Hello everyone!
I've finally started on the proper journey of this, to chew my way through everything leading up to Dune (and one can hope, beyond).
Thus, if you know me, then you'll know I HAVE to begin at the beginning.
I would have done so pre-reading Dune, too, but I got swept away and I really wanted to see what the written stuff was all about after watching the two movies, so, here I am.
Where it all should have started.
Without further yapping from me, let's jump right into it: we're Hunting Harkonnens!
Now keep in mind that this is a novella and therefore, not even one hundred pages long. It's a very, VERY short story that's more-or-less background for why one of the main characters in The Butlerian Jihad doesn't really have any family when we get to meet him - around 10 000 years before Paul Atreides.
The Harkonnens - mom, dad, and eldest son, Piers - are returning from their mining colony, making their way towards Salusa Secundus (at this point, a prosperous planet rather than an inhospitable prison), and daddy-o is unhappy his son was trying to change his sadistic ways into something a little more humane and manageable.
They don't have all that much time to really gnaw over it, though, because they get attacked by cymeks.
A little explanation: cymeks are basically mechanical bodies with human brains, from humans who transformed themselves so they'd be able to live forever.
Their leader is Agamemnon - yes, after THAT king - and once upon a time, he and his co-Titans (again, heavy Greek mythology inspo here) took over the Old Empire, the one in which life spread from Earth out among other planets, but then they gave too much power to AI and the AI took over, naming itself Omnius. Now, they serve it.
And they hunt free humans for sport, because humans are only good as slaves, don't you know.
Piers' mother ejects his lifepod out towards the planet Caladan, saving him while the family ship is destroyed, and he has to scramble for his life when the cymeks follow after him to the surface.
Instead of dying, however, he gets rescued by Caladan natives, who not only save him, but defeat the cymek hunting him, cook its brains in a hot geyser, and eat it.
Agamemnon comes to Caladan personally to deal with the runaway, and both he and Piers tumble INTO the geyser vat together, but neither of them perish - Piers survives, horribly disfigured, to tell stories among the natives, and Agamemnon heads back to report to Omnius (a report he's going to manufacture very, very carefully, so no blame attaches to him).
Elsewhere, the sole survivor of House Harkonnen, Xavier, promises his godfather (as well as the stars) that he'll grow up to fight (and maybe defeat) the cymeks.
Which is our segue into The Butlerian Jihad, where we'll witness an adult Xavier probably doing JUST that!
As I said, this is a backstory for Xavier, who plays only a tiny part in this. It does, however, offer a first look into a universe where machines and humans war, and I'll admit I found the cymeks a little unsettling.
Onwards!
Onwards!
xx
*image not mine
Dune (book)
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