This is the first, in the Dune universe’s chronology, of six prequel novels to ::Frank Herbert::’s seminal Dune series (which is also 6 books in length). The books were written by Frank’s son, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson from Frank’s notes and published from 1999 to 2004.

I’ll say right up front that I enjoyed this novel immensely. I love history, even if it’s the fictional history of a fictional universe, and this played a big part in my enjoyment of this novel.

The first three novels (_Jihad_, The Machine Crusade, and The Battle of Corinn) take place 10,000 years before the original series and tell the story of the war against the thinking machines which would shape human history for those 10,000 years and beyond.

It was fascinating to see the hints of the beginnings of institutions which are the pillars of the Frank books. The Corinno, Harkonnen and Atreides houses, the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, the Fremen, as well as technological developments are all created or at least seeded in Jihad and tantalizingly so – I can’t wait to get to the next two novels. (I have to read some stuff I checked out from the library first.)

Of course wanting to learn the history of Dune isn’t enough, and, while Brian is not the author Frank was, he does a very good job with Jihad. The novel is not as complex as the original series, though in all fairness, it’s tough to set the stage for the complex world of that series and still be as complex. Brian is a more humorous author, and employs more than a little irony in places, which I definitely appreciate.

The novel is 600 pages and manages to be pretty well paced through out. There’s a lot going on. Even 10,000 years before Dune it’s still 14,000 years in our future and humanity exists on hundreds, if not thousands of worlds. Machine rule many of the, the Synchronized Worlds. Against them are the League Worlds, which is the organized human resistence to the machines, and the Unallied Planets, which are human, but not part of the League for one reason or another. Despite the grand setting and events, and as in the original series, the book focuses mainly on the characters, though there are more main characters in Jihad and this of course keeps the book from being simply a history book.

Anyone familiar with the Tolkiens and Lord of the Rings will recognize the obvious parallels. In both cases the son, after the father’s death, published number of prequels/histories. Both original works are widely held to be seminal works in their genres. And both authors brought their respective non-prose interests into their books – in Tolkien’s case it was lingustics and poetry, and in Herberts, ecology, religion and sociology.

Anyone who enjoyed Dune should enjoy Jihad as well, as well should anyone who likes an epic scifi adventure – and I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to read the 12 novels in their chronological order. How would my opinion of Jihad be different without my knowledge of the original 6 novels?