at him: “This is a battle order! I am your commander!” It was the closest thing to Voice Lucilla had ever heard from a man. She gaped at Teg.

Waff leaned forward, completely caught up in his familiar tongue and the flow of their conversation. “They rule with sex!” he exulted. “Remarkable techniques of orgasmic amplification!

As he had learned from his Bene Gesserit teachers, the great problem of the human universe lay in how you managed procreation.

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