Where can you go to get the best science fiction and fantasy in any given year? Anywhere that sells the annual Nebula and Hugo anthologies, naturally! This year, the collected nominated Nebula short stories and novelettes are gathered together in a tome called Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, edited by the esteemed and highly talented author Kevin J. Anderson. Included is the winning novella, the incredible The Women of Nell Gwynne’s by Kage Baker; the three poems nominated for the Rhysling Awards; a story by the SFWA Author Emeritus, Neal Barrett Jr., “Getting Dark”; and a story introduced by the SFWA Grand Master, Damon Knight, by Joe Haldeman, the newest Grand Master, “A Tangled Web.”

Winners of the other awards given out are also included, like the Nebula Award for the Best Novel, The Windup Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi; the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy winner, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente; the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, District 9 won by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell; the Solstice Award, won by Tom Doherty, Terri Windling, and Donald A. Wollheim; and the SFWA Service Award, won by Vonda N. McIntyre and Keith Stokes. Though the writers who won the awards were nominated in 2009, the awards were presented in 2010, and I’m guessing that the awards aren’t published until the following year.

I won’t go into a discussion about every story and poem in the collection, but just touch on a few of the ones I consider to be highlights. They’re all great, or they wouldn’t have been nominated, but space and time considerations alone are reasons I’m not going to critique them in much detail. If you have any faves you feel should have won, or I didn’t talk about much, please leave your thoughts in the Comments area below.

First in the anthology is the Short Story category. “Spar” by Kij Johnson won the award. It’s about an alien who has cilia, and as far as I can tell, looks like a giant amoeba. It crashes its spaceship into another one, splitting it in two and killing the only man (Gary) aboard. The other occupant, a woman, is trapped with the alien in its “space lifeboat,” and she is repeatedly sexually violated by the alien (and vice-versa). I don’t mind there being sex in science fiction stories; sex is, after all, a fact of life. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and The Windup Girl, by Paulo Bacigalupi are three (of many) great SF novels that have sexually explicit content in them.

“Spar” is one that I personally didn’t care for as much as the other short stories that were nominated. That’s not because the story necessarily sucks, or didn’t deserve to be nominated; it’s just in my opinion, generally speaking, a plot involving sex is better suited for a longer format, like a novella or a novel. I know that the main point about “Spar” has really as much to do about “a failure to communicate” (as a prison warden in the movie Cool Hand Luke put it) than anything else, that the woman doesn’t understand the alien nor if it even can communicate with her if it wanted to; but still, to me, this point tends to get lost in the horrendous situation the woman faces of being repeatedly assaulted. Here’s a brief excerpt:

She cannot communicate; but she tries to make sense of its actions,
What is she to it? Is she a sex toy, a houseplant? A shipwrecked Norwegian sharing a spar with a monolingual Portuguese? A companion? A habit, like nailbiting or compulsive masturbation? Perhaps the sex is communication, and she just doesn’t understand the language yet.
Or perhaps there is no It. It is not that they cannot communicate, that she is incapable; it is that the alien has no consciousness to communicate with. It is a sex toy, a houseplant, a habit.

Any of the other nominated short stories, it could be argued, are at least equally deserving of the award, because they’re all very good. I especially liked “Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela” by Saladin Ahmed, “I Remember the Future” by Michael A. Burstein, and “Non-Zero Probabilities” by N.K. Jemisin; ”Going Deep” by James Patrick Kelly and “Bridesicle” by Will McIntosh also are great stories.

“Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela,” I thought was cool because it takes the traditional elements of a classic fairy tale and reinvents it in a very imaginative way. By that, I’m referring to tales where someone like a beggar whom you wouldn’t suspect of really being a fairy or magically endowed being asks for help, it’s given, and then the person who has given the help is rewarded for his/her generosity. In it, the “help” asked for from a physicker (doctor) passing through a small town is to remove the legs of an aging hermit and to replace them with golden goat legs and hooves so that he will be accepted by his wife’s people and can go with her to her land to live out the rest of his days. His wife is heavily veiled, smells of exotic perfumes, and has a lovely voice. Underneath her veils and clothing, however, she resembles more a demon from out of the book of Revelations:

Abdel Jameela’s wife is no creature of God. Her head is a goat’s and her mouth a wolf’s muzzle. Fish-scales and jackal-hair cover her. A scorpion’s tail curls behind her. I look into a woman’s eyes set in a demon’s face and I stagger backward, calling on God and my dead mother.

The winning novelette is Eugie Foster’s “Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast.” I liked it because it’s about a man living in a society where everyone is defined by the masks they wear. They are ruled over by a Queen, who chooses someone at random, seemingly, to mate with her. In that respect, the people reminded me of a hive or colony of bees. Everyone has a wardrobe of masks, and when they put one on, it has an oversoul in it that changes one’s personality and daily role in society. The man gets recruited by a woman who belongs to a group of rebels who have decided that it’s better to not wear the masks, but to know who you are and be an individual without constantly changing your role in society from day to day.

All of the novelettes are very good, but I’ll just mention one other briefly, which I think could have just as easily been chosen as the winner in this category. That’s “The Gambler” by Paulo Bacigalupi, who as I wrote a bit earlier in this review, won a Nebula Award for Best Novel for his awesome novel, The Windup Girl. Like that novel, “The Gambler” is about Thailand to a large extent, or rather, about an expat, Ong, from Thailand living in Seattle who works for an online magazine whose editor is concerned more about the hits and increasing the mag’s readership than with the quality and worthiness of an important news story.

Ong reminisces about his father, who was a gambler in more ways than one. His father criticized the Thai government and rulers through leaflets and pamphlets surreptitiously left in inconspicuous places like laundromats. Still, one day soldiers came to arrest him and take him away. He was given the choice to quit writing the critiques, but he said it would be “difficult” for him not to continue on, even when the soldiers threatened that they might go after his family and friends if he chose to continue. They take him away to prison.

Ong wants to write only stories he considers to be socially conscious or about terrible environmental changes that do things like make the flower, the bluet, written about by Henry David Thoreau, bloom earlier than it ever has before, which in turn has a dramatic effect on the amount of bees in Massachusetts. His editor, Janice, warns him he will be fired and likely be forced to return to Thailand unless he gets his hits up to a minimum of fifty thousand. She tells him that hardly anyone really cares about the stories he writes, and that they really would prefer to read ones about the latest rapper, Double DP, and his relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl.

A popular writer for the magazine, Marty, who has interviewed Double DP and has written several stories about him, which has boosted the magazine’s shares and the bonuses of everyone who works there, offers Ong some help. He sets Ong up with an interview with a popular Thai singer, Kalaap, whom Ong likes to listen to and whom is actually very well-known and popular with the general public, as well. Ong appreciates the favor, likes the chance to meet and interview Kalaap, but he wants to ask her political sorts of questions. He wants to know how she feels about her homeland, and if she’ll ever return to it, and how she feels about the current rulers there. These are not the sort of questions that most of her fans likely would want to read about, though, and Kalaap offers to go out with him on the town, and act as if she’s on a date with him. This increases the hit rate of the magazine, but Kalaap “gambles” and decides to go ahead and write the story he wanted to about the bluets. I love reading anything Bacigalupi writes, and got into all of the references to Thailand, which reminded me of The Windup Girl.

Now, I’ll move on to the novella category. The Women of Nell Gwynne’s by Kage Baker won, and it IMHO definitely deserves the honor. I really liked the other novellas, Arkfall by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Act One by Nancy Kress, Shambling Towards Hiroshima by James Morrow, Sublimation Angels by Jason Sanford, and The God Engines by John Scalzi (another of my favorite SF authors), and I would probably have not been disappointed if any of these had won the award, as the field for this category was a strong one.

But Kage Baker is such a great writer, and her passing in January of 2010 marked the end of the life of a wonderful person and author, one of the best of this or any generation, so I’m glad her novella won. It’s about the secrets that get communicated to the high-class society prostitutes frequented by wealthy and influential members of the aristocracy and Parliament, which are then used to influence how they will vote on certain issues. The brothel the women work at is Nell Gwynne’s, and it’s the same brothel the author created in the steampunk world she created in her novel Not Less Than Gods.

The three poems that won Rhysling Awards were “Song for an Ancient City” by Amal El-Mohtar, “Search” by Geoffrey A. Landis, and “Fireflies” also by Landis. The first poem is a tribute to the ancient city of Damascus. I like the poet’s vibrant and colorful language and comparing the dust of the city he holds in his palm to things of incomparable value:

I need
no more than this, this earth
that isn’t earth, but breath,
the exhalation of a living city, the song
of a flute-boned woman, air and marrow on her lips.

That’s just a small excerpt–the rest is pretty brilliant, also. I liked the references made in George Landis’ “Search” to the rock group Queen, one of my favorites, and to Jerry Garcia and Jesse Ventura. “Fireflies” is a short but very good poem, comparing the way fireflies blink off and on “A million flashes a minute” to “the immortals,” who “look out across the universe, as stars and galaxies/flick into life/fade into dark.”

The Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 offers readers a look at the best and brightest examples of science fiction as elected by their own peers. If you love reading SF and want to read works by some of today’s best science fiction writers, this is an anthology that is a Must Read.

Title:

In the “Winds of Dune” Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, deliver another epic chapter in the Dune saga, continuing the story where Frank Herbert left off some forty years ago at the end of his now classic “Dune Messiah”. The novel opens with the Lady Jessica receiving news in the throne room on Caladan, the Atreides ancestral home world, that her son, God Emperor Paul-Maud’ Dib has boldly walked into the searing desert wastes of Dune, and is cataclysmically presumed dead. His disappearance sends ripples across the entire universe and the political machinations begin in earnest. The deposed Emperor Shaddam IV, the Landsraad, made up of the major ruling planetary leaders, the Qizarate yellow-robed priest of Paul’s Jihad, instantly begin to vie with Alia, Paul’s sister and heir, for control of the regency that rules the known universe. The struggle for power to control the destinies of vast populations is a preeminent theme in the works of Herbert and Anderson, and is the basic tenant upon which the entire Dune series is built. In reading a novel like “The Winds of Dune” it is easy to see the contemporary correlations that must surely have influenced the authors, and it is these correlations that make their novels intriguing, and relevant. When Herbert & Anderson develop a character like, Bronso of Ix, to question the ultimate myth that is Paul-Maud’ Dib, they take on both in their fictional world as well as in our current time, leaders that seem sacrosanct, when they state “The quality of a government can be measured by counting the number of its prison cells built to hold dissidents.” There can be no question that this is more than mere Sci-Fi escapism but an open window on society that stretches back for more than forty years.

Part two of the novel, opens in the year 10,188 A.G., Paul is now age twelve, and it is three years before House Atreides leaves Caladan for Arrakis, “Dune”. Once again Herbert & Anderson take us to a different period of time in order to develop history pertinent to the current action. Everything we do brings the “baggage of history with it”, the authors are extremely diligent in their efforts to make sure that this baggage is consistent and time lines are meticulously correct. This section of the novel tells the story of young friendship between Paul and Bronso, who is 11 years old, when they begin their adventure together on Ix, the home world of House Vernius. Almost immediately upon Paul’s arrival on Ix, Bronso’s life is turned upside down when the BeneGesserit witches, through an elaborate scheme, remove his mother Tessia, while simultaneously it is revealed that Rhombur Venius is not truly his paternal father. A confused and suddenly adrift Bronso makes the impetuous decision to run away to explore new horizons, and Paul, sworn to protect his friend concludes that honor decrees he go along on what becomes a life changing adventure. It is on this journey that Herbert & Anderson introduce the Wayku, a race forbidden to set foot on any planetary surface, condemned to remain always on “Heighliners”, the interplanetary vehicles of the spacing guild. It is from these cosmic gypsies that Paul and Bronso learn the true meaning of selfless friendship and trust, a lesson that is sorely tested to the very end of each of their lives. When the boys’ ill conceived adventure comes to an end, a thwarted assassination tests Bronso’s newly found faith in others and it is shattered. Bronso is consumed with feelings of betrayal and refuses to continue his friendship with Paul. This short lived friendship turns into a bitter grudge, and helps to shape events that spiral through history itself. In Dune speak “ripples upon ripples” but is there a hidden twist? Well, that goes without saying, this is a Dune novel after all.

As the novel switches back to the original time frame, the “plots within plots” have multiplied, and nothing is what is appears to be. Deceptive masks, vague implications hold sway, who can be trusted, and who is being misled leaves the new regent, Alia, in a constant state of agitation. Alia has a bewildering time deciding who to trust and in this confused state begins to doubt Jessica’s loyalty. Fortunately for Alia, Jessica’s devotion to her daughter is constant, and proven when she uncovers a plot, hatched by the Qizarate priest who believes Alia’s martyrdom will serve to ensure the lasting myth of Paul’s divinity, as well as successfully put them in charge of the destiny of the universe. While Alia, and those loyal to the memory of Maud’ Dib continue to exert every effort to keep Paul’s vision for the universe intact, they also must fight a losing battle to defend his messianic memory. Bronso is doing all he can to destroy the myth that is Maud’ Dib. Bronso who has been in hiding for years is considered by many to be, “The Defiler of Maud’ Dibs memory” the ultimate myth buster; unfortunately many others are beginning to accept his views. Alia’s response is extreme violence, harsher and harsher reprisals, and mass executions of anyone who stands for anything but blind loyalty to her and the memory of her brother.

Herbert & Anderson remind us that revolutions such as Maud’Dib’s Jihad are born to overthrow tyranny, and violence is a precursor to creating a more just society. However, when the revolution leads to a more repressive regime, such as the one Joseph Stalin created in Russia, a mere perceived threat can lead to a purge, which in turns leads to discontent, and still more bloody purges. Alia unfortunately goes down this road and in doing so may be creating just the kind of climate that will destroy all that Paul has accomplished to free human spirit throughout the many worlds that were struggling under the corrupt rule of Shaddam Corrino. Ultimately, this novel is about cause and effect, “Ripples upon Ripples” and how to find the smallest price to pay, to solve those problems that society will inevitably face in the cause of freedom. What is measured cruelty, as opposed to what is just plain cruelty and who can be trusted to make that decision. The authors ask each reader to decide if any amount of violence and cruelty can be accepted in the cause of freedom, considering that once one starts on that path, it is extremely difficult to reverse the engine of destruction.

Sci-Fi escapism is actually one of my favorite kinds of novels, and on one level “The Winds of Dune” fills that bill completely, but there is definitely a lot more going on in this novel, as there has been for more than forty years in the entire Dune Series. Unquestionably, Herbert & Anderson can spin a great yarn; while technically producing a vivid, mystifying universe, filled with characters that are both endearing, and loathsome. I recommend this one highly, but be warned, if this is the first Dune book you are reading, get ready to hit the bookstore, because I promise you, it will not be the last!

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Batman.   Superman. 

These two symbols are recognized worldwide.  They are synonymous with justice, awesome toys, and classic comics and movies for decades.  The debate, over which one would win in a fight, might be the most asked question among fans and best friends.  It is through their dynamic partnership that fans get an insight into the light and dark side of being a hero.  Whether it is Superman’s Boy Scout nature, or Batman’s excessive methods, the two create a friendship and team that can rival any dynamic duo.

In Kevin J. Anderson’s novel, Enemies and Allies, the story of Superman and Batman’s first encounter is reimaged during the Cold War era.   The storyline revolves around the arms race between the Soviet Union, the U.S., and Lex Luthor’s manipulation of the fragile tension between the two superpowers.  Anderson unfolds the story of Batman and Superman’s first encounter with each other superbly, while developing their distinctive partnership.  The novel engages a reader from beginning to end by meticulously developing each character and scene with great detail and dialogue. 

Everyone knows that Superman is the ultimate weapon, representing everything related to the American way of life.  In the Cold War era, the Communists do not view him as mankind’s savior, but as a threat to their own way of life.  Enter Lex Luthor.  Early on in the story, readers get a look at Lex’s secret dealings with General Anatoly Ceridov, a communist.  It is through these dealings that Lex plans out his goal for creating international turmoil to gain advantage for Luthor Corporation’s weapons department.  And why does the all-powerful Lex Luthor need to have shady deals with the communists?  The answer is easy.  He is going up against another well known weapons manufacturer.  None other than Wayne Enterprise, who we all know is owned by playboy billionaire, Bruce Wayne.  Luthor’s immoral deals eventually bring Bruce Wayne to Metropolis and establish the first meeting between Batman and Superman.  However, this meeting does not lead to an immediate partnership.  It would take several more unexpected meetings, careful observations, and possibly the best written rescue sequence, for both heroes to realize that they are fighting for the same cause.  Finally, when they realize each other’s intentions, readers feel how unique and powerful this partnership becomes.  By deciphering Luthor’s plans, and with the help of a nosey reporter, the heroes are victorious in their first adventure together.

Any story involving Superman and Batman is not complete without the mention of several key places and characters.  This particular story begins and ends in two of the most famous cities in the world of heroes, Metropolis and Gotham City.  Metropolis is where Clark Kent “stopped being Clark Kent and became someone else entirely.”  Gotham City is where Batman realizes that “he was only one person.  He had no allies.”  Like the two heroes, these cities represent darkness and the light.  In addition to the setting, there are several characters that have distinctive roles to the heroes.  Superman’s story would not be complete without the mention of the infamous reporter, Lois Lane.  Also, Batman’s story is never complete without Bruce Wayne sweeping a beautiful woman off her feet.  .  Clark, who might be the only hero whose secret identity is a normal human, resents the billionaire’s carefree and nonchalant flirtation aimed Lois.  But Bruce unknowingly, in his usual arrogant character, ignores Clark Kent, the simple farmer turned reporter, and his feelings towards Lois.  Once again the two heroes are connected unexpectedly.  Furthermore, we also get the traditional squirmy moments of Jimmy Olsen and Alfred’s (Bruce Wayne’s butler) sarcastic responses like, “Hmmm, an amateur vigilante-that reminds me of someone I know.”  Both of whom add to the humor of the novel.

The stories of Batman and Superman are endless.  While there could be infinite ways that the origins of their first meeting could be told, there are many things that remain the same in every story.  Their partnership is not based on a strong friendship, admiration for each other’s work, or choice of costume design.  Their collaboration is based on a mutual respect and understanding that one balances the other.  Think about it as Batman being the Yin to Superman’s Yang.  They are smart enough to understand the need for each other’s form of justice.  While Batman believes the ends justify the means, Superman believes in the “right” way of doing things.  Each can exist without the other, but together they form an almost unstoppable force of brains and bronze.  Whether it is Superman using his x-ray vision to see Bruce under the mask, or whether Batman is using his cunning detective skills to find the Fortress of Solitude and discovering that Superman is behind Clark’s bogus glasses, both heroes are always trying to one up the other.  But more than anything, they trust each other, even if they are always guarded against each other.  A partnership is based on trust and preparedness for the worst case scenario.  It is no wonder why Batman keeps kryptonite on reserve.  In the end, as enemies or allies, Batman and Superman are iconic characters that transcend all platforms and set a standard for all heroes and villains past, present or future.  It goes without saying that this was a well written novel on two of the greatest heroes of all time and should be a part of everyone’s library.

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In the second part I will cover:

Aftermaths by Lois McMaster Bujold
Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy by Harry Turtledove
Prisons by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason
Different Day by K. Tempest Bradford
Twilight of the Gods by John C. Wright

    
Aftermaths by Lois McMaster Bujold

Aftermaths is another story dealing with inter-stellar warfare. The main character is a man recently graduated as officer in the fleet. Unfortunately for him he is three days too late to take part in the ongoing war. By the time he is deployed there is only one thing left to do. Clean up the mess. Not quite the job he dreamed of.

Accompanied by an middle-aged medical officer, his job is to recover bodies from the battlefield. Gathering the bodies that have been exposed to the vacuum of space is an activity that repulses him. What repulses him even more is the way his colleague treats the bodies they recover.

It’s a very powerful story emotionally. You can feel the anger and resentment in the main character as well as the patience and life experience in his companion, which is something the author drives home in the conclusion of the story. It’s certainly not a detail of warfare that gets a lot of attention. A very interesting choice for this anthology, and I have a feeling this one will end up as one of my favourites of his collection.

    
Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy by Harry Turtledove

You can almost hear Adams thinking “…and now for something completely different” when he selected this story for the anthology. The contrast between Aftermaths and Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy could not be greater. I am not familiar with Harry Turtledove’s work but I understand this humorous story is something of a rarity in his catalogue.

In Someone is Stealing the Great Throne Rooms of the Galaxy an overweight hamster and space cadet Rufus attempts to solve the aforementioned crime. It’s a story full of horrible puns and silly situations. Rufus’ ship for instance, has a wheel drive, a device that translates the motion of Rufus treading his wheel into faster than light travel (somebody still believes!).

I can see why Adams added this story, the other two anthologies I read display a similar diversity. I must admit this one made me groan more than laugh though. I think you need to be in the right mood to appreciate it.

    
Prisons by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason

Generally I am not impressed with Kevin J. Anderson’s projects but I must admit this story is better than anything else I’ve read by him. I’m not familiar with Beason’s work at all though, so I have no idea how much of the story is his. In Prisons Anderson and Beason dust off an old idea, that of penal colonies is remote areas. In this case a nearly uninhabitable planet in dire need of terraforming.

The environment is so hostile that to put living beings to guard the prisoners is regarded as inhumane. Instead, an artificial intelligence keeps an eye on the prisoners. Powerful and smart as this AI may be, it remains a glorified computer and thus susceptible to hacking, something the authorities find out to their shame when a prisoner revolt takes over the planet.

It’s an interesting idea. I think it would have been nice to see what the long term plans of the prisoners would have been. This story is more about the problem they pose to the authorities. Their attempts to get things under control again are not very effective and the motivation for the attempt described in the story is plain revenge. Somehow it seems unlikely to me that someone that high up in government would get away with taking that kind of decision motivated purely by revenge. It is a good reminder that you can rely on technology too much though. Decent story but I don’t think it is one of the stronger works in this collection.

    
Different Day by K. Tempest Bradford

One of the shortest stories of the anthology and as the editor puts it in the foreword, something of an anti-science fiction story. In just over two pages, Bradford takes a shot at a number of common but fairly illogical themes in science fiction (movies and television in particular). Why do aliens always end up in the US for instance? Why are they so often seen as not only technologically but also morally superior? In itself it’s probably not a brilliant story, or perhaps that is just me, I always have problems appreciating a story this short, but the way Adams slips it in here forces the reader to consider another perspective on the anthology as a whole.

    
Twilight of the Gods by John C. Wright

Götterdämmerung, if you go Wagner all the way. On a generational spaceship we meet a captain who reigns like a feudal king. War has ravaged the magnificent ship and the captain no longer posses the knowledge or technology to make the most of his vessel. In fact, large parts of it are in the hands of his enemies. To restore his power and reboot the great computers that run the ship the captain needs to get his hands on a ring. Unfortunately this ring corrupts the mind of his owner and is coveted by whoever is not owning it (sounds familiar?). Backstabbing and treachery ensue.

This story got me reading on the connection between Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It appears there is quite a story there. Of course use medieval Germanic/Norse sagas as source material but some people see more of a resemblance between the two. Tolkien did not, he always denied the connection.

But let’s get back to Wright’s story. I suppose the setting is one usually associated with science fiction. Much of the story has more of a fantasy feel to it however. I must admit I didn’t like this one a whole lot. The language feels forced to me and the quick succession of betrayals and power grabs make the plot quite hard to follow. Maybe you get more out of it if you’re familiar with Wagner.

That’s it for this week. Join me next week for the next part, featuring stories by George R.R. Martin and Robert Silverberg among others.

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Author: Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson
Publisher: Tor
Publishing Date: September 2008
Binding: Hardcover
Cover Artist: Stephen Youll

Paul of Dune, co-authored by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson is the sixteenth incarnation of the Dune Series. A series that began in 1965 when Brian Herbert’s father, Frank Herbert, wrote his historic masterpiece Dune. Some forty years later, Brian & Kevin continue to breathe new life into a uniquely complex Sci-Fi universe that never seems to grow old. It’s a universe filled with charismatic characters, strange worlds, inspired technologies and plots that are a Machiavellian as they are relevant and contemporary. Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson consistently continue to produce powerful works that allow the Dune mystique to remain intact, and are incredibly faithful with both character development and time line constraints. “Paul of Dune” takes the reader back along the time line to the years that directly follow the original novel, and reveal the path that leads Paul Muad’dib to total ascendency over the known universe.

“Paul of Dune” opens in the year 10,194 AG, one year after the fall of Shaddam IV, the newly deposed emperor of a million worlds. Paul, son of Duke Leto Alreides and Lady Jessica, Leto’s Bene Gesserit concubine, has been transformed by taking the Water of Life into Muad’dib, the “Kwasatz Haderach”, the pen ultimate super being. The combination of Muad’dib’s mystical powers and the superior fighting skills of Dune’s Fremen warriors have led to the collapse of the corrupt rule of Shaddam IV. This is where the novel opens. Paul has marshaled his armies and has unleashed his holy Jihad on the universe. Paul’s trusted friend Stilgar leads legions of devoted Fremen warriors to ferocious victories over those worlds who have foolishly not accepted the rightness of Paul’s ascendency. Like a juggernaut, they burn across the universe thus proving Paul’s fanatical followers claim that he is indeed the Messiah.

Early in the Jihad, Paul Muad’dib makes the decision that destruction of the Emperor’s palace on Kaitan must happen in a most spectacular fashion. This will surely be the ultimate symbol for all those who remain unconvinced that the “decadent old Imperium must be swept away”. This is just one example of how the authors keep Paul of Dune contemporary to happenings in today’s world. The stark comparison to the destruction of New York’s Twin Towers by terrorists wishing to bring down a symbol of what they consider to be a decadent society. Hoping through a holy Jihad to destroy what they see as corrupt is blatantly obvious to the reader. However, it is socially relevant issues like this one, as well as others that add a real depth to this work.

Once involvement in the story is assured; Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson in their best Tolkien impersonation take you from the impending action to some place completely different. That destination is the War of Assassins, which takes place in the same universe, however, the year is 10,187 AG, seven years earlier when young Paul Atreides is only 12 years old. The reader is introduced to many of the same characters, at a distinctly younger incarnation and in the case of Paul, a much more fundamentally formative time of his life. Some characters make their only appearance in the stage of the novel, and still others like Sword Master Bludd exhibit dramatic personality changes from one time frame to the next. The story basically revolves around the War of Assassins between the Archduke Armand of Ecaz and Viscount Moritani of Grumman. Duke Leto Atreides is drawn into the conflict because of his friendship with Armand of Ecaz. To cement this bond, Leto agrees to marry Ilesa Ecaz, Armand’s daughter, however through the villainy of Viscount Moritani, on her wedding day she is assassinated along with many other innocents. This is a total breach of the rule of “Kanly” which is the code by which the Imperium orchestrates disagreements between the Royal houses. Thus bringing about a larger conflict, in which Paul gets his first introduction into the wholesale slaughter of life that is going to dominate his future. The way the rules of “Kanly” are described, and the manner in which different sides interpret them for their own exoneration of guilt is again relevant to events taking place today. The authors connect “Kenly” to the issue of torture, as laid out in the Geneva Convention and make an interesting case for reviewing the use of it at Guantanamo by the US Army.

Interwoven into both time frames as well as the entire Dune series, is the ultimate underlying plot of who is the Kwisatz Haderach and who will control this dangerous super being. At this time it is Paul but there have been others, like Count Fenring, who has failed to ascend successfully. Count Fenring, a former advisor to Emperor Shaddam IV and his wife Margot, another Bene Gesserit witch, are assiduously toiling to create their own incarnation of the next Kwisatz Haderach to replace Paul in order to gain control of his limitless power. Paul’s prescience allows him to see many possible futures and is greatly disturbed by portentous events and begins to doubt the righteousness of his own plans. Paul can sense the plots within plots, the layers upon layers, and the deadly tapestry of plans that have been woven, but can he choose the right path before the myth that has been created goes horribly wrong?

Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson have undoubtly continued the saga that is Dune, and have fully fulfilled their responsibility to the Dune loyalist. Stories within stories, machinations aplenty and a cast of characters that are robustly real, both for good as well as evil. Readers that have been on board for many years, and those lucky enough to have started the journey in 1965 will greedily hope for more. For those for whom this is their introductory book, I would unquestionably recommend reading, Dune the original Frank Herbert master work first, and then if you fall in love with this Sci-Fi world as I have, and I suspect you will. Imagine all the worlds within worlds you will have the pleasure of visiting.

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Momentary Confession/Beef: It’s one of the biggest disappointments that the Kwisatz Haderach is a Paul or Leto. It’s really the one level that Jasons everywhere don’t have covered. We’ve led Argonauts, we are the Costanza, we’ve led Power Rangers (okay, maybe not helping the cause), we are Sith badasses, we are Potter antagonists, we are the damn Bourne, the son of Jonah Hex, we own Friday the 13th, hell we are even the chosen name of the son of the last son of Krypton!

Back on point:

What we have is a copy of the recently released Paul of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson published by Tor.

Synopsis:

Frank Herbert’s Dune ended with Paul Muad’Dib in control of the planet Dune. Herbert’s next Dune book, Dune Messiah, picked up the story several years later after Paul’s armies had conquered the galaxy. But what happened between Dune and Dune Messiah? How did Paul create his empire and become the Messiah? Following in the footsteps of Frank Herbert, New York Times bestselling authors Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are answering these questions in Paul of Dune.

The Muad’Dib’s jihad is in full swing. His warrior legions march from victory to victory. But beneath the joy of victory there are dangerous undercurrents. Paul, like nearly every great conqueror, has enemies–those who would betray him to steal the awesome power he commands. . . .

And Paul himself begins to have doubts: Is the jihad getting out of his control? Has he created anarchy? Has he been betrayed by those he loves and trusts the most? And most of all, he wonders: Am I going mad?

Paul of Dune is a novel everyone will want to read and no one will be able to forget.

This contest is open to all BookSpotCentral members, just PM (private message) me at our forums and you’re entered. A winner will be drawn on October 30th. Please include address/shipping information with your entry so we can get the prizes out to you as quickly as possible.

Please be sure to visit our contest page to be up to date with all current contests hosted at BookSpotCentral. We currently are running four active contests!

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Sandworms of Dune is the second part of a project by Herbert and Anderson to write the unfinished finale of Frank Herbert’s classic Dune series. I gave quite a lot of thought about how I was going to write this review without spoilers to the final Dune books or Hunters of Dune and I decided I can’t do it. So I am going to throw my usual spoiler free review model out the window and just say it. This review contains spoilers for Heretics of Dune, Chapterhouse Dune and Hunters of Dune as well as Sandworms. There is no point in reading either Hunters or Sandworms until you have competed the original series anyway.

Spoilers ahead, you have been warned.

Herbert and Anderson have been producing a book a year in the Dune universe since 1999. Their efforts are met with mixed reviews. Personally I thought that the Prelude to Dune trilogy was entertaining and the Butlerian Jihad books are mediocre at best. In general all of them fall well short of Frank Herbert’s level. I had my reservations when the announcement was made that Herbert and Anderson would be writing Dune 7 based on notes found in Frank’s archives. Their previous attempt all included periods not covered in the original series, with a host of new characters. They were going to try a direct sequel now. Given their track record it was bound to be a disappointment to the fans of the original series. And it is, even if I have to admit Sandworms of Dune is the best Herbert and Anderson have delivered so far. It is also a major disappointment.

Dune is a charred ruin of a planet after the Honoured Matres obliterate it at the end of Heretics of Dune. The flow of spice is once again threatened. Various factions struggle to create substitutes or find new sources. The Bene Gesserit even go so far as to convert an entire planet to suit the needs of the sandworms. In the mean time the Honoured Matres take more an more planets until at the end of Chapterhouse Dune, Murbella, a woman with both Honoured Matre and Bene Gesserit training, manages to unify the two factions. During the course of Chapterhouse it becomes clear that the Honoured Matres, as powerful as they seem, are actually running for an even more dangerous foe.

Breaking away from Bene Gesserit control, the Duncan Idaho ghola, has made a run for it at the end of Chapterhouse. In a gigantic no-ship Idaho flees from the old empire as well as their unknown enemy. On board with him are a number of sisters not wanting to merge with the Honour Matres, a captured Tleilaxu master and a number of young sandworms. This ship may well be the only hope for humanity to survive the oncoming crisis. Their enemy is desperately trying to find them. Meanwhile the new sisterhood is preparing for an invasion. At the end of Hunters the true nature of the enemy is revealed to the sisters, the thinking machines have not been as thoroughly exterminated as once humanity assumed. As the old empire braces itself for the oncoming storm, Idaho and his company try to stay out of their enemy’s reach. Running will only work for so long, a final confrontation with the Evermind Omnius is inevitable.

As I mentioned before I had my doubts about this project. The Dune novels Herbert and Anderson wrote before didn’t require the reader to have read the original series. This book will only make sense if you have read all of Frank Herbert’s Dune books. These book get progressively less accessible and by the third book a lot of readers will have given up. In short, they are writing Dune 7 for the die-hard Dune fans. A very hard crowd to please. They really had to raise the level in order to succeed. And they did in a way. Which leaves me to believe Frank did indeed leave a substantial portion of the outline behind.

Still, Herbert and Anderson have a style of their own and their books don’t read like Frank Herbert’s writing. Frank intended this to be one book. It turned out to be two 600 page paperbacks. As far as I can tell there are two reasons for it. Firstly, their style is a lot more descriptive. Frank makes the reader think and guess about the details of his books. He is intentionally vague on certain subjects. Herbert and Anderson spell it out. The best example of that is probably the difference in how they treat the horrendous phenomenon of axlotl tanks. Herbert and Anderson also explain in detail what is going on in the various factions and how these occurrences relate to events earlier in the series. In fact they are completely misjudging their audience here. Frank’s later Dune books are brilliant not only for what he writes but also for what he doesn’t tell you. Reading Herbert and Anderson becomes annoying if you are used to that. They are wasting entirely too much time on spelling things out for their readers.

The second reason is that they have added to the original outline. Mostly in order the keep the story consistent with their earlier addition to the Dune universe. And there we hit another fatal flaw in this book. They are forced to let their worst creations, the Evermind Omnius and the ridiculous independent robot Erasmus (and his insane quest for humanity, the historical Erasmus will be turning in his grave), make another appearance. That Frank intended for the thinking machines to be the enemy the Honoured Matres were fleeing from is something that makes sense given the original series. Unfortunately there is no recovering from the mess they made of the Butlerian Jihad books. The revelation that the enemy was indeed Omnius pretty much ruined Hunters for me.

The climax of Sandworms was also rather disappointing. It relies heavily on a deus ex machina occurrence to get rid of Omnius. It renders a whole lot of story lines completely irrelevant (suggesting that it could indeed have been done in one book). So while the writing is good, the story fits in the overall time line and Herbert and Anderson include a number of good action scenes the finale is so poor that the book falls flat on it’s face. They had a real opportunity here to do the work of Frank Herbert justice, I could even have forgiven them for the thinking machines, but after having read the final chapter it is still disappointing. Brian Herbert thought this story had to be told, and from his position I can understand that. I think he would be wise to concentrate on his own creations from now on though. After having read 8 of the Herbert and Anderson Dune novels I am quite convinced they are not going to write anything that holds up to Frank’s standards. Which in itself is not a bad thing. There is only one Frank Herbert after all. Keeping the Dune series alive after his will only invite more criticism. Herbert and Anderson appear not to have reached that conclusion yet, there is another Dune novel scheduled for later this year, Paul of Dune, set before the original Dune novel. It is to be followed by at least two other books.

The real fans of Frank Herbert’s Dune will probably want to read this anyway if only to find out what gems of Frank’s are buried beneath the story crafted by Herbert and Anderson. That’s the main reason I read it anyway, and the only reason I picked up Sandworms after being disappointed by Hunters. I can very well understand people who will settle for the limited sense of closure Chapterhouse offers though. If you can’t contain your curiosity Hunters and Sandworms are not that bad a read but there are far better science fiction novels out there. Think carefully before you pick this up.

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I first read Kevin J. Anderson’s work as the co-writer of the DUNE prequels with Brian Herbert, books that follow specifically and successfully the tone set by Frank Herbert. And though LANDSCAPES, a collection of short stories and a couple of essays, includes some of Anderson’s other collaborations, I got a feel for his voice and enjoyed it. It was a treat to read such a wide assortment of smoothly told, mostly brief stories that vary from grim and suspenseful to light and amusing. Most importantly, each story is a fitting container for its concept. He groups the stories into sci-fi (the largest category), fantasy, and the great outdoors which contains essays about the writing life and his high altitude adventuring among Colorado’s peaks.

Several of the stories involve the different facets of a company capitalizing upon parallel timelines and the myriad, little ways they may vary from our own. Using its patented technology, Alternitech sends its employees into nearby parallel existences hunting for what doesn’t exist here. Sometimes it’s a medical cure discovered by serendipity, sometimes it’s an extra album by a musician who died too young, sometimes it’s justice, even another life without self-doubt or writer’s block. Other stories deal with living beyond one’s own time and versions of identity that are also intriguing. And although Anderson provides the beginning of a novel about genetically-engineered mammoths that he’d like to be invited to write at novel-length, my personal desire is for the book-length adventures of Paradox and Greenblatt, attorneys specializing in the newest niche of law, second and third order temporal complications that create legal precedent with every case. It’s fascinating and funny as the shysters and shmucks and time travel collide, and happens much as I imagine we’d handle such world-shaking technology, with a combination of sophistication and selfish backwardness.

Beside sci-fi fan and friend Neil Peart’s foreword, Anderson includes introductions to all the stories explaining how and when they were written and about his collaborators. This gives more background into his career and creative process which writers and fans alike may find interesting. While the earlier stories are a little less polished perhaps, I think they’re intentionally included to show Anderson’s progression, and none isn’t worth a look. The writing’s clean and the short lengths encouraged me to dig into one tale after another. If you’d like a variety pack from an author who clearly enjoys playing with ideas as a job, LANDSCAPES is a good time.

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