Dune: House Harkonnen
by
Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson

Read by

Tim Curry

Random House, 2000, 9 hours, 6 cassettes
ISBN: 0-553-52666-9

Genre: Science Fiction
Reviewed: 1/31/2001

Reviewed by: Conan Tigard

Book Cover

Read an Excerpt

Liet climbed along the ridge

But when he looked back at the crash site, Liet was alarmed to see the battered vessel moving and lurching, already protruding a third of the way out of the sand. With a deep-throated hum, the pod heaved and strained, like a beast of burden caught in a Bela Tegeusan quag-mire. But the pulsing suspensors had only enough strength to wrench the vessel upward a few centimeters at a time.

Liet froze when he realized what his father was doing. Suspensors. Out in the open desert!

He ran, tripping and stumbling, an avalanche of powder sand following his footsteps. "Father, stop. Turn them off!" He shouted so loudly that his throat grew raw. With dread in the pit of his stomach, he gazed across the golden ocean of dunes, toward the hellish pit of the faraway Cielago Depression. He scanned for a telltale ripple, the disturbance indicating deep movement....

"Father, come out of there." He skidded to a stop in front of the open hatch as the pod continued to shift back and forth, straining. The suspensor fields thrummed. Grabbing the edge of the doorframe, Liet swung himself through the hatch and dropped inside the weather pod, startling Kynes.

The Planetologist grinned at his son. "It's some sort of automated system--I don't know what controls I bumped into, but this pod just might lift itself out in less than an hour." He turned back to his instruments. "It gave me time to collate all our new data into a single storage--"
Liet grabbed his father by the shoulder and pulled him from the controls. He slammed his hands down on the emergency cutoff switch, and the suspensors faded.

Confused, Kynes tried to protest, but his son urged him toward the open hatch.

"Get out, now! Run as fast as you can toward the rocks."

”But--"

Liet's nostrils flared in angry exasperation. "Suspensors operate on a Holtzman field, just like shields. You know what happens when you activate a personal shield out in the open sand ?"

"The suspensors are working again?" Kynes blinked, then his eyes lit up as he understood. "Ah! A worm comes.

"A worm always comes. Now run!"

Review

Shaddam IV is now Emperior. He needs an heir…but all he can seem to father with his Bene Gasserit wife are girls. Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is afflicted with a disease a mother from the Bene Gasserit gave him when he raped her. But the baby, Kwisatz Haderach, that was born out of that union is destined to unite House Harkonnen and House Atreides. The Baron is raising his own protege, his nephew, who is not the most intelligent of men and acts upon his emotions rather than logic. Duke Leto Atreides is letting the exiled Prince and Princess of Ix stay with him. He fathers a son with the Princess, but also ends up taking a Bene Gasserit concubine. The Prince of Ix provides weapons to the resistance on machine world Ix through a young freedom fighter named C'tair. His goal is to rid the planet of the Harkonnen rule. On Dune, Liet-Kynes grows to manhood and trains with a rebel force. Their leader is unusual since he is quite distinguished. On Giedi Prime, Gurney Halleck watches in horror as his sister is dragged away to become a plaything of the Harkonnen soilders. While trying to free her, he is captured and watched her raped and killed. He vows vengeance.

This is an audio version of the book Dune: House Harkonnen by Brian, the son of Frank, Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. This is a prequel to the regular Dune series. This is the second book, the first being Dune: House Atreides, in the Dune prequel trilogy. The story is read by acclaimed actor, Tim Curry. This audio book is in cassette format, consisting of 6 each about 1½ hours each, and plays for 9 hours. This is an abridged version of the novel. This is a hard-core science fiction story that has some very nasty characters. This is not a sweet or nice story, but rather one of ruthless ambition by a few greedy characters that cause pain and suffering to all that would oppose them, willingly or not. This story takes place on many worlds and has quite a few characters. Harkonnen rules their planets with the heavy hand of terror. Resistence is starting to build and the wave is getting close to breaking.

Having only seen the movie a few times, and never having read any of the books, although I have them, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I sat down to listen to nine hours of storytelling by Tim Curry. But I knew that I liked Tim Curry as an actor and that would make this a plus to listen to. And he did not disappoint. Tim Curry did change his voice for most of the characters in the book giving each a personality, but there were so many characters at first I found myself getting a little lost at first. But as the story unfolded, I found that I was slowly becoming more comfortable with everyone. Although, even by the end of the tale, I still had trouble remembering what some of the characters had done earlier in the story and exactly who they were. After listening to almost half of the story, I found myself thing about what had gone on and looking forward to finding out more. Since this book is the second in a trilogy, I was a little disappointed that things were not resolved. I guess that will be happening in the final book Dune: House Corrino.