Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, Second Round :: Mentats of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson vs. Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg

Our third match in the second round of Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books pits Mentats of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson against Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 50 pages.

Mentats of Dune: Tor hardcover, March 2014, 445 pages, cover art by Stephen Youll. Set shortly after Sisterhood of Dune, Mentats of Dune is part of a series of prequels to Frank Herbert's classic novel Dune. Mentats of Dune reached the second round by defeating Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci. The first 25 pages introduced us to Gilbertus Albans, founder of the Mentat School where people are trained for machinelike precision of thought. We also met Manford Torondo, leader of the Butlerians, who are bent on eradicating all high technology, and Josef Venport, head of the VenHold Spacing Fleet, which has placed an embargo on planets that follow Torondo. One suspects the conflict between Torondo and Venport will become bloody.

The next 25 pages set up more conflicts, perhaps more subtle ones. Valya Harkonnen, transformed into a Reverend Mother, allies herself with the Reverend Mother Raquella, who has started a new Bene Gesserit Sisterhood in bitter conditions on Wallach IX. Valya seems poised to take control of this group. Valya despises both Vorian Atreides, whom she blames for her brother Griffin's death, as well as the alternate Sisterhood, led by Reverend Mother Dorotea, serving the Emperor Corrino. Dorotea is on the scene as the Emperor takes harsh measures against members of his wife's family for underreporting taxable income.

Motherless Child: Tor hardcover, May 2014, 269 pages. Motherless Child reached the second round by defeating The Last Weekend by Nick Mamatas. In the opening 25 pages of Motherless Child, our protagonist Natalie and her friend Sophie, both single mothers, met a musical icon known as "the Whistler" and woke up in a car with hazy memories and tattered and bloodied clothes.

In the next 25 pages, Natalie realizes what has happened: they have been transformed by a vampire. She persuades Sophie to give their children to Natalie's mother with instructions to get away before Natalie and Sophie become dangerous. Natalie and Sophie then begin a road trip together, but the Whistler has not forgotten them.

The Battle: We have a battle between a galaxy-spanning space opera and a literary horror novel focused on two women placed in a heart-breaking situation.

I love space opera, and in particular I love Dune, which I've read several times. To me what makes Dune so memorable is how deftly Frank Herbert combined his vast space opera storyline centering on the planet Arrakis with the personal yet powerful tale of Paul Atreides and his family. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have done a commendable job of fleshing out the broad story elements of the Dune universe, the Mentats and the Butlerians and the Bene Gesserit and the spice and the competing families and all their assorted political machinations. If you're fascinated with the Dune universe, you should be reading their new Dune books.

But what I haven't gotten a hint of through 50 pages of Mentats of Dune is a personal story comparable to that of Paul Atreides. A host of characters have been introduced, but none strikes me as particularly sympathetic so far. There is no scene like the Gom Jabbar test early in Dune to get me to identify with and care about one of the major characters. (Admittedly, I might already have a favorite character if I had read all the preceding books. The Battle of the Books can be tough on books in multi-volume series that way.)

In contrast, I feel a very strong connection with Natalie and Sophie through 50 pages of Motherless Child. The second 25-page section begins with Natalie leaving her own son and her friend Sophie's son with Natalie's mother, perhaps never to see them again. The scene is related in clipped, matter-of-fact language, because it's told from Natalie's point of view, and the only way Natalie can get through this is to do it quickly, while shutting her emotions off. The scene works beautifully.

A few pages later, Sophie is popping a tape into the car stereo:

For a second, as that first inane guitar arpeggio finished, then repeated, Natalie just stared at the radio display. Mouth open. The dreadful, dripping organ started to pump.

But not until Sophie nodded her head, said, "Oh, yeah," opened her mouth wider, Jesus Christ, to fucking sing, did Natalie punch the eject, rip the tape free, roll down her window, and hurl the cassette sideways into the long, black grass as they hurtled past.

"Hey!" Sophie barked.

"'Seasons in the Sun'? Are you kidding?"

"Natalie, you turn this car around this instant. You go out in that grass and get my tape."

"That song? You're thinking that song is right for the mood?"

"What? We had some joy. And fun. And——"

"Children, Sophie. We had some children."

"We still do."

Turning harder than she had to, Natalie swerved the car off the asphalt, where it fishtailed momentarily in the gravel as they slid, down the sloping shoulder into the grass. There they sat, Natalie gripping the wheel, Sophie against her door where the skid had shoved her. The second Natalie shut off the engine, silence rushed down the hillsides and over them. And for a while——Natalie had no idea how long——they just drifted in that. Suspended, like some broken-off section of a sunken ship. Sinking toward bottom.

"So, maybe some Foreigner, then?" Sophie finally said.

I find this sad and hilarious all at once. Another reader might think Natalie and Sophie cold to be trading jokes so soon after abandoning their children. To me, they are ordinary women placed in an impossible situation trying to figure out how to survive. These are characters I believe in and care about, which makes me want to read more.

THE WINNER: Motherless Child by Glen Hirshberg

Motherless Child advances to the semifinal round to face either either Swords of Good Men by Snorri Kristjansson or Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the 2014 Books, Bracket One, First Round :: Mentats of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson vs. Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci

We continue the first round of Bracket One of the Battle of the 2014 Books. The bottom half of the draw begins with Mentats of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson against Tin Star by Cecil Castellucci. The winner will be the book I (Aaron) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

Mentats of Dune: Tor hardcover, March 2014, 445 pages, cover art by Stephen Youll. Mentats of Dune is the I-lost-counth prequel to Frank Herbert's Dune, co-written by Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson, one of the most successful authors in the field of SF/F. Mentats of Dune takes place after Sisterhood of Dune. As the story opens, Gilbertus Albans, founder of the Mentat School where people are trained for machinelike precision of thought, is receiving a visit from the Emperor's brother, perhaps the true power behind the throne. The galaxy is unstable because Manford Torondo, leader of the Butlerians, has stepped up his crusade to eradicate all high technology (except for, y'know, whatever he needs) at the same time that Josef Venport, head of the VenHold Spacing Fleet, has vowed to embargo any planet that follows Torondo. Political machinations abound.

Tin Star: Roaring Brook trade paperback, February 2014, 233 pages. Tin Star is young adult science fiction. Cecil Castellucci has written several other YA books, although this is her first straight science fiction book. She is also a rock musician and film director. The star of Tin Star is Tula Bane, who is traveling with her family to help establish a new planetary colony, when the leader of the expedition, Brother Blue, beats her and leaves her for dead on a remote space station staffed entirely by aliens. When Tula recovers from her beating, she tries to make contact with her family, only to be told that their ship was destroyed.

The Battle: With Mentats of Dune, Herbert and Anderson have to start by arranging a lot of pieces across a complicated board. Through 25 pages, they manage this deftly, highlighting through different characters' viewpoints the seemingly inevitable conflict between the Butlerians and VenHold. I think it will quickly start to seem dry if you aren't a Dune fan, but then this book is so not written for people who aren't Dune fans.

As to Tin Star, let me first say that one part of reviewing has become much less fun for me since I started selling my own stories: the harsh review. I know now how it feels when you have a great story concept, but it just doesn't come out the way you wanted it, or it does come out the way you wanted it and yet readers don't appreciate it. So let's try to get through this quickly . . .

The opening section of Tin Star does not work for me at all.

The language strikes me as klunky from the opening line ("There are few things colder than the blackness of space."), and does not capture the voice of a teenaged girl.

The story makes no sense. The bad guy tries to murder Tula because she starts to have vague suspicions that he's up to something. What he's up to is knowingly sending a shipful of colonists off to die, so if he wants to get rid of Tula, all he has to do is stick her back on the ship. Instead, he tries to kill her, then tells her mother that Tula's not coming, and the mother doesn't even ask to say goodbye before leaving her daughter, maybe forever. Howzat?

The description of outer space is hazy at best, with details not well thought out, e.g., the narrator discusses how many years old an alien is, as if their years would be the same as ours.

Most importantly, the opening of Tin Star puts its protagonist through hell. She loses everything. She is stranded in another solar system with not a single human being to ask for help, and promptly learns her entire family has died. If you are going to start your story like that, you need to be prepared to show a character in soul-wrenching agony. The beginning of Tin Star does not capture that at all. Instead, it feels like Castellucci has wiped away Tula's whole family as a formality to get the real story started. Tula really deserves better.

THE WINNER: Mentats of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

Mentats of Dune advances to the second round, to face either The Last Weekend by Nick Mamatas or Glen Hirshberg's Motherless Child.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Seven, Second Round :: Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson vs. Quantum Coin by E. C. Myers

Our third match in the second round of Bracket Seven of the Battle of the Books pits Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson against Quantum Coin by E. C. Myers. The winner will be the book I (Amy) most want to continue reading after 50 pages.

Clockwork Angels:  ECW Press, September 2012, 315 pages, cover art and interior illustrations by Hugh Syme. This is a novelization of the album of the same name by the rock band Rush, based on a story and lyrics by Rush's Neil Peart. Kevin J. Anderson is a bestselling science fiction author who has written many novels in well-known fictional universes. Clockwork Angels reached the second round by defeating Red Sand by Ronan Cray.

In Clockwork Angels, we met Owen Hardy who lives in Albion where life is extremely scheduled and everyone knows their place. Owen's seventeenth birthday and official adulthood is soon. It’s time, his father told him, to put away his foolish daydreams.

Owen boldly asked Lavinia, his girlfriend, to meet him at midnight for a kiss under the stars. Lavinia doesn't meet him. She didn't take him seriously or she was unwilling to bend the rules.

Owen hears the clanging of a steamliner. Owen liked to watch the steamliner go by his village each afternoon, but he had never been awake to see the one passing at night. Owen daringly runs down to the glowing rails. A man in a cargo car waves and offers his hand. Owen impulsively allows the man to pull him aboard.

The steamliner is bound for Crown City. Owen worries about what he's done, but looks forward to the adventure. The nameless man is strangely disrespectful of what Owen was brought up to believe. Hours later, on the outskirts of the city, the man gives Owen some coins and jumps off the train. Owen, realizing that he's now a rule-breaker, jumps off before the station.

Owen explores Crown City. He wanted to see the Clockwork Angels but is not allowed to get in. Owen spies workmen removing anarchist graffiti from buildings. At a carnival, Owen gets his fortune told by a mechanical fortune teller.

Quantum Coin:  Pyr books, October 2012, 331 pages, cover art by Sam Weber. Quantum Coin is the sequel to Fair Coin, which was E. C. Myers' first novel. Quantum Coin reached the second round by defeating The Path of the Fallen by Dan O'Brien.

In Quantum Coin, Ephraim was at Senior Prom. While waiting for the return of Jena, his date, Ephraim talked with his geeky friend Nathan, who was filming videos. When Ephraim spotted Jena, she was no longer wearing her Prom dress. Soon Ephraim realized that she was not Jena at all, but Zoe, an analog of Jena from a parallel universe. Ephraim met Zoe in his adventures last year.

Jena returns, with her twin girlfriends, in time to see Ephraim with Zoe. Before the two Jenas attract more attention, Ephraim suggests that all six of them go somewhere more private to talk.

Strange things are apparently happening in the multiverse. Zoe has a controller that looks like a flip phone, which works with Ephraim's coin in shifting universes. After Zoe's arrival, Nathan's video camera began capturing ghostly images of people from a parallel universes.

Zoe and Ephraim need to go see Nathaniel, an analog of Nathan in a futuristic timeline. Jena insists on coming with them. When they try to arrive in the other universe, they are somehow blocked. Upon returning, Jena's two twin girlfriends merge into a one girl.

To test that the controller and the coin still work, Ephraim, Zoe and Jena go to Zoe's universe. Zoe has modified her grandfather's old ham radio to pick up transmissions from parallel universes. They hope to contact Nathaniel over the radio.

The Battle:  This match-up features a steampunk fantasy book going up against a YA science fiction book.

Clockwork Angels, with the Watchmaker's extreme order, is different than many fantasy books, and that's a good point. I can believe that there would be people like Owen that don't quite fit in. But I'm somewhat uncomfortable that others seem to know of Owen's rebellion before Owen even knows himself, such as the mysterious peddler who gifted Owen with a book telling how things were horrible before the Watchmaker's stability, and the nameless, freedom-seeking stranger who pulled Owen to aboard the steamliner in the middle of the night.

So far, Owen is a lone traveler seeing new people and new places. I'm curious where Owen's adventures will take him.

Quantum Coin involves a group of teenagers. There are unknown problems to fix. I think that Ephraim, Zoe and Jena revealed what was going on to Nathan and the Morales sisters a bit too quickly. But the explanation about parallel universes was useful to me as a reader.

I enjoyed that Ephraim phoned his mom to tell her he's going to another universe. His mom first asked, "Who's in jail?", and later questioned Ephraim if he had been drinking.

I liked how the characters interacted with each other:

"Hey, what happens if this machine moves you to a universe where there's something already occupying the space you're standing in?" Nathan asked. "Like a building or an obelisk?"

"An obelisk?" Ephraim asked. "Why would there be an obelisk here?"

"Because it's the future! The future has obelisks. And zeppelins. There are always zeppelins in alternate universes."

After reading 50 pages, both of these books are engaging and readable. Yet for Battle of the Books, I'm forced to choose between them. After some thought, I decided that I was more interested in continuing reading the sillier, but fun, book about parallel universes.

THE WINNER: Quantum Coin by E.C. Myers

Quantum Coin advances to the semifinals to face either The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross or Apollo’s Outcasts by Allen Steele.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Bracket Seven, First Round :: Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson vs. Red Sand by Ronan Cray

Entering the bottom half of Bracket Seven, we have the fifth match in the first round of Battle of the Books featuring Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson going against Red Sand by Ronan Cray. The winner will be the book I (Amy) most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

Clockwork Angels: ECW Press, September 2012, 315 pages, cover art and interior illustrations by Hugh Syme. This is a novelization of the album Clockwork Angels by rock band Rush. It's from a story and lyrics by Rush's Neil Peart. I'm not that familiar with Rush, and I haven't heard this album. Kevin J. Anderson is a bestselling science fiction author who has written a multitude of books, including many spin-off novels in well-known fictional universes.

Owen Hardy lives in a village in Albion where life is extremely orderly and everyone knows their place. Owen's seventeenth birthday and official adulthood is soon. His future working at the apple orchard is already planned, but he wonders of other possibilities.

Owen daydreams on a hill. Lavinia, his true love, wants to leave because a rainstorm is scheduled for 3:11 PM, but Owen waits to see the steamliner go by, with its floating dirigible cars. They rush back to the village. Owen daringly asks Lavinia to meet him at midnight for a kiss under the stars.

When hurrying home, Owen encounters an old "pedlar" who gives Owen a small book titled Before the Stability. Owen reads the book which tells how horrible things were before the Watchmaker came.

Owen and his father hear the day's announcements at the Tick Tock Tavern. Before going to bed they wind all their clocks. Owen sneaks out at midnight. Eventually he realizes Lavinia isn't going to meet him.

Red Sand: Cray Press, November 2012, 184 pages. Red Sand is Ronan Cray’s self-published first novel.

Newly single Mason is on a cross-Atlantic cruise. By chance, a hungover Mason sees two odd, inverted triangles sailing on the horizon.

On the same cruise ship, horny sexpot Bailey dresses up and leaves her husband Eddie sleeping in their cabin. She goes man-hunting at the ship's bar and restaurant. First she accepts a drink and joins the table of an older man, the fat man Howie, and a steward. The steward talks of people falling overboard and being lost at sea. Next at the Captain's table, Bailey meets Emily, Max, and Max's wife and daughter. Emily mentions shipwrecks and asks the Captain about a ship that supposedly went missing on their route. Finally, at the bar, Bailey meets Mason, and a short time later they leave together. After Bailey and Mason have sex, Bailey's husband breaks down the door to Mason’s cabin and shoots Bailey. Suddenly the ship's orientation goes wrong.

Next thing, debris and survivors are in the water. The fat man Howie is floating, as he has been through life. Howie never intended to have two wives. Howie is pulled into a lifeboat. Already in this boat are the steward, Emily, a sick Max, and another woman. They haul Mason aboard. The boat is being rowed by two strange white-haired men that don't talk. An island is spotted.

The Battle: This match-up features a steampunk fairy tale going up against a mysterious shipwreck thriller.

In Clockwork Angels, Albion is ruled by the loving Watchmaker in far away Crown City. Everyone is happy, but life seems routine, even scheduled. The protagonist Owen is a daydreamer who doesn't quite fit in, he craves something more exciting.

I enjoyed the instances of Owen thinking more creatively than others. Owen considered Lavinia's hair to be "the color of warm hickory wood, or fresh pressed coffee with just a dollop of cream." But Lavinia considered her hair to be merely brown.

This book has a nicely different feel than many fantasies. More fanciful and less gritty. I liked the alchemical energy, the coldfire lanterns, and that Atlantis is across the Western Sea.

Red Sand, on the other hand, just didn't work for me. This is a first novel, and in my opinion, after reading the first 25 pages, it shows.

The major event, the demise of the cruise ship, happens almost entirely offstage. Apparently it happened suddenly, but I would have expected the survivors to be more upset, asking each other what the hell happened, and speculating on the cause of the mishap.

Bailey, the sexpot, seemed to me to be a caricature. The same could be said of Howie, who had not only one, but two controlling wives. They unfortunately weren't used for comic effect.

I don't think any twelve-year-old girl, especially when out with her parents, would tell a woman she has "great tits." Max's daughter then goes on to tell Bailey that she just got her "first training bra" and had "high hopes." This conversation struck me as wrong.

Also, norovirus isn't spread only by tainted food. Noroviruses can survive on contaminated surfaces.

As to what book I’d rather continue reading after 25 pages, it's really no contest.

THE WINNER: Clockwork Angels by Kevin J. Anderson

Clockwork Angels advances to the second round to face either The Path of the Fallen by Dan O’Brien or Quantum Coin by E.C. Myers.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Winter 2012, Second Round :: Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card vs. Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

The second round of the Winter 2012 Battle of the Books continues with Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card against Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Which book will I most want to continue reading after finishing 50 pages?

Shadows in Flight: Tor hardcover, January 2012, 237 pages, cover art by John Harris / Macmillan audio, 7 hours, narrated by Stefan Rudnicki and cast. Shadows in Flight reached the second round by defeating Gamers by Thomas K. Carpenter in the first round. Shadows in Flight is the latest installment of the Ender universe, following Bean as an adult. Bean's runaway growth continues and he has not much longer to live. He and his similarly afflicted genius children have taken a long journey through space in hopes that, with the time dilation, a cure will be found on Earth. But no luck so far.

Sisterhood of Dune: Tor hardcover, January 2012, 496 pages, cover art by Steve Stone. Sisterhood of Dune got here by its first round win over Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long. Sisterhood of Dune is the latest volume in the Dune universe, by Frank Herbert's son Brian and the prolific Kevin J. Anderson. This one is set after the other Dune prequels but before Dune itself, in the period when groups like the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, and the Spacing Guild were emerging as key forces in the galaxy.

The Battle: This is a contest between the umpteenth volumes in the long-running series that began with the classic novels Dune and Ender's Game. This battle will come down to which of their sequels best gets me interested in the story of this new book.

Shadows in Flight certainly has a new and interesting storyline. Bean and his three gifted children have not received a cure to their condition from Earth as they hoped. Bean will not survive much longer, and these stressful circumstances have generated a terrible sibling rivalry among Bean's two sons, Ender and Sergeant. The book opens with Sergeant planning to kill Bean, as a raw display of power. Ender prevents this by beating Sergeant to within an inch of his life.

This is reminiscent of how the original Ender killed two of his young rivals in Ender's Game, and I find it alarming that Card has returned to this pattern, this time with Bean expressing obvious approval of the new Ender's attack. Can these amazingly brilliant people really find no better way to resolve disputes than to beat each other senseless? (Incidentally, I am old-school enough that I have no problem with standing up to a bully with a punch in the nose; it's beating him to death or nearly to death that troubles me.) Orson Scott Card is an outspoken fan of Isaac Asimov, but Asimov would not have approved -- "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent," he believed.

Still, the family dynamics make for an interesting narrative, and there is an effective scene where we get some insight into the psychology behind Sergeant's aggressive behavior. Add to that a nice level of detail about how life is sustained on this spaceship for years at a time, and you have a book that seems well worth reading on its own merits, regardless of the prior volumes in the series.

The first 25 pages of Sisterhood of Dune also felt fresh to me. I particularly enjoyed the chapter from the point of view of Raquella Berto-Anirul, founder of the Bene Gesserit. Unfortunately, through the next 25 pages, she has only been onstage for one brief scene, while the other sections have bogged down a bit. There are several lengthy infodumps of Dune universe backstory, most of which reads like entries from The Dune Encyclopedia. The Dune universe is so rich and fascinating, there is nothing wrong with filling in details and gaps in the chronology, and I recommend Sisterhood of Dune to devoted Dune fans. But I find it easier to put down than Shadows in Flight.

THE WINNER: SHADOWS IN FLIGHT by Orson Scott Card

Shadows in Flight advances to the semifinals, to face Eyes Like Leaves by Charles de Lint.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Winter 2012, First Round :: Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long vs. Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

Our fourth Battle of the Books contest pits Jane Carver of Waar by Nathan Long against Sisterhood of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Which book will I most want to continue reading after the first 25 pages?

Jane Carver of Waar: Night Shade trade paperback, March 2012, 299 pages, cover art by Dave Dorman. Nathan Long has written for Hollywood and done ten novels in the Warhammer universe. Jane Carver of Waar is his first original, non-media novel. As the cover and the name "Jane Carver" suggest, this is a book in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars novels.

Long's hero Jane Carver is a biker chick and former Airborne Ranger (picture a modern-day Xena with red hair). In the opening pages she kills a guy without really meaning to -- he gropes her and she expresses her displeasure more forcefully than she intended -- and is quickly on the run from the law. She finds a cave to hide in, and next thing you know she's on an alien world inhabited by strange purple creatures.

Sisterhood of Dune: Tor hardcover, January 2012, 496 pages, cover art by Steve Stone. Brian Herbert, the son of Frank Herbert, has written several original novels but is best known for his new work in his father's Dune universe, in collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson. Kevin J. Anderson is the hardest working man in science fiction. He writes prolifically, dividing his time between Star Wars and other media tie-in work, Dune books with Brian Herbert, and original work, both solo and in collaboration. I confess to a bias in Anderson's favor, since he and his wife Rebecca Moesta have been extremely generous with their time to all us humble Writers of the Future winners.

Sisterhood of Dune is a Dune prequel. If you've been following the Brian Herbert / Kevin J. Anderson additions to the Dune universe, Sisterhood is presumably the first in a new trilogy, set after the Legends of Dune Trilogy (The Butlerian Jihad, The Machine Crusade, and The Battle of Corrin) and before the Prelude to Dune Trilogy (House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and House Corrino). It focuses on the formation of the key groups that played such an important role in Frank Herbert's books, such as the Bene Gesserit (the "Sisterhood" of the title), the Mentats, and the Spacing Guild.

The Battle: If I've counted right, Sisterhood of Dune is the 17th novel in the Dune universe, including Frank Herbert's original six books and the Brian Herbert / Kevin Anderson novels. So Sisterhood is geared to a specific readership, people who never tire of Dune books. I don't mean that to sound negative. Frank Herbert created a universe so rich and fascinating that it's not surprising some folks just can't get enough of it. I am at a loss to understand the view I've occasionally heard expressed that there is something unseemly about doing so many Dune prequels and sequels. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson are writing books that a lot of readers out there want to read, which is what professional authors do.

It is very much to Herbert and Anderson's credit that the opening of Sisterhood of Dune does not read like an appendix to Frank Herbert's books. It just reads like a novel, about interesting characters with difficult problems. So we meet Raquella Berto-Anirul, founder of the Bene Gesserit and its first Reverend Mother. She desperately wants a successor, but every woman who attempts to duplicate her feat of taking control of her own biochemistry to overcome poisoning dies in the attempt. Should Raquella continue to sacrifice bright young women, or abandon the hope of creating fellow Reverend Mothers? (This is a dilemma clearly implied but not directly addressed in Dune, an example of how clever Herbert and Anderson have been in choosing the issues to flesh out in their books.) At the same time, Raquella has determined the Bene Gesserit's goals will require computer technology, which will inevitably place them in conflict with the anti-machine Butlerians, whose leader we just met in the previous chapter. This all makes for interesting reading, despite the necessarily extensive backstory.

Turning to Jane Carver of Waar, this is billed as a parody of the Edgar Rice Burroughs style of planetary adventure, but it doesn't strike me as parody so much as pastiche. Long is imitating Burroughs, not making fun of him. Except for the tough female protagonist and the modern language, this stuff easily could have been written by Burroughs himself. Here, for instance, is a scene where our heroine has been captured by tiger-striped centaur creatures:

I was barely conscious. The endless pounding gallop had jumbled my brains to cream of wheat, so I only got impressions: trees like droopy palms hanging over the creek, a sea of leather tents spreading to the canyon walls, the smell of meat and shit, pony-sized cen-tiger kids and cen-tiger chicks with four boobs to go with their four arms trotting alongside the column staring at us, the feel of cool air as we left the dry dust of the plains.

This seems to be the point of the book: imagining how Edgar Rice Burroughs would sound if he had used terms like "shit," "boobs," and "cream of wheat." Humor is a subjective thing, so your mileage may vary, but it doesn't do much for me. Instead of reading further in Jane Carver of Waar, I'd be more inclined to dig up Michael Moorcock's Kane books or Leigh Brackett's Skaith series; better yet, I could just read some Edgar Rice Burroughs.

THE WINNER: SISTERHOOD OF DUNE by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Sisterhood of Dune will move on to meet Orson Scott Card's Shadows in Flight in the second round.

To see the whole bracket, click here.