Dune Backstory – The Butlerian Jihad (Legends of Dune Trilogy Review, Part 1)

Denis Vilneuve’s upcoming Dune is poised to become the event of 2020. In anticipation of it, @AndreEinherjar has made it his mission to read all the novels in the Dune saga. In this video, chronologically first novel, “The Butlerian Jihad” by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson will be covered.

The story deals with the war against the thinking machines, a trope also hinted at in among others, the Terminator franchise and Battlestar Galactica.

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[carlosaugustodinizgarcia]

I think you should review The Dune Enciclopedia as well.
It was authorized by Frank Herbert himself (a decade or more before Brian's prequels) and had a different backstory of the Bluterian jihad, more in line with the original books.
No cliché war againt terminator/matrix like machines, it was more a cultural and religious rebellion against stagnation and dependece of A.I. to make decisions for ourselves.

[Dan__S]

This is a really deep dive, I've read all of these books. The prequel books do not live up to Herberts writing, often times the dialog is God awful, but the story of the Butlerian Jihad is pretty epic in scope. Look forward to this.

[gabrielgonzales]

Oh!....I read the 6 books by Herbert years ago! My favorite is "God Emperor of Dune." Emperor Leto II was the saga's deepest character in my opinion.

[stingray]

The Animatrix as well as the Matrix did a decent War of the machines.

[Big_E_Soul_Fragment]

Ah, yes, Warhammer 40k's dad. The Spice must flow.

[blackphoenix]

The first six Dune books are the only ones that I consider to be canon: anything else is fanfiction.

[visionflare]

Looking forward to this series. Thanks for covering the DUNE books. Really hope this franchise is given justice on film.

[RetroAmateur]

Ive set up an old dell running XP and I was playing Dune 2000 the other day.

[PalemoonTwilight]

Hello! I am so glad you are reading ALL of the books in CHRONILOGICAL order. Honestly, I do think that is the optimal way to read them. So...My history with Dune started in 1981, when a friend of mine recommended the book. I had a hard time getting past the part where Paul is attacked by the hunter-killer in his bedchamber. I started the book over four times before I finally pushed past that scene...and got hooked. Then I devoured everything Frank Herbert ever wrote. I sat through the Lynch movie in the theater with a friend who never read any of the books. That was fun. LOL Anyway, I reread all of the Herbert books three times. Then I met and married the love of my life, and together we read all of the Herbert books plus all of the Herbert-Anderson books...in chronological order...aloud. At the time, that was 19 books. My husband loved Butlerian Jihad and The Machine Crusade so much that we reread those two when we were done with the 19 books. By then, Herbert-Anderson came out with a bunch more books, and we read them, too. To date, there are 33 books and short stories. And guess what! We are reading them again. Last night, we finished reading Butlerian Jihad. I got to say, one thing that always bothered us about the Dune movies was that nobody seemed to consider going back and making a movie out of Butlerian Jihad. That story is epic. The characters are very well developed. And honestly, we do find the writings of Herbert-Anderson to be more entertaining then those of Frank Herbert. This is just our personal opinion, and I know it’s not a popular one. At any rate, we were really glad to hear you say that the story should be filmed. We have listened to other podcasts that have said they read the book but we think they only read a synopsis because they don’t mention Serena or Erasmus, or Vorian and Agamemnon Atreides. Anyway...thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. We wish you the best. 🌙💜☮️

[Darrylizer]

The Brian Herbert books are simplistic space opera's written in crayon. His understanding of his father's world was limited and that's speaking very kindly.

[LegendMkr]

What is crazy about this is that it basically set back the Dune universe back a ton. Things we even have now would be punishable by death, like a smartphone, an Alexa, or hell even a graphing calculator.

[MySamurai]

To be honest, to get the most out of these books, you need to re- read them at intervals of like every 5 - 10 years. As your life experiences change your perception of the world - it means you get a new perspective on it's underlying meanings. No need to do that for the prequels as they are disposable comic like stories.

[seanluke]

I think that the thing that Brian Herbert missed, understandably so because not many people would think of the world we are living in right now as being the catalyst for the butlerian jihad. It was as rejection of the men who control the machines that control people. The “Butlerian” title is a reference to Samual Butler, the one who first proposed the notion of the “singularity” in machine evolution. I think because of all the sci-fi movies about robots like the ones mentioned in this video aren’t what Frank Herbert was really thinking about. It was machines that could control your habits and preferences and subsequently your destiny from tracking all of the people’s actions on the past to predict the future and inso, manipulate the future. Much like Isaac Asimov’s psycho history or like Laplace’s Demon. The original Dune series is almost a repeat of that history but now with the man being the machine not a man controlling that machine. I hope that the new movie refers to that past as more like the present we are living in being slaves to FB and Amazon algorithms and not the sky net.

[kronoscamron]

"I am taking a deep dive and I am taking you all with me" sounds intimidating af.

[rengarcia]

I read this book a long time ago. I didn't really remember much about it. The Brian Herbert books are much easier to read than the originals, but they don't stay in the memory banks. I do remember the Harkonens were good guys back in the day, and I remember Erasmus, but that's about it.

[JamesThomas-pjlx]

Erasmus is my favorite Dune baddy. He is truly scary.

[erkl]

Well, the movie's out now & it's AWESOME!! I've always been *super* picky when it comes to books/films/music & I absolutely f'n LOVE this version of DUNE!! So good, Villeneuve deserves so much credit for bringing the first half of the first book to life like this.

[ovk-ihzp]

I HAVE read "Some" of the Brian Herbert prequels & I actually was impressed, NOT as impressed when I first read the original Frank Herbert books. All 6 of the originals I DEVOURED each in two-three days each, tough slog but EXTREMELY Satisfying.

[Robotrik]

I've read the original 6 Dune novels when I was 19 y/old, and have been re-reading them every 5-10 years or so, and every time I discover new things and meanings .
That has not been my experience with the other "extended universe" novels by the authors son .
The original author was well read, well educated and well traveled . His son (I'm sad to say) is comparatively none of those things . Draw your own conclusions .

I may be mis-remembering, but I think that at the time of reading the "extended universe", I got the impression that the "Butlerian jihad" was 'retold' badly in the "extended universe" novels, as the original Dune novels ONLY reference "thinking machines", and make no mention of 'Cy-mechs' (human brains inside machines) .

As to reading VS Audiobooks -- while I'm a fan of audiobooks, I've found that while reading the original Dune books I paused to ponder the introductions of various chapters in the Dune books .
These introductions came in the form of 4-8 lines, that were often fictional quotes of thoughts, documents, histories, discussions & meditations from various people and texts, and added by themselves even more layers to the already complex stories .
I sincerely do not believe that such an appreciation can be achieved by just going over said intro's once in audio form and continuing on without pausing to reflect .

Lastly, for me the much celebrated & lauded original Dune book is quite boring, and my interest in the saga picks up from the second book (Dune Messiah) and onward, as cultures & empires and heroes rise and fall in quite the Greek Tragedy fashion, as both oppression, the manufacturing and deployment of religion and the human condition is explored .
As a Star Trek fan, I could no longer read trek novels after I read Dune .
Frank Herbert and Dune work on such a higher level, it's just amazing, and from this perspective, I'm a bit saddened that Andre started with the "expended universe" novels, as they don't prepare you for the depth that the original books have (minus the first one IMHO :P ) .

[JamesGhodbane]

My expectations for Dune movie is low I don't wanna be disappointed