Dune: The Battle of Corrin

By: Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 25 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Fifty-six hard years after the events of The Machine Crusade, after the death of Serena Butler, the bloodiest decades of the Jihad take place. The human worlds begin to hope that the end of the centuries-long conflict with the thinking machines is finally in sight.

Unfortunately, Omnius has one last, deadly card to play. In a last-ditch effort to destroy humankind, virulent plagues are let loose throughout the galaxy, decimating the populations of whole planets. The war that has lasted many lifetimes will be decided in the apocalyptic Battle of Corrin.

In the greatest battle of science fiction history, human and machine face off one last time....And on the desert planet of Arrakis, the legendary Fremen of Dune become the feared fighting force to be discovered by Paul Maud'Dib in Frank Herbert's classic, Dune.

Don't miss other titles in the Dune series.

©2004 Herbert Properties, LLC (P)2004 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC and Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Dune addicts will happily devour Herbert and Anderson's spicy conclusion to their second prequel trilogy." ( Publishers Weekly)

Enjoyable Read

I enjoyed the continuation and expansion of the Dune universe and the elvovement of the characters and the exploration of how the authors are weaving the threads that tie into the orginal novels. Scott Brick gives a wonderful narration.

Narrators are amazing

book is worth the money. story is amazing and deep. please trust me and give it a trt.

captivating

You will be pulled into the narrative and emotion just as much as the original books. so many unexpected and revealing plots that answer questions from when I read the dune books.

I was a little hesitant to read the prequel trilogy

But man was I wrong. Genuinely fantastic. Realm enjoyed some if the twists and turns they threw at us. Also loved how it explained how the 3 main houses eventually came to be.

The story comes full circle, but very likely not the way most would have expected.

It’s really hard to heap praise on this, without giving away what I think was the most revelatory character in this prequel trilogy — and the real reason to undertake this journey of the mind, and I suppose what some would call God, the Infinite, the Conscious Universe, pick a name.

As I have stated in my other reviews about the complexities of the original Dune series by Frank Herbert, before his son and associate took on the prequel and other stories, there are a lot of topics that come up that while absolutely pertinent to the narrative, are likely to turn many people off.

Either the considerations are too complex, or, they’re stuck in dogma, which the books themselves warn against, and which painfully display the travesties that get heaped upon humanity, and machines, as a consequence.

It is only when we free our minds of this, that we are capable of self-actualization, self-awareness, and if we do it well enough, growth.

I don’t like spoilers, and I won’t do it here, because I think that would be an injustice to anyone thinking of starting these. If you’re having trouble finishing these, I can assure you, the payoff is worth it.

There were sections throughout all three where I did stop, go back, and wonder if certain words, actions or events meant what I thought they did.

By the second book, the hints are less subtle, but it’s not really clear how it will sway.

By the time the third book comes to its conclusion, you’ll realize that the epic battle at the end, as much as we wait the whole book for it — only pushes things to a head for a certain arc to complete. The Battle of Corrin is really not as important, I think, in that context, perhaps even anticlimactic. That’s OK, because this other thread throughout, is a gem.

Yes, there is an astonishing backstory for everything that plays out in Dune 1-6, including the origins of the Guild, the Bene Gesserit, etc. All of that is really quite interesting, unfolds naturally, fits into canon, as does what I think is really the hidden and far more meaningful story at its core.

It’s ironic actually, in the most spectacularly exquisite way.

I became quite invested in this particular character about which I think the trilogies are really concerned. They’re now perhaps among my most favorite in pop literature. However, the character is extraordinarily complex and equally detestable.

The narrator does a great job of giving them a unique voice, it underscores their importance, and is performed beautifully.

By the time “the end” comes, I find it difficult to consider them anything other than redeemable. I won’t lie, I shed a few tears myself. I wanted there to be something more for them, but as parents with their children, what some leave unfinished, children carry on in their name.

That is perhaps the biggest tribute one can have bestowed upon them, especially when their impact is felt across the universe, and likely the closest to immortality without madness we can be granted.

To sustain the complexity of this character, to make you reconsider your thoughts and emotions towards such a heinous being, for all the horrors they have unleashed by others and themselves, is quite the feat.

If you reach the end, and if you have read Dune 1-6, and realize how all these bits and pieces throughout were breadcrumbs of this character’s own development unto redemption and a belated gift of salvation, is probably comparable as a foil of the God Emperor of Dune himself.

If you loved Dune 1-6, then this trilogy prequel is a must, because you get plenty of the backstory, and a fascinatingly epic character I can guarantee you will think about for years to come.

It’s a worthy journey, because it’s one we all undertake alone. One whose true value and worth we can only realize when we know we must finally face The End.

May we all be so lucky to meet that with the grace and gratitude of knowing we grew, and in so doing, be proud of having left the Universe behind a little better than the way we entered into it.

Excellent

Carried the story right on from where the last book left off! Lots of action and some twists that caught me unaware! Kept my attention even though I listened to part of it every day. I recomend this book to anyone that enjoys fast action and future-related storylines!

Characters Evolve

Relationships certainly change through the course of the trilogy arc. Some of the character traits in Book1 were likely over-emphasized show how far personally traits changed by Book3

Top Tive Of All Time

This book was absolutely fantastic and the best of the Dune prequels by far. I loved seeing the formation of the Harkonnen-Atredies feud and thought it was richly complex and superbly done. The birth of space folding and the Bene Gesserit were also executed fantastically. As I passed the halfway point I started limiting myself to only an hour a day, to make it last longer. Really, one my favorites of all time - and I'm pretty picky.

A book for your inner epic completionist

This is High Epic Scifi Drama, and the third book in the first chronological prequel trilogy (not written by Frank Herbert) that sets the early back-story for the Dune series (written by Frank Herbert). It wraps up the the story set by two previous books: The Butlerian Jihad, and the Machine Crusade.

This trilogy overall is pretty good. Story telling begins a bit declarative for the first half of the first book, and the 3rd person narrative is hard to adjust-to, but rapidly becomes very interesting in the second half of the first book. By the second book, it's easy to follow and appreciate the multi-threaded style which the authors cycle through. This device - telling a story thread and leaving it hang just when something is about to happen then cycling onto the next thread -- is the way your interest is kept up for nearly 60 hours of listening, and it works.. The last book in the series, The Battle of Corrin is the longest one and really doesn't lose any steam. It's a Big Story, and it's told reasonably well.

The prose and dialogue is not the greatest, but the stories and plot lines are quite engrossing. Character development is good on the central characters, but as these things go, the central characters are demigods and everyone else (99% of the "other" people) are literally subhuman, disposable background trash.The series overall is quite graphically violent, and treats people as black and white archetypes: Heroes/Cowards, Beautifuls/Uglies, Scumbags/Noblemen, Divines/Wretches, etc. etc.

While good *on paper* and possibly necessary for telling Big Stories, these kinds of simplistic divisions do not translate well to plausibility or empathy, and can actually be kind of offensive. Yet, there it is.. Women generally seem to get a fair rap as powerful and interesting characters in their own right in these books, which is refreshing. None of the characters are terribly deep though, apart from some of the the robots. Male heroes and villains are a bit single-minded and shallow. The robots have some depth and irony - a two-sidedness.

A whitewashed, simplified religion resembling Islam is adopted pretty bluntly. There are no other overt references to other religions, despite the word "crusade" appearing in the title of the second book.

I did not particularly like the way The Battle of Corrin ended, even though it was predictable in the larger sense. It left me with a conflicted feeling of wanting more to push-on through the next prequel trilogy, but also made me want to take a break from the series due to a bit of 11th hour stereotyping.

Probably the most surprising thing about the series is that you realize it is possible to tell stories in an almost declarative manner and still remain interesting if the plot threads are good enough. No doubt these novels were influential in popular culture science fiction films. They have an almost Dr. Who kind of flavor to them, which is fun.

The narrator did an excellent job. In the second book, right in the middle, a peripheral character is killed by electric eel monsters and it was extremely funny to the fatigued listener and the one joke in the series couldn't have happened at a better time. A 10/10 laugh at martyrdom.

Nice

A great conclusion to the beginnings of Dune. Puts all the major players into play.