A review by ostrava
Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Frank Herbert is not a good writer. I've reread the last third of Dune in preparation of Messiah as both a refreshment of what happened and to reexamine how the book was written and it is clear to me still that Dune is an incredibly interesting book but an awfully dull read. There's no dramatic tension and Herbert doesn't have strong chapters and rarely does he even have strong moments in general. His stories are amazing, he just doesn't know how to tell them. 

Anyway, Dune Messiah is more of that. I feel like this time around, the book needed to have at least "the shape" of something like the original Dune to make up for it, but it sadly feels vaguely character-driven without the writing to pull it off. 

This book shouldn't exist. It should have been the last part of the original Dune, not a standalone story. But it's still Dune and therefore immensely interesting, so it's not at all a bad read...
 

Oh, and there are great moments. There were great moments in Dune too, here the biggest one was the ending probably. A farewell as fitting as they come...