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.