In recent years, it seems there’s been a move in publishing to expand upon the most famous universes created by some of the greats of science-fiction. We’ve had the three B’s (Bear, Brin, Bradford) creating a new Foundation trilogy in the Asimov universe while over in the brilliant universe that was Frank Herbert’s Dune, we’ve had his son Brian and author Kevin J. Anderson working to fill in some of the gaps.

The Bulterian Jihad is the first of a trilogy called the Legacy of Dune and it seeks to explore the war between machines and humans that is often alluded to and referenced in Dune. I can’t aruge with the pedigree of having Frank Herbert’s son write the novel, since he created an encyclopedia for the Dune universe and would have first-hand knowledge of how things fit together.

That said, the book is a pale imitation of the style of Frank Herbert. It’s told in a more episodic nature and the characters, while interesting, lack something essnetial from Frank Herbert’s original vision. The book is fast-paced and has its moments—it does the epic battles in the first-round of the war to overthrow the machines very well. And while the authors make it fun to revisit the Dune universe, it’s not quite as rich an experience as the original novel was.