The Butlerian Jihad: Legends of Dune (Hardcover)

The book is a quick read (though I was not as quick as the previous reviewer, reading 606 pages in three hours, is a fast 200 page average :)) - it's enjoyable all through... But that's it. Don't expect anything deeper than just enjoyable well-written english...

Hope this helps!

A problem with this book is that the word Dune written on its cover in such large letters, yet it is the only reason I've bought it.
Other reviews have correctly pointed out that the characters and the plot are not quite what you'd call award-winning achievements, but it is a Dune book, and one feels compelled to explore the Dune universe once more.
What annoys me most, is the incapability of Brian Herbert and Anderson to keep their hands of the work of father Frank.
Of course, the books exist within the universe his father created. But I get the feeling the writers of this book are intend on seizing every opportunity to grab a concept from the old books, and insert it in these new ones (the harkonnen no-ship from the house books springs to mind) which gives the impression that Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson rather make an inconsistent, far-fetched and unnecessary reference than come up with some ideas of their own.

The legends of dune, even more so than the house books, should not be just one big build up to the original dune books. It is an opportunity to add a whole new dimension to the Dune universe, but instead the writers just stretch the original material to fill up these new series.
The effect of this is (not surprisingly) a barely average SF book and more an exploitation of Frank Herbert's Dune than a new addition to it.

How disappointing then to read the first of these new Dune novels by his son. Populated with clean cut swash-buckling aristocratic heroes, virginal but strong willed heroines, sassy but cute adolescents, monstrous robots and frankenstein cyborgs, the book is more reminiscent of a '50s formulaic drug store romance than modern SF.

In this vision of the future, computers unbelievably talk to one another using giant speakers! Messengers arrive breathlessly to inform of the latest victory or defeat presumably because in this particular technically advanced society the invention of the phone or radio or was somehow bypassed!

There is little original or intriguing in this book. Fights between cyborgs, robots and humans are strangely reminiscent of the 'Transformers' cartoons (but with out the subtlety) and Erasmus the robot keen to understand human emotion seems identical to the AI robot character in Gregory Benford's (far superior)Galactic centre novels.

Despite all this Dune addicts will no doubt read the remainder of the new series, ever hopeful that something new might turn up, but this is weak tea compared with Frank Herbert's melange.