Legends of Dune
3 primary works
Book 1
It began in the Time of Tyrants, when ambitious men and women used high-powered computers to seize control of the heart of the Old Empire including Earth itself. The tyrants translated their brains into mobile mechanical bodies and created a new race, the immortal man-machine hybrids called cymeks. Then the cymeks' world-controlling planetary computers - each known as Omnius - seized control from their overlords and a thousand years of brutal rule by the thinking machines began. The human race still clings to life. Some - like idealistic Serena Butler of the free planet Salusa Secundus and her betrothed, the soldier Xavier Harkonnen - even dream of overthrowing the machines and freeing their human slaves. Others - like Vorian Atreides, bastard son of the cymek Agamemnon - are proud to serve the machines. But their world faces disaster. Impatient with human beings' endless disobedience and the cymeks' continual plotting to regain their power, Omnius has decided that it no longer needs them. Only victory can save the human race from extermination.
Book 2
Earth is a radioactive ruin. But the initial campaign of the Butlerian Jihad has given new hope to mankind. Serena Butler, whose murdered child has become a symbol for oppressed humanity, inspires a war against the thinking computers led by Xavier Harkonnen and Vorian Atreides. But four of the Titans - murderous machines with human brains and human cunning - still remain. And the universal computer mind, Omnius, still wields most of its power. Into this unstable landscape come two new factors. From the depths of space and time, a free Titan - the near-legendary Hecate - joins forces with humanity. And in a humble laboratory on the planet Poritrin, the mathematical genius Norma Cenva is perfecting a theory that will utterly transform the rules of space travel.
Book 3
The universal computer mind Omnius has retreated to its last stronghold, where it plots a devastating new strategy that could undo the victories of the Butlerian Jihad. The surviving Titans are creating new lieutenants to do their will when at last they return to attack the human beings they once ruled. In the years of peace too many of mankind have forgotten that their machine enemies never sleep. But some have forgotten nothing - and learned from their triumphs. The brilliant military commander Vorian Atreides, son of a Titan, has the gift of long life from his terrifying father and knows the machines' minds better than any man alive. Norma Cenva, the genius inventor of humanity's best defences, dreams of new discoveries that will make man invincible. And on the windswept desert planet Arrakis, the power that can give them victory waits. The authors of Prelude to Dune have written the triumphant climax to the history of the Dune universe: the story most eagerly anticipated by its readers.