A dramatic prequel to Frank Herbert's award-winning science fiction novel, Dune, journeys back to the planet Arrakis to visit the extraordinary desert world decades before Paul Atreides arrives to change the history of the universe. 125,000 first printing.
Acclaimed SF novelist Brian Herbert is the son of
Dune author Frank Herbert. With his father BH wrote
Man of Two Worlds, and later edited
The Notebooks of Frank Herbert's Dune. Kevin J. Anderson has written many best sellers, alternating original SF with novels set in the
X Files and
Star Wars universes. Together they bring personal commitment and a life long knowledge of the Dune Chronicles to this ambitious expansion of a series which transformed SF itself.
House Atreides chronicles the early life of Leto Atreides, prince of a minor House in the galactic Imperium. Leto comes to confront the realities of power when House Vernius is betrayed in an imperial plot involving a quest for an artificial substitute to melange, a substance vital to interstellar trade found only on the planet Dune. Meanwhile House Harkonnen schemes to bring Leto into conflict with the Tleilax, and the Bene Gesserit manipulate Baron Harkonnen as part of a plan stretching back a 100 generations. In the Imperial palace treason is afoot, and on Dune itself, planetologist Pardot Kynes embarks on a secret project to transform the desert world into a paradise.
Dune remains the best-selling SF novel ever, such that three decades later no prequel can possibly have the same impact. Yet in House Atrides the authors have written a compelling, labyrinthine, skilfully imagined extension of the world Frank Herbert created, which ably commands the attention for almost 600 pages. It is powerful SF continuing a great tradition, and in itself is a very considerable achievement. --Gary S. Dalkin
