Dune Messiah

The second book in the Dune series continues the story of Paul Atreides. Dune Messiah takes place about a decade after Dune and Paul is now emperor over almost the entire known universe. But the story is not about the continuing adventures of Paul, rather it is about his undoing.

This undoing is partly due to a snow-ball effect from the jihad initiated in the first book and partly due to a conspiracy initiated against Paul. All of this is revealed in the opening chapters, which works really well for keeping interest high: what is the purpose of this? will the conspiracy or Paul succeed? who is truly prescient? Dune did the same with Yueh's betrayal, but in Messiah it extends to the last chapter.

I found the philosophical musing a bit difficult to follow at times, but overall I think the overarching potrayal of Paul as an unwilling Messiah worked well. The end did at least tie up the Paul’s story and set up characters for the next books. And while it felt sluggish, the end also convinced me to at least read Children of Dune.