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Love Dune. Love it.

My first exposure was to the original movie when I was around 13 on VHS. Being intrigued but highly confused, I went directly to the first book. Things began making much more sense. I read one book per year in high school (lots of other stuff read, and Herbert's writing is... dense) usually managing to make a book report in English class about whichever book I read that year. I liked the twists in just about every book - Alia is the new hero in book 2 and I'll avoid spoilers about book 3 - then skipping ahead thousands of years - then doing it again. In preparation for Hunters and Sandworms of Dune I recently re-read God Emporer, Heretics and Chapterhouse. Of the three, I found Chapterhouse was the book I remembered least, and you could easily cut the first 100 pages of that book and not miss a thing (seriously). I've read all the prequels, though I found the "House" series to be better than the "Jihad" series. I also read "The Road to Dune", though none of the others you mentioned.

I enjoyed both SciFi miniseries. The Dune miniseries is much truer to the book than the movie was (though the visuals from the movie are better and are still what I "see" in my head when I read the books). I thought Children of Dune was great - great acting, and great adaptation. I wish SciFi would continue to adapt the books.

I'm looking forward to Hunters... to the point of drooling. If you visit www.dunenovels.com you can see the cover art for the book and read the first chapter. For those who don't know, Hunters of Dune is the first of two books adapted from Frank Herbert's notes on the sequel he had planned for Chapterhouse: Dune. I think Anderson/Brian Herbert are very different authors from Frank - his writing was much more dense whereas their's is much from escapist. However, I don't think they've done a bad job, and I've been happy to have new Dune books to read for the past 7 years or so.

And just to strike up some new conversation - because someone mentioned Paul's treatment of Irulan - I felt exactly the same way. As a matter of fact, I never really liked Chani - I always preferred Irulan. And if I had written Dune, I would have had Chani die in that attack in book 1 instead of Leto (Paul's son). Then, at the end, Paul marries Irulan, who eventually gives birth to Ghanima. So we'd still have had both children - just from different mothers. But that's just my 2cents. If you'd like my opinion on any other Dune stuff - ask away. I'd be happy to discuss.