I know, I was just wondering if it would have been a single remaining book or two. Of course, I stated that before I finished Chapterhouse last night.




And before it became the linchpin of the series, as I'm starting to view it.



I hope that outline will be published one day, maybe within 10 years, when it'll be the centennial of Frank Herbert's birth?



Well, having read 3 of the prequel novels by them while metaphorically pinching my nose, I have no desire to torture myself any further. Frank Herbert wasn't an elegant writer and sometimes a few of his ideas and takes on human life irritate, but he at his worst was worlds better than what I endured in reading two of the House novels and the first Jihad book.

I just don't see where there's enough foreshadowing in the six original books for there to be two thinking machines being a main threat. Marty and Daniel seemed to be something else. The bit about Duncan Idaho's "ultimate" role, however, I thought was foreshadowed in Chapterhouse and I would have loved to have seen what Frank Herbert would have done with it.



That is true, Frank Herbert certainly didn't think his readers were "dumb" and had to have everything explained to them. His approach made me slow down a bit, since there was much to consider before I could weigh in on some of his idea presentations, but when I read the prequels, they felt like a bad Babelfish translation more than anything coherent and interesting in their own right.