From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This epic science fiction tale fills in the time gap between Frank Herberts Dune and Dune Messiah. Told by modern-day sci-fi legends Anderson and Brian Herbert (Franks son), this story packs all the punch that the originals did and then some. Relating the life of Paul MuadDib, leader of Dune at the climax of the original novel, this novel explores the events of the MuadDib jihad that subsequently led to Pauls conquering the galaxy. Scott Brick delivers a powerful and entertaining reading reminiscent of a theatrical performance in a brilliant one-man show. Bricks voice is ideally suited to this extraordinary tale; no doubt he studied the prose of each novel to capture the dialect perfectly. This is a superb, solid reading that will appeal to fans and newcomers alike. A Tor Books hardcover. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

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.

Review

Praise for The Dune Saga

"This vital link between the first two books of the Dune saga begins immediately after the close of Dune...This is good reading.... Standing well enough on its own for Dune novices, it goes without saying that it's must reading for established fans."
--Booklist on Paul of Dune

"Drawing on Frank Herbert's massive body of notes, the coauthors of the new Dune series continue their expansion and illumination of the unexplored pieces of one of the genre's most significant and powerful stories. A priority purchase for libraries of all sizes. Highly recommended."
--Library Journal (stared review) on Paul of Dune

"Dune addicts will happily devour Herbert and Anderson's spicy conclusion to their second prequel trilogy."
--Publishers Weekly on Dune: The Battle of Corrin

"Sit back and enjoy."
--Booklist on Dune: The Machine Crusade

"The kind of intricate plotting and philosophical musings that would make the elder Herbert proud."
--Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Dune: The Butlerian Jihad

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Part One Emperor Muad'Dib 10,194 AG One Year After the Fall of Shaddam IV
Much more remains of my father than these few fragments. His
bloodline, his character, and his teachings have made me who I am.
As long as the universe remembers me as Paul- Muad’Dib, so too
will Duke Leto Atreides be remembered. The son is always shaped
by the father.
—inscription on the Harg Pass Shrine
A serene ocean of sand stretched as far as the eye could see, silent and still, carry ing the potential for terrible storms. Arrakis—the sacred world Dune—was becoming the eye of a galactic hurricane, a bloody Jihad that would rage across the planets of the crumbling Imperium. Paul Atreides had foreseen this, and now he had set it in motion.
Since the overthrow of Shaddam IV a year ago, millions of converts had joined Paul’s armies in addition to his own Fremen warriors, all of whom had pledged their lives to him. Led by his fanatical Fedaykin and other trusted officers, his holy warriors had already begun to fan out from staging areas, bound for specific star systems and targets. Just that morning, Paul had sent Stilgar and his legion off with a rousing speech that included the words, “ ‘I bestow strength on you, my warriors. Go now and perform my holy bidding.’ ” It was one of his favorite passages from the Orange Catholic Bible.
Afterward, in the heat of the afternoon, he had taken himself far from the bedlam of the city of Arrakeen, from the agitated troops and the fawning clamor of worshippers. Here in the isolated mountains, Paul required no Fremen guide. The high desert was silent and pure, giving him an illusion of peace. His beloved Chani accompanied him, along with his mother, Jessica, and his little sister. Not quite four years old, Alia was vastly more than a child, pre-born with all the memories and knowledge of a Reverend Mother.
As Paul and his companions ascended the stark brown mountains to Harg Pass, he tried to cling to a feeling of serene inevitability. The desert made him feel small and humble, in sharp contrast to being cheered as a messiah. He prized each quiet moment away from the devoted followers who chanted, “Muad’Dib! Muad’Dib!” whenever they glimpsed him. Before long, when news of the military victories started streaming in, it would get even worse. But that could not be avoided. Eventually, he would be swept along by the Jihad. He had already charted its course, like a great navigator of humanity.
War was one of the tools at his disposal. Now that he had exiled the Padishah Emperor to Salusa Secundus, Paul had to consolidate his power among the members of the Landsraad. He had sent his diplomats to negotiate with some of the noble Houses, while dispatching his most fanatical fighters against the defiant families. A number of lords would not lay down their arms and vowed to put up fierce resistance, claiming either that they would not follow a rebel or that they’d had enough of emperors altogether. Regardless, the armies of Muad’Dib would sweep over them and continue onward. Though Paul sought to reduce and even eliminate the violence, he suspected that the bloody reality would prove far worse than any prescient vision.
And his visions had been frightening.
Centuries of decadence and mismanagement had filled the Imperium with deadwood—tinder that would allow his firestorm to spread with startling speed. In a more civilized time, problems between Houses had been settled with an old-fashioned War of Assassins, but that solution seemed quaint and gentlemanly now, no longer plausible. Faced with the tide of religious fervor approaching their worlds, some leaders would simply surrender, rather than try to stand against the invincible onslaught.
But not all of them would be that sensible. . . .
On their trek, Paul and his three companions wore new stillsuits covered by mottled cloaks to camouflage them in the desert. Though the garments looked well worn, they were actually finer than any Paul had used when he’d lived as a fugitive among the Fremen. Their makers claimed that these durable offworld imports were superior to the simpler versions that had traditionally been made in hidden sietches.
The manufacturers mean well, he thought. They do it to show their support for me, without realizing the implied criticism in their “improvements.”
After selecting the perfect position high on the ridge, a small natural amphitheater guarded by tall rocks, Paul set down his pack. He uncinched the straps and pulled aside the cushioning folds of velvatin cloth with a reverence comparable to what he saw in the faces of his most devout followers.
In respectful silence he removed the clean, ivory-colored skull and several broken bone fragments—two ribs, an ulna, and a femur that had been brutally snapped in two, all of which the Fremen had preserved for years after the fall of Arrakeen to the Harkonnens. These were the remains of Duke Leto Atreides.
He saw nothing of his warm and wise father in the bones, yet they constituted an important symbol. Paul understood the value and necessity of symbols. “This shrine is long overdue.”
“I have already built a shrine to Leto in my mind,” Jessica said, “but it will be good to lay him to rest.”
Kneeling beside Paul, Chani helped him clear a spot among the large boulders, some of which had just begun to show a mottling of lichen. “We should keep this place a secret, Usul. Leave no marker, give no directions. We must protect your father’s resting place.”
“The mobs will not be kept at a distance,” Jessica said in a resentful tone. She shook her head. “No matter what we do, tourists will find their way here. It will be a circus, with guides wearing false Fremen clothing. Souvenir vendors will chip off flakes of rock, and countless charlatans will sell splinters of bone fragments, claiming that the objects come from Leto’s body.”
Chani looked both disturbed and awed. “Usul, have you foreseen this?” Here, away from the crowds, she used his private sietch name.
“History has foretold it,” Jessica answered for him, “time and time again.”
“And it must be done, to build the appropriate legend.” Alia spoke sternly to her mother. “The Bene Gesserit planned to use my brother in this way for their own purposes. Now he creates the legends himself, for his own purposes.”
Paul had already weighed the options. Some pilgrims would come here out of sincere devotion, while others would make the journey simply to boast that they had done it. Either way, they would come. He knew it would be folly to stop them, so he had to find another solution. “I will have my Fedaykin mount a round-the-clock vigil. No one will desecrate this shrine.”
He arranged the bones and carefully set the skull atop them, tilting it upward a little so that the hollow, empty sockets could look toward the cloudless blue sky.
“Alia is right, Mother,” Paul said, not looking at either his sister or Jessica. “While we manage the business of war, we are also in the business of creating a myth. It is the only way we can accomplish what is necessary. Mere appeals to logic and common sense are not enough to sway the vast population of humankind. Irulan is uniquely talented in that area, as she has already demonstrated by the popularity of her history of my ascension to power.”
“You are cynical, Usul.” Chani sounded disturbed at the reminder that Paul’s wife, in name only, served any useful function at all.
“My brother is pragmatic,” Alia countered.
Paul stared for a long moment at the skull, imagining the face of his father: the aquiline nose, gray eyes, and an expression that could shift from anger toward his enemies to unmatched love for his son or Jessica. I learned so much from you, Father. You taught me honor and leadership. I only hope you taught me enough. What he knew he must face in the coming years would go far beyond the greatest crises Duke Leto had ever confronted. Would the lessons apply on such a grand scale?
Paul picked up a large rock and placed it in front of the skull, beginning the cairn. Then he gestured for his mother to set the second stone, which she did. In turn, Alia contributed to the pile, sounding wistful. “I miss my father. He loved us enough to die for us.”
“It’s too bad you never actually knew him,” Chani said quietly, placing her first rock on the cairn.
“Oh, but I did,” Alia said. “My pre- born memories encompass a trip my mother and father took to the Caladan wilderness after little Victor was killed. That was where Paul was conceived.” Alia often made eerie, unsettling comments. The lives crammed into her mind stretched far. She looked up at her mother. “You even caught a glimpse of the Caladan primitives then.”
“I remember,” Jessica said.
Paul continued piling stones. As soon as the cairn completely covered his father’s bones, he stepped back to share a poignant, solitary moment with those who had loved Leto best.
Finally, Paul touched the communicator stud on the collar of his stillsuit. “Korba, we are ready for you now.”
Almost immediately, loud engines shattered the searing calm of the desert. Two ’thopters bearing the green-and-white Imperial crest of Emperor Muad’Dib rose from behind the sheer ridge and dipped their wings. The lead ’thopter was fl...

From School Library Journal

Starred Review. Paul Muad'Dib and his army of Fremen desert warriors have succeeded in their overthrow of the Emperor Shaddam IV, but holding onto a universe of fractious planets proves a challenge even for a man revered by his followers as a god. Set in the years following the late Frank Herbert's classic Dune and its sequel, Dune Messiah, the latest joint effort by Herbert's son Brian and noted sf author Anderson fills in the missing years of empire building and looks into the formative years of Paul's childhood as well as the histories of those closest to him. Drawing on Frank Herbert's massive body of notes, the coauthors of the new Dune series (Dune: The Battle of Corrin; The Road to Dune; Hunters of Dune) continue their expansion and illumination of the unexplored pieces of one of the genre's most significant and powerful stories. A priority purchase for libraries of all sizes. Highly recommended.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The Gears, husband-and-wife archaeologists turned best-selling authors, continue their superbly researched and rendered North America’s Forgotten Past series. Picking up where People of the Weeping Eye (2008) left off, visionary Old White, mystical Two Petals, and brooding Trader continue to traverse across the continent to Split Sky City and their individual and collective destinies. The Sky Hand people have fallen under the spell of a dangerous new leader, and death and destruction seem inevitable. It is up to this unlikely trio of heroes to stop Smoke Shield in order to prevent impending doom and disaster. Infused with Native American mythology and based on the history and archaeology of Alabama’s Moundville site, this story interweaves fact and legend to illuminate a long-forgotten or ignored chapter in the prehistory of America. The Gears provide a fascinating fictional foray into the multilayered political, spiritual, and military story systems of a once bustling region and a once thriving culture, and this novel is as good a place as any of its predecessors to jump in and begin enjoying the authors’ talents. --Margaret Flanagan

About the Author

Brian Herbert, the author of numerous novels and short stories, has been critically acclaimed by leading reviewers in the United States and around the world. The eldest son of science fiction superstar Frank Herbert, he, with Kevin J. Anderson, is the author of Hellhole and continues his father’s beloved Dune series with books including The Winds of Dune, House Atreides, Sandworms of Dune, among other bestsellers. He also wrote a biography of his father, Dreamer of Dune. Herbert graduated from high school at age 16, and then attended U.C. Berkeley, where he earned a B.A. in Sociology. Besides an author, Herbert has been an editor, business manager, board game inventor, creative consultant for television and collectible card games, insurance agent, award-winning encyclopedia salesman, waiter, busboy, maid and a printer. He and his wife once owned a double-decker London bus, which they converted into an unusual gift shop. Herbert and his wife, Jan, have three daughters. They live in Washington state.

From Publishers Weekly

Product Description

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