4.0 / 5
Year
1984
Publisher
Ace Books
ISBN
978-0441328000
Fiction
Heretics of Dune
by Frank Herbert
The Dune universe rebooting itself after Leto’s long game, with new factions, weirder powers, and fresh existential patch notes.
Geek’s cut
Messiah narratives, ecological warfare, and political game theory on a planet made of anxiety sand. It rewards obsessive re-reading and punishes casual skimming.
Deeper dive
By this point, the setting feels like a sandbox modded by competing philosophies. Herbert keeps escalating the stakes while quietly asking if any system can stay sane once it knows it’s being optimized.
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