Dune: House Atreides by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson is the first book in a trilogy of prequel novels to Frank Herbert’s classic science fiction novel, Dune. Any attempt to revisit the world created by Frank Herbert in the original Dune novel would have big shoes to fill. Because of this fact, I was originally hesitant to read House Atreides. That and the fact that the book received generally poor reviews upon its release in 1999 left me in no hurry to read it. But nine years later, I decided to give House Atreides a try and I am glad that I did.

The first thing to point out about the book is that the title “House Atreides” is a bit of a misnomer. Calling the book House Atreides (and subsequent novels House Harkonnen and House Corrino) implies to me that the individual books in the trilogy will focus on the characters that the book is named after. But House Atreides covers the broad range of characters and events occurring in the Dune universe at the time, not just those related to House Atreides. This book can be seen as Dune Episode I – the equivalent to Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, with the original Dune novel being equivalent to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Inherent in any prequel is the fact that you know where the story eventually leads to, which removes some of the suspense of the story, especially when characters you know live on into the original series are put in peril in the prequels.

Dune: House Atreides is one of those works that contains a number of small details that can be nitpicked and criticized, but overall I enjoyed the work. The only criticism I feel worth noting is that many of the chapters that are about the younger characters (especially Duncan Idaho) seem to be written for young readers, with the tone and writing style being aimed at the young adult market. The chapters involving the adult characters seemed to contain more of the detailed plot and situations that you would expect from a Dune novel. While Dune: House Atreides is good enough for me to want to read subsequent books in this trilogy, I can understand some of the criticism the book originally received. But if you are willing to accept that these are the characters from Dune being written by authors completely different from Frank Herbert, then Dune: House Atreides is a book you can enjoy.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Star Wars: Death Star by Michael Reaves and Steve Perry is set on board the Death Star, immediately before and during the events of the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV: A New Hope). The book focuses on the events that occur on the Death Star and the characters that live, work, and command the battle station. Some of those characters are familiar to everyone who has seen Star Wars, such as Darth Vader, Tarkin, and a couple of Imperial commanders. Other characters, mostly working-class characters, have been created by Reaves and Perry to craft a story that shows the impact of the evil Empire from the perspective of these characters. One character, Doctor Uli Divini, originally appears in Reaves and Perry’s first joint effort in the Star Wars universe, the two Medstar novels (Medstar I: Battle Surgeons and Medstar II: Jedi Healer). Having read the two Medstar novels helps familiarize the reader with Reaves and Perry’s style of writing, particularly the focus on the average guy as opposed to the leaders and heroes of the day, but by no means is it necessary to have read the Medstar novels before reading Death Star.

Weaving concurrent storylines around different characters can be difficult. In Death Star, Reaves and Perry do not quite pull this task off as well as they did in the Medstar novels. It was not until the end of Death Star that I was able to distinguish all of the characters by name. Somehow, weaving the new characters in with the events and scenes from the Star Wars movie that occur on the Death Star didn’t always work. When this type of interweaving worked, it worked well, which is the case with explanations of lines of dialog from the movie such as “Open the blast doors” and “Stand by.” But overall, I think this aspect didn’t quite work well on the whole because Star Wars is and has always been about the heroes and villains, not about the common man. Even though there are some interesting glimpses into the villains of Star Wars, the stories of the common man just are not as interesting as the stories of the heroes.

I think that expectations about this book are more important than most. If you expect a story about the Empire as it completes the construction of the Death Star, you will finish the book feeling half-satisfied. If you temper those expectations with the inclusion of new working-class characters in the style of the Medstar books, then the book is more enjoyable. One final note: I realize it is not always an easy task to come up with new names for characters and places within the Star Wars universe. A name has to sound science fiction-y enough without being corny. But in Death Star, the name of the prison planet which the Death Star is located above during construction is named “Despayre.” A planet whose name is a misspelling of the word “despair” seems too obviously referential to me.

Rating: 6 out of 10.