ISBN: 0553110845 9780553110845

Category: Fiction / Science Fiction / General

Page count: 496

The triumphant conclusion to the blockbuster trilogy that made science fiction history! <br>In Dune: House Corrino Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson bring us the magnificent final chapter in the unforgettable saga begun in Dune: House Atreides and continued in Dune: House Harkonnen. <br>Here nobles and commoners, soldiers and slaves, wives and courtesans shape the amazing destiny of a tumultuous universe. An epic saga of love and war, crime and politics, religion and revolution, this magnificent novel is a fitting conclusion to a great science fiction trilogy ... and an invaluable addition to the thrilling world of Frank Herbert's immortal Dune. <br>Dune: House Corrino <br>Fearful of losing his precarious hold on the Golden Lion Throne, Shaddam IV, Emperor of a Million Worlds, has devised a radical scheme to develop an alternative to melange, the addictive spice that binds the Imperium together and that can be found only on the desert world of Dune. <br>In subterranean labs on the machine planet Ix, cruel Tleilaxu overlords use slaves and prisoners as part of a horrific plan to manufacture a synthetic form of melange known as amal. If amal can supplant the spice from Dune, it will give Shaddam what he seeks: absolute power. <br>But Duke Leto Atreides, grief-stricken yet unbowed by the tragic death of his son Victor, determined to restore the honor and prestige of his House, has his own plans for Ix. <br>He will free the Ixians from their oppressive conquerors and restore his friend Prince Rhombur, injured scion of the disgraced House Vernius, to his rightful place as Ixian ruler. It is a bold and risky venture, for House Atreides has limited military resources and many ruthlessenemies, including the sadistic Baron Harkonnen, despotic master of Dune. <br>Meanwhile, Duke Leto's consort, the beautiful Lady Jessica, obeying the orders of her superiors in the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, has conceived a child that the Sisterhood intends to be the penultimate step in the creation of an all-powerful being. Yet what the Sisterhood doesn't know is that the child Jessica is carrying is not the girl they are expecting, but a boy. <br>Jessica's act of disobedience is an act of love -- her attempt to provide her Duke with a male heir to House Atreides -- but an act that, when discovered, could kill both mother and baby. <br>Like the Bene Gesserit, Shaddam Corrino is also concerned with making a plan for the future -- securing his legacy. Blinded by his need for power, the Emperor will launch a plot against Dune, the only natural source of true spice. If he succeeds, his madness will result in a cataclysmic tragedy not even he foresees: the end of space travel, the Imperium, and civilization itself. <br>With Duke Leto and other renegades and revolutionaries fighting to stem the tide of darkness that threatens to engulf their universe, the stage is set for a showdown unlike any seen before.