I loved book one and two and I unfortunately have to echo the sentiment of many others and say this one just fell flat for me. A lot of info dumping and very convenient plot twists that just left me wanting more. I hope there is another installment in this series because it feels like so many characters were kind of pointless players in this game. I still had a fun time & enjoyed the series over all so I’m not discouraging anyone from finishing, but just to go in with lower expectations.

I loved how much this book made me think. So many thoughts on politics, religion, heroism, environmentalism. One of the things I found most interesting was how this story asks you to confront a lot of uncertainty and how interconnected all of our choices and actions are. I think it’s human nature to want to believe that if we just took care of one evil guy, we could have peace and justice, when the reality is that there is no one evil guy. Everyone in this plot has contributed to where Paul finds himself, Paul included. I still feel a lot of empathy for Paul at this point because you can see that a lot of things happened to him when he was a child and he couldn’t make choices for himself. It also feels like there’s a lot of uncertainty around exactly what Paul believes the “right” choice would be; things are always shifting in his visions but constantly bring him back to his feeling of “terrible purpose”. So while I don’t feel like I can put all the blame on Paul (just like I can’t put all the blame on Jessica, or the Bene Gesserit, or the Baron, or the Emperor, or the Guild), we can’t absolve him (or the others) either. I can’t pretend like I would make the “right” choice because I’ve never been the son of a duke on a desert planet where everyone was trying to kill my whole family and also my mom was a witch. Is the message then, there is no right choice? Or maybe more like, there is no easy choice. Every choice will have its consequences; not choosing is also a choice. I’m left wondering about all the different reasons Paul feels drawn to his terrible purpose. Even though he is being obviously impacted by his mother and then the expectations of the Fremen (which is, of course, all tied up to a million other choices by different people over thousands of years- that is so wild to think about! We feel so small but what choices are we making that will ripple out thousands of years from now?) there’s also this underlying sense that Paul feels an obligation to not only avenge his father’s death but to reclaim the Atreides name/glory - which honestly almost feels like a bigger problem than the rest, because if he wasn’t set on finding a way to be in control of Arrakis again, would he have risen in the same way and become their prophet? If Paul and Jessica had made the choice to leave Arrakis (if possible, I guess now that I’m writing this I see this probably felt like an impossible choice just based on their lack of resources) would he still have lived as a legend, or would the Fremen look/wait for another? If he had left would the prophecy start to unravel for the believers, making them question things? Could Paul see what might have felt like an equally devastating consequence by leaving (but devastating for who?)? Even if they had made that choice, would the Bene Gesserit have allowed it, or would they pull more strings to keep their plans in place? So many questions with very few solid answers. I could go on and on, I understand the hype and why people obsess over this series. I highly recommend buddy reading, I read after my husband had finished so we could talk about it and it made the experience that much better!