Yet another excellent story ruined by subpar narration courtesy of Simon Vance. These stories are so much better during the ensemble performance aspects - the ensemble voice actors do an excellent job bringing their characters to life; it's just too bad Simon Vance has to go ruin it with his pseudo-Middle Eastern accent and far too similar sounding characters.

This is the second book in the Paul Atreides trilogy of the Dune saga. Frank Herbert again delves into the sociopolitical and economic intrigue surrounding the Atreides empire and the geriatric spice called melange. The interesting thing about Frank Herbert's Dune saga is that it does delve so deeply into the intrigue surrounding the throne. The focus expands to include a broader look and gives the reader background information through historical records. In this way the reader gets a very broad view of Paul Atreides and his empire. This makes it so much more a shame that Simon Vance was allowed to ruin the read. For fans of the series, this makes it a bitter pill to swallow.

I loved the first book, Dune. Great story. I tried my best to listent to this part 2 book, Dune Messiah. Got half way through and stopped. It didn't hold my interest. I listen to books while I drive, and this book was putting me to sleep!

I highly recommend Dune
I can't recommend Dune Messiah.

Would recommend for continuity to the series, the rest won't make sense without this book.

A very powerful ending to an otherwise difficult book.

The ending.

No.

I am a huge fan of the original Dune series. Messiah lacks the sweeping vision and power of Dune or Children of Dune/God Emperor, but is necessary to understand what comes after. It's difficult to see the victory of Muad Dib washed away, but ultimately we understand why. Paul is one of my favorite characters and I wish he wasn't such a tragic figure, but that's one of the most powerful elements of the series. With that said, Messiah sets the stage for many of the elements to come, and explains much of the Dune Universe that was glossed over in the original.

The plot was hard to figure out and why I should care. It didn't have the same action and amazement as the fist book. It was just too complicated to follow.

I feel it is hard to tag along in the book. Full of trying to be smart. A plan within a plan within a plan. Like the fist book but this doesn't have the magic as the first book had. Now Paul has all the kingdom and universe it becomes really dull.

The end, it was only then I started to understand the book.

No

I love the fact I could listen to what the movie the "The Children of Dune" could not tell you

While the first book in the Dune series has lots of action, intrigue, and philosophy, this 2nd book is far to heavy on the latter.

I listened to this book right after finishing Dune, which I liked a lot. Sadly, I found this book to be a letdown on two important fronts. Firstly, the plot was ultra-boring. I struggled to stick with it until the end, continually hoping that something exciting or interesting would happen, but it never did.

Secondly, the narration used a different style than in Dune. In Dune, Simon Vance was the primary narrator, and other characters were acted by different narrators. I'm a big fan of Vance and the division of roles in Dune worked well. In this book, however, the narrators took turns reading. So, for example, Vance would read for a while non-stop doing every character, then the next narrator would take over. For me, this style of narration didn't work quite as well. Every time the narrator would change, I noticed it and it took me a while to get used to how the new narrator played each character. It ended up being a distraction. Too bad.

I absolutely loved book one on Audible. All of the actors and sounds really took this book to a new level. Unfortunately I can't say the same about "Dune Messiah" the story itself was lack luster in comparison to book 1 and the reading approach was not to my liking. As others have reviewed. The acting approach all went out the window. Instead they had different narrators take turns on different chapters. I know I would have enjoyed this book more if 1 narrator was reading. But because it was different ones it really took me out of the story and I was frankly tired when i finished. Frankly this is first time I have been so disappointed in an audio recording. Id give 3 stars because I felt all the narrators did a good job, but I'll give 2 stars for overall story and this disjointed narration style.

Basically, I am giving Dune Messiah three stars because the book itself was not that good. Which is sad because Dune is fantastic and the audio production of Dune Messiah is amazing.

This book is just not compelling in and of itself.

This first book in the Dune series was fantastic and I would recommend it to and anybody. Unfortunately I can only recommend the Messiah to hard core fans or fans of hard science fiction. In Messiah the action is turn down a notch or two, and the book becomes quickly weighted down by the mythology and science surrounding Paul and the Dune universes. It required a little more pushing to get through the Messiah, but the ending was good enough for me to enjoy the book overall and consider the third book in the series.