Rating: 
Summary: The Spice must flow...
Review: One of the best Dune books ever written and an excellent start for the new trilogy. It's not Frank Herbert's Dune for sure, but the universe created for this trilogy works for me and really helps to understand the mithology created by old Frank. Outstanding work. Now I'm waiting for The Machine Crusade and The Battle of Corin.
Rating:
Summary: The Butlerian Jihad and the prequel trilogy
Review: I have read some of other people's reviews on Butherian Jihad. I do not agree with most of them. I found it to be an excellent book. As with the prequel trilogy(House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and House Corrino), these books help to understand many keys parts in the original Dune book. Many people thought that Butlerian Jihad had a no-so-great ending and that it kind of left you hanging. If these people had looked on the inside cover of the book, they would see that there are to be two more books to complete Butlerian Jihad. In this book, we are given totally new people, but we still have the Harkonnen and Atreides name still running around. Butlerian Jihad helps the reader to understand why the thinking machines were so bad, and why no likeness of a thinking machine should ever be made. It also shows some insight as to what Salusa Secundus was like before it became the training grounds for the Sardaukar. Butlerian Jihad also shows us that spice was not well known in the earlier times,and how it was gaining fame. I recommend this book to all of Frank Herbert's fans, anyone who liked House Atreides, House Harkonnen, House Corrino, and to anyone who is looking for a great sci-fi book to read.
Rating: 
Summary: Easy to Enjoy
Review: I just completed reading The Butlerian Jihad. For those of us who not only loved, but were truly inspired by the original Dune series (and who remember that Frank Herbert is still deceased) Brian and Kevin continue to do a remarkable job of exploring and indemnifying Herbert's fictional intentions. The beauty of any fictional read is its ability to transport. There are few who can walk away unscathed from literary dissection like Frank Herbert could. With that exception in mind, it is great fun to sit and read these latest installments for the Dune-addicted. I appreciate the way Brian and Kevin allow the reader to involve their own imaginations to a comfortable degree. Too much visual expression becomes tedious and i prefer to rely on my own mental depictions of characters etc. Both chapter velocity and the manner in which they rotate through the given plots while working towards inevitable tie-ins is well paced. New characters are often difficult to warm up too, but the guys do a spendid job of creating enough attachment to these new heroes and villains that you'll look forward to their ongoing performances in the next installments, providing they survive. As well, the unveiling of many Dune origins, from the simplicity of glowglobes to the emormity of marketing melange, was pleasurable to read. Erasmus was devious fun and the twist in the lives of characters such as Serena and Xavier was edgy and emotional stuff. I concur with some who have expressed an overabundance on battle depiction and not enough on interpersonal relationship, that which made "God Emperor of Dune" so intoxicating (oops, see, i brought Frank back into it too). But all in all i felt The Butlerian Jihad a great adventure and easy to recommend.
Rating: 
Summary: Verbose, shallow garbage.A waste of money (energy) and time.
Review: As a fan of the original Dune books ( the REAL ones written by Mr. Herbert Senior) I have plodded through the prequels and watched them...(read them?) get worse and worse.
This latest, " The Butlerian Jihad" makes me wonder if the authors have even read the originals with anything like care.
Rife with the introduction of nonsense.. ( women with silly, "Sabrina the teenage witch"-like powers never even hinted at in the original books ).... (and by the way guys... both the shield AND the lasegun are destroyed when they meet.. do your reasearch!)....
I found this book to be an utter bore. Shallow plots, clumsy interweaving of them..and , dare I say it?...so predictable that I am reminded that "absolute prediction equals death".
Far from the thought-provoking feast for the mind that was the original Dune.. this stuff is fluff and pap, seemingly cranked out to meet a publisher's deadline. Although the authors claim to be working from Frank Herbert's notes, I do not believe this sort of Pablum was what he had in mind. I think Frank Senior would be disappointed.
Order a nice, fresh, non-dogeared copy of the original instead, you'll enjoy it more!
Rating:
Summary: Butlerian Johad Review
Review: I'm only a quarter of the way into the book and I'm not sure I'll be able to finish it. The plot is weak and the action weaker yet. Many of the descriptions are irrelevant and I'm finding the book terribly verbose. The characters are so thin they're practically transparent. The science is weak to non-existent. The battle tactics are unbelievable. The style lacks the craftsmanship you'd expect from even a journeyman writer. I could go on, but you get the picture. I've never written a review before, but this sad excuse for a book has prompted me to do so.
Rating:
Summary: Former Dune Fan
Review: OK - I am done with Dune. The original series, written by F. Herbert, was excellent - it was so well detailed and written that I could almost smell the spice. The Butlerian Jihad, however, has convinced me to move on. This work was poorly written, poorly thought out, and wordy instead of detailed; it was a silly book.The Titans, the evermind, the other thinking machines were all comic caricatures of what they could have been. The inane dialog was so mind-numbing, I had to struggle through each page. My advice: read ANYTHING else- anything. Save your money, save your time, save your sanity.
Rating: 
Summary: Getting Better but still Immature
Review: The authors are improving. However, they seem to be unable to create "evil" characters that are believable. For instance, the Cymek Ajax in this installment is portrayed as nothing short of a maniac. This shallow development does not allow for any complex exploration of his motivations and loyalaties. However, I have noticed an improvement is the authors ability to create beleivable characters that are not at their extremes of good and evil.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting Read
Review: To date I have read the entire Dune series twice. I enjoyed the Butlerian Jihad. The story moves!!! Put simply... It is like watching a action packed exciting movie. The characters are intense, many plots unfold at the same time, and many unanswered questions are finally told in this gripping novel about the war against machines. I read it in one day! I couldn't put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: Dune ... Minus The Plot
Review: Not the best book I've read lately.
The pack of gum I picked up was a little more interesting, to be perfectly honest.
Brian Herbert inherited his father's name and the license for the Dune Series, but obviously, talent does skip a generation.
The plot has -a lot- of promise. Here and there, you see glimmers of hope. The characters are flat and uninteresting. There are five main "good guys" and three "bad guys." THe good guys are Serena Butler, this overly active politician's daughter who gets herself into amazingly unlikely situations, and although a skilled orator, fairly bright... lacks common sense again and again. Then, there's Xavier Harokonen, who lost his taste buds in an accident. Vorian Atreides, the turn-coat, turned from Evil to Good by falling in love with Serena. Oh, and she happens to be married to Xavier... who, when she vanishes, dumps her for her sister. There's Iblis, the suddenly made rebel of Earth.... And, Selim Wormrider.
For bad guys, there are the robots. The Cymek Leader, Agammemnon, father of Vorian Atreides (from sperm banks, 10000 years old). He's a liar, evil, etc. etc. Erasmus, the butchering robot, and Omnius... the "Ever Mind." No character strikes out as memorable.
There's no Duncan Idaho, no Stilgar, none of them that you look forward to hearing about, mourn, or worry about.
Every plot twist is predictable. Selim has a magical vision at the end, lacking the explanation or depth of Paul's.
The slave revolts in the Robot Controled Words and the Free Worlds just-so-happen to coincide, attempting to present a parallel, which is lost and seems just coincidental. The story is juvenile and bloody in many points.
One of the cymek's rips out someone's heart.
There are revolting descriptions of vulgar disections and vivisections -- perhaps the only place of significant detail.
I've still no real idea what Erasmus looks like.
But I know what a bucket full of entrails looks like. ANd how loud the slaves will scream while they're removed. Thank you, Brian Herbert for that wonderful peice of information.
Rating:
Summary: Worthy of being Part Of The Dune Legend.
Review: Brian Herbert's and Kevin Anderson's House Trilogy introduced me to the Dune Universe. I Picked up House Atreides on a whim and have read the trilogy, then most of the original Dune series. Dune is one of if not my all time favourite sci-fi series (only real competition it recieves is from the Foundation series.)
I anxiously awaited the release of this title in pocketbook ( I prefer pocketbooks to hardcover ersonal quirk), and was not disappointed. The successors to the writing of the Dune mythology seamlessly weave a background 10,000 years before the events of Dune take place. The titans, i.e. cymeks ( humans who have sacrificed their human bodies for immortal machine shells for their biological brains) overthrew the empire and years later their creation ominus a sentient computer controls most of the known universe. Pockets of humans are determined to win back their freedom and overthrow their tyrannical overlords, such as Serena Butler, Cena Zufna, Inglis, Xavier Harkonnen and more.
The author's not only develop further history further expanding the universe Frank Herbert created, they also draw obvious parallels to classic mythology. The titans Ajax, Barbarossa Agemommon and Juno for instance are familiar names to those that know their Greek and Roman Mythology. They interweave many concurrant subplots as they explore the origins of Arrakis, and sects and groups like the Beneserine(sp) sisterhood. This book is an excellent exciting, multi-layered science fiction tale, no matter how acquainted the reader is to Dune. One of the benefits the authors' have of going so far back into Dune's past is the novel not only answers some questions for the serious Duneophile, but also can draw new curious readers into the legend without them having to read the oringinal series or even the House trilogy to understand whats going on. Well done looking very forward to the second novel.
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