Children of Dune

Children of Dune is the thirth book on the Dune saga, Frank Herbert's masterpiece.
The story occurs 9 years after the events of Messiah. Paul Atreides went into the desert and left Alia, his sister, in charge of Arrakeen until, his two children, Leto and Ghanima grow up and be ready to take command.

With this as a base, Herbert takes us into a journey of self introspective, political manipulations, religion and understanding of the past to learn from it. All of this while, obviously, still takling the most present theme on all the saga, distrust of power figures.

This themes are all introduced in the very beginning and continue to be expanded through the conflict of our characters and the story. This leads to a very well manage set of characters that expand and develop in a very particular way throughthout the book while managing a very consistent pacing that doesn't feel rush or slow in any moment, but one that flows with what the story needs.
And, as we already seen with the previous two books, Frank Herbet always puts the story first, and what story he made.

Full of conspiracies, different cultures and religious groups, the story of Dune continues to impress and astonish with its ideas and concepts while at the same time, executing them in a perfect way. All of it feels like a chess match, with every move happening at the appropriate time while still surprising in the right way. The characters also fall into this structure, serving a specific purpose but with personal conflics involve that helps to develop every single one of them, making a very complex set of characters and with who we can sympathize.

There is almost nothing bad I could say about this book, it even “fix” some development problems the previous two had but if I'm push to say something it would be that this isn't for everyone. Children of Dune requieres of the reader to buy into some ideas and concepts that they can feel “to much” for some people, but they are also the strongest points of the books and Herbert uses them to developt its main themes.

So, to conclude, Children of Dune is a fantastic book, with a great planned story and very well-written and develop characters that always has in mind its themes and one that, if we buy into it, we will be astonish with the level of complexity and ideas it presents.
This books proves that Dune is a saga as no other and one that still, after three books, leaves us excited for the next one.
I can't wait to start God Emperor of Dune