Rating: 
Summary: A good read, but the devil's in the details....
Review: This book is a pretty good read. Unlike the original Dune series, it is not a great book, and anyone who anticipates such will be disappointed. Still, I was happy to read more of the exploits of Leto, the Atreides family, and their allies and enemies. Some of the new characters were excellent additions. I was jarred, though, by a few obvious errors. For example, after the Tleilaxu take-over of Ix, we actually get to see the Axlotl tanks. However, as we learned in the later Dune books, there are no "tanks" but instead the gholas are birthed by the Tleilaxu females. So when the tanks actually showed up as physical tanks, and when the Tleilaxu were actually doing scientific research with them, I was disappointed. It doesn't seem to be such a big thing to try to ensure consistency of such a key point of the entire series. Still, the overall reading was fine, and the story was interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Only slightly better than the book that follows
Review: Reviewer: Chuck Spicer from Champaign, IL USA Brian distorts the Dune serious making unbelievable leaps and writing things that any Dune fan know just couldn't be or clash with Frank's vision. The characters are one dimensional and the story line is preposterous. It's as badly written as star trek books. This book might be entertaining to those looking for a fun read but anybody who holds Dune true and dear to their hearts will dislike this. This was obviously a tool to fatten his pockets. He should have listened to his father when he wrote "YOu don't write for success." Let Brian have his fun with the prequels but let us all hope he doesn't truely desicrate Dune by attempting Dune 7.
Rating:
Summary: A pretty good beginning
Review: I was skeptical about reading this one due to the number of negative reviews I saw. I am pleased to say I disagree with them. Once I started, I never put this book down throughout an entire weekend. Any book that causes you to stay up late reading it is fine by me. Is it as good as Dune? No. How many books out there are? There are a number of cool refrences to future events, and the development of several familiar faces was done superbly. Count Fenring is my new favorite character: mean, methodical, and no one in his or her right mind will mess with him. Unfortunately, you almost need to read Dune first, or the refrences in this one will not make sense. Either way, its definatly worth the time to check this one out. I only give 4 stars because I feel people give out far too many 5's (and 1's for that matter, nothing in between).
Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful continuation
Review: This book is wonderful. After I read Dune, I had wondered how some things came to be. This book, explained it all to me. I recomend it to all Dune lovers. Frank Herbert's original style cannot be found in it, but that is expected. If you love Dune, read this book!! I cannot wait for Dune: House Harkkonen and Dune: House Corrino to be published (I prefer the paperback versions of books). This is a wonderful prequel and deserves attention.
Rating:
Summary: This is a Good Book, despite some people's low ratings
Review: I look at some of the other people's reviews of this book and they are embarrasing. Most of the people reading this book seem to be trying so hard to not like this book that they forget that it was made to be enjoyed. Many of the descriptions say how this book is "not as good as the original." Frankly, if all you do is compare books to the original Dune, then you might as well give a one to everything.When I read this book I was blown away. Brian Herbert managed to take a piece of history that was already spoken of in the original and weave it into a masterpiece. I found myself unable to stop reading this book until it was over. Even then you wish you could read more. I have not yet read the sequel, but I have been wanting to ever since I first read this. Another point to note is that it is a very different writing style than the original. It is much more straight-forward and replaces the "baroque mystique" with a more modern attitude. It is very well written and can be read by both educated and common people easily. I finished the six hundred and fifty pages in less than a week. The only way someone can insult this book is if they attempt to compare it with the original Dune, a book which has not yet been equaled.
Rating:
Summary: An Introduction to Dune
Review: This is a prequel written by Frank Herbert's son, Brian and Kevin Anderson. It takes place during the Old Duke's (Leto) coming of age and tells us about the Atreides, the Harkonnens, the Ix and a little more about the Navigation Guild. This novel is a good telling of the history surrounding Dune. It is more accessible and, thus, less intimating than the Dune series. It seems that it would be a good introduction to Dune, but it is not quite up to the master. I will be reading House Harkonnen and House Corrino.
Rating:
Summary: Not bad at all; Dune with IQ out, flash in
Review: I am not a Kevin J. Anderson fan by any stretch of the imagination (he's poisen to Star Wars, I tells ya) and I am a fan of the original Dune series (although not as hardcore as most). And with these two concepts colliding as I read "House Atreides", a shocking fact unfolded like Paul's visions in the original book... I actually liked it. I'm not one to tally up every detail in the original Herbert series, so theres no way possible I could criticize it for missing details. All I can say it was a good read. Unlike Frank Herbert, whose writing was intelligent and made you think, Anderson prefers rather to show everything, leaving nothing to the imagination. Every scene, action and battle is told in Anderson's quaint style. And I found nothing wrong with it. It was fun to get a look at the major characters seen a few decades before the original novel. Just the same, I still prefer to view this work as a 'what if' type of Dune story, a glamourised look at the characters and locations Herbert created. Rather than an accurate prequal, I see 'House: Atreides' as an embellished history. But a fun sci-fi romp all the same.
Rating:
Summary: Surfing on the Dunes
Review: I really enjoyed House Atreides -- more than Chapterhouse Dune -- so I don't think the series will suffer in these hands. I did have one problem with the book: the Harkonnen no-field ship attack reeked of Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country. Not to mention that due to the length of time for a fold space trip (supposedly instantly) there wouldn't have been time for the string of events that occured to happen. Other events were predictable, but that didn't detract from my overall enjoyment.
Rating:
Summary: a pretty good read
Review: I enjoyed this book overall. I don't think it was as good as the original Dune. The writing was weak in places. Also it was too violent for my taste. But overall it gave interesting background to the Dune universe, and was original enough to keep my interest. If you like the other Dune books, this is worth a try.
Rating:
Summary: It's not Frank, but we know that; but it's not bad.
Review: I picked this book up based on curiousity factor; I have to confess impatience with the purists who disdain the Dune film because of it's imperfections, when anyone should realize what a daunting task it was to film and that to do as well as Di Laurentis did is an admirable accomplishment. What made me choose to pursue this book was that some files/unfinished manuscripts had apparently been found. I feel that incomplete, or even bad Frank Herbert writing is still so much better than most of the crap that gets published that I was willing to take the bait. I choose to view this as additional research into the Herbert Universe, not unlike the furtherance of JRR Tolkein's world by his son, Christopher. It will never be as if the original author were doing the writing and editing, but neither is it presented as though it were. I re-read all of Herbert's books (Frank) on a yearly basis and still find them so multi-faceted that I enjoy them in new ways and with new levels of understanding each time. Of course I find this book to be inferior in writing quality to Frank's style; the man's mind was amazing. However, if you climb down from your literary soapbox long enough to notice, you'll find some interesting explanations and historical allusions that help to flesh out (notwithstanding the odd anomaly) characters and political relationships that weren't fully explained by Frank. I enjoyed it on that basis, and chose not to expect too much. By these standards, it is a success for me.
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