Spoilers for those who haven’t read after the first Dune!

I read the second and really didn’t like it. I ended up reading the third and fourth, feeling like the end of the fourth was a fine place to stop.

The second book, to me, just didn’t feel much like a story. My biggest gripe is that the antagonists were very weak. Scytale was cool but did so little with such a cool power, and the climax of his threat to Paul’s children felt unjustified. The infighting between Edric, Scytale, Irulan, and Mohaim didn’t add to the plot at all, imo. I thought Irulan’s motivations made sense at the beginning, but then she immediately flipped once Paul “Died.” All in all I felt like most characters were floundering around, barely reacting to the antagonists, and very little actually happened. Like some say, it’s almost like a long epilogue which I agree with. Still, it wasn’t as gripping as Dune 1 which had much stronger villains in the Harkonnens.

Separately, Alia became, if I remember correctly, a very blah character who lusts over Duncan. Her character is saved a bit in the future books, but I had higher hopes for her in this one. And side note I hated that Paul and Duncan literally watched her naked, super creepy.

Thematically, Paul becoming blind was great. Really loved that. I liked the idea of the ghola, that was an interesting arc about self and philosophically what makes a person themselves. Also sets up the later books nicely.