We’re not that far ahead in time after Dune Messiah. For a recap – at the end of Messiah Paul kinda just wandered away into the desert after Chani died in childbirth. It’s not a spoiler for Children of Dune, but totally for Messiah. If you’re reading this review, I really hope you’ve read Messiah, or just don’t care if you’re spoiled!
Paul Muad’Dib’s kids Leto and Ghanima are under the care of their aunt Alia. She’s kinda crazy though. She is the same “type” of special person as the kids. They all have supernormal (that word was in the synopsis, so I’m using it!) abilities that are very similar to Paul’s and Jessica’s abilities. Alia basically let power get to her head, and she’s also eventually internally possessed (abomination). All of that stuff is pretty confusing, but I think I got the gist.
I fell in love with some of the words in this person’s review from Goodreads: “Paul Atreides’ deeply weird young twins”, “one accepts a large amount of mystical shenanigans when reading Dune”, “if a giant sandworm would have eaten the Atreides twins 100 pages in, I would have been very much not sad” That really sums up my thoughts. Interesting story and characters, waaaay too many words.
There’s yet another assassination plot (maybe 2?), and the twins have to pretend that it worked. Also, there’s a whole “do we trust Jessica” plot that I just don’t get. I’ve liked Jessica from nearly the first time I read about her, and now we’re supposed to think she’s plotting against her grandkids? I don’t like it. The rest of the book is Leto being some sort of worm/person hybrid and it’s both cool and creepy at the same time. Unfortunately, I think I’m done (at least for now) with Dune.