Finally got around to finishing Chapterhouse last night. Awesome book. But goddamn, that cliffhanger. The last few chapters really did feel like the setup for a big, crazy-ass finale to the series. It's kind of depressing, but at the same time the mystery of it is cool. I read some reviews and brief synopsis of Hunters of Dune, and I really have no urge to read it. Just the synopsis alone makes it sound...not very inspired. Having a bunch of the original characters come back as gholas and stuff, "ultraspice", etc. Just not interested at this point. Maybe someday, but I do feel like I need a break of the series. They weren't what I'd call "easy reads" for me personally. Not hard in the way of like, old literature or whatever, but just kind of exhausting in certain ways. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy it, because I really, really did. It's probably now among my favorite SFF series ever.
The quality of the writing is, obviously, superb. And it's really incredible how ahead of its time it was in a lot of ways. It was all very unpredictable, and also very realistic feeling. The characters, their motivations, the way things played out, all came across as what would actually happen if this future existed. As of now, if I had to rank my favorite installments in order, it would probably be:
Dune
God-Emperor
Heretics
Chapterhouse
Messiah
Children
Dune and God-Emperor were amazing. GE was slow at points, but I was fascinated by Leto and pretty much every other character. Children of Dune was the only one that I found to be a bit of a chore to get through, though I'm not really sure why. I thought Heretics and Chapterhouse were both a bit slow to get going, but they also had phenomenal endings.
There's almost nothing I genuinely disliked about the series, but if I had to point something out, I guess it would be that the POV transitioning felt a little outdated and clunky at times, though at the same time I feel like it was necessary for this kind of story. I also felt like it would have been cool to hear about some more planets/cultures/factions as the series went on. It felt a little bit like, we always hear about how many civilizations and Great Families there are, and yet even after thousands of years, it mostly still focuses on Arrakis, Tleilax, Ix, and then Chapterhouse. Obviously just a minor nitpick though.
So, I guess now my question is, what the hell do people think was going on with that weird, god-like couple that Duncan was "spying" on? They were like super-advanced Face Dancers, correct? Is that what the Honoured Matres were supposed to be running from? What was the "net" they were talking about?
I'll chime in later about my thoughts on the series as compared to TDCTB.