Dune Messiah & Children of Dune

Looking back now what I wrote about the first Dune novel, it appears that I did like it more than I recall. I even read it not so long but I had already forgotten that, maybe because how easy going things seemed for the protagonists. That's why I was surprised how invested I got with the following two sequels.

Dune Messiah

Even with the melange-induced prescience, Paul Atreides faces a lot of challenges as the new Emperor. His jihad has pretty much conquered the galaxy yet he worries about the longevity of his empire. There is plotting that Paul is unable to figure out completely - he's not completely omniscient even if he feels he's experiencing everything the second time due to having seen things happen beforehand. Paul also needs an heir to succeed him.

Some time ago, I saw a video on Youtube about how science fiction novels used to be thinner than the current day ones tend to be. The first Dune trilogy is not the shortest ever but it does have only a single narrative that progresses even if the viewpoint does jump about a bit. New scifi books instead tend to have multiple concurrent ones that cause the word count to go up.

An interesting detail in the Finnish translation (by Hilkka Pekkanen) is how the lion in lion throne is jalopeura. Jalopeura is what Mikael Agricola came up with when working on the first Finnish translation of the Bible back in 16th century. In modern day Finnish, jalopeura would mean 'noble deer' but back in the day peura was more a generic word for beasts of the woods. And lion as the king of the animal kingdom was clearly noble.

I don't know about the old times usage and official status of jalopeura but at some point leijona with its more sensible etymology from the Latin leo replaced it. I remember as a kid some audiobook (on cassettes) also used the word jalopeura for lion, which confused me greatly, having learned leijona as the name of the animal. Either Pekkanen wanted the lion throne to sound archaic or jalopeura was still in wider use in the 1980s when she did the translation.

Children of Dune

In the third novel, Paul's children, the twins Leto and Ghanima take the stage after Paul wandered off into the desert. Leto and Ghanima were subjected to large amounts of melange while still in the womb of Chani which caused them to gain the genetic memories of their bloodline. That makes the kids wise far beyond their years but also threatens them with madness due to the past personalities in their heads trying to take over. Paul's sister Alia is in the same boat. She also holds the throne as the regent while Leto is coming of age.

Children of Dune was a great read. The only thing I disliked is how Leto ended up as -- it felt silly and far fetched. But I can now understand why the fourth novel is called God Emperor of Dune.

I have seen few times people quoting a particular line from this book: "When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because that is according to my principles." But even in Children of Dune it's a quote from somewhere else.

It appears as one of the epigraphs (which interestingly enough in the English print I read don't start a new page like in the Finnish translations of the previous books). Frank Herbert attributed the quote to Louis Veuillot but while looking up who this guy was (a French journalist and author from the 19th century), I learned that the quote had been misattributed (original author unclear). I like it though -- don't invite a snake into your home.