Messiah of Dune

By Frank Herbert

After reading the first book, Auva and I knew we'd have to read the next eventually. And boy I'm glad we did. Similarly to the first book, we listened to the audiobook while on a roadtrip, but this time we had the physical copy as well, and the non-driver out of the two of us typically followed along in the paperback. 

Everything that makes Dune amazing is continued in Messiah of Dune. Seriously - the massive world-building gets bigger, the historical and mythological lore expand, the political drama leads to more complicated webs of lies and deceit for the sake of power. It's awesome. If you just looked at the content of the book, it's already worthy of praise. Factoring in the dialogue and the writing makes it even better. As in the first book, entire chapters are dedicated to conversations between just a few characters, and we get to hear it ALL. Unlike the beginning of Dune, we know a little bit about what is going on so reading through these chapters isn't as difficult as it was in the first book, in my opinion.

The plot is also fun, engaging, keeps you guessing, moves the Dune universe forward; you name it. There were multiple times in this book where Auva and I looked at each other, faces saying "WHAT" but no words spoken. Ok, maybe that was dramatic but the story is definitely cool. Once again, I highly recommend reading this series. (10/06/2021)