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derkastellan · 5 years

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Review: The Butlerian Jihad (Dune)

Where to start... Just having finished The Butlerian Jihad by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson I find myself disappointed by the whole thing, though the writing was on the wall hundreds of pages ago. I had originally hoped that the rather thick softcover would cover the topic so broadly displayed on its cover but even of that I remain in doubt...

The Butlerian Jihad is a prequel written to Frank Herbert’s Dune cycle. The inspiration is a historical event used in those books to explain the absence of thinking machines and artificial intelligence. Herbert always painted in broad enough strokes to leave the history of his world in mystery while also providing explanation as to the why of his specific setup. The forces in play he set up for his world seem like they either were never meant to be described in more detail, and if they were, one would wish a master such as the late Herbert himself would have done so.

Prequels often suffer from similar weaknesses but even as they do, this one reads more like a Michael Stackpole novel than a true installment of Dune. Stackpole I remember fondly for his BattleTech novels that I read as a teenager. He wove a set of events, provided action scenes, a little hint of sex here and there. He is a solid, entertaining author, firmly rooted in the craft of making action-oriented, logical books, even trilogies if needed. The book at hand can also at most claim this for itself: It has been crafted. As so many prequels it also fails to surprise or to add, staying firmly rooted within the canon of the books it tries to lead up to.

Now, fandom is of course a reason for this. A prequel often avoids changing established facts or at best makes them seem in a different light. A movie like Solo just plays out the moments once alluded to in throwaway sentences. That is, of course, tripe. The Star Wars movies known as the prequels, on the other hand, try to also paint a picture of a dying world, and as such they have something to offer even if the outcome is predictable. Somewhere in between The Butlerian Jihad finds itself.

Little did I know that this was the first book in a trilogy when I grabbed it. In picking up the book at a used book store the outside fails to mention this fact, though it is mentioned inside the cover in the form of an ad. This already explains a lot about the book because it clocks in at roughly 1 1/2 times the pages of the vastly superior God Emperor of Dune, while offering precious little in terms of plot development. I mean, books 2, 3, and 4 of the Dune cycle have sometimes been criticized for their pacing but I think The Butlerian Jihad has them beat. A rather too big cast is introduced to serve as backdrop for impressions that are meant to convey scale and nature of the conflict to us. Sadly, a lot of the book merely reads like filler, often repeating the same point about a character without any poignancy.

Example? Head sorceress Zufa Cenva of Rossak is incapable of appreciating anything about her lover Aurelius Venport or her daughter Norma Cenva at the beginning, middle, and end of the book. Aurelius in turn tries to find her acknowledgment at the beginning, middle, and end of the book. The only one of the three that has a minimal character arc is Norma, who, after finding a job, dismisses her perpetually angry mother. Her minimal yet entirely predictable character arc makes her seem at least somewhat interesting.

Predictability is one of the main traits of the whole book. Now, prequels tend to be rather predictable as one can spot telltale signs of where a certain idea is heading. TBJ makes this all-too-easy. This wouldn’t be so lame were the book not constantly to praise humanity’s ability to surprise, something which the characters (and so in turn the authors) fail to do entirely.

The book also choses a weak setup. Thinking machines need not equate a singularity. The arch villain of the story, however, is “Omnius the evermind.” An AI ruling most of human-inhabited planets, he serves as a rather weak counterpart for the story. He is entirely predictable, seems to have little ideas of his own, a weak ability to execute on them, and frankly, plain dumb and ineffective. One wishes for “him” to encounter Marvin the depressed robot and commit robo suicide.

Now, Omnius watches everything through his watcheyes but nothing relevant for the plot to proceed. His processing capacity is apparently insufficient to monitor and surveil globally. Even after 1,000 years he seems to have completely miscalculated how many machines he needs to keep humanity in check - and he also seemed to have no impetus to build an ever larger array of thinking machines to bring up the number. He seems entirely content to keep a predictable contingent of somehow independent-yet-not-independent robots around and sulk on his worlds while humans live as slaves. His motivations are completely unclear and entirely illogical throughout the book. He does not appear alien or enigmatic but entirely indecisive, flawed, and unable to press a point. He shares thoughts among his various copies through a few update ships which transfer copies. Even just thinking how these updates could possibly work seems more interesting than the book itself.

His partner in crime is Erasmus, a somewhat independent robot which Omnius keeps around as a sort of entertainment or to see if he can create something helping to predict humans better. Erasmus is a good thinking machine in that he is also entirely predictable. But maybe just because he is a character in this novel... Having to serve as the villain standin he conducts experiments reminiscent of Josef Mengele, twin studies no less, and needless vivisections. Being a device he definitely serves as a convenient plot device... He also proves that the thinking machines are entirely stupid to begin with... leading to one of the weakest points in the book.

Erasmus has actually a wager with Omnius that he can trigger a revolt inside the slave population, proving to Omnius (in a sort of “I’m smarter than you” move) that he is useful in understanding what motivates them. He is entirely incapable of anticipating that this would lead Omnius to see humanity as a bigger threat than anticipated and hence in need of extinction. Erasmus weak logical thinking has no consequences because that copy of Omnius is conveniently eradicated through the following revolt and plot events that allows Erasmus to escape to serve as the villain in another book again.

Now, the events that Erasmus sets in motion prove that almost no human in this book shows any agency. Their priorities are set by outside forces. The core of human rebellion starts with Erasmus formenting unrest and telling Omnius about it and yet nothing of it is discovered by Omnius even after that revelation. Conveniently the most dangerous rebel leader and his people are in place right when Erasmus creates an atrocity, triggering a rebellion. Given the constant cruelty exposed by the cyborg Titans throughout the book this moment seems artificial, contrived, and reeks of deus ex machina, apparently one of the main ways this book is crafted.

As an example of a human plot device, Vorian Atreides is aboard an Omnius update ship also for plot convenience. His ship conveniently reaches the newly conquered colony Giedi Prime exactly as it has been retaken by free humans but before they can claim the world fully, offering an immediate window for his escape. He also manages to return to Earth exactly after the rebellion started there but before the rebels storm Erasmus’ villa of horrors in spite of the fact the rebellion started there.

In essence the book has a staggering variety of plot holes and events linked by deus ex machine timing. The contradictions in the plot are also striking. The Titans are a group of brains-in-jars that use giant robot bodies. They originally subjugated humanity through hacking the original AIs serving mankind with more aggressive programming to serve as their army. They in turn grew complacent and when the laziest one gave in turn too much self-control to a thinking machine, Omnius was “born” and immediately and rapidly took over.

One has to wonder... how? Omnius, after 1,000 years of rule (an often repeated point) seems to sluggishly keep his copies in sync, yet managed to outpace the Titans in his rebellion and took over before they could do anything to prevent it. Omnius is behaving like a fast-replicating computer virus when the story needs it and remains an indecisive villain the rest of the time. His inability to deal with human surprise is constantly reiterated yet the Titans find no way to foil him in a millenium.

The Titans, in turn, are weak characters as well. They are constantly aggressive, repeat the same personality flaws ad infinitum, and only make smart moves when it the plot requires a setback for the free humans. The Titans and Omnius never resort to a simple plan where a plan prone to failure presents itself. Agamemnon’s plan to destroy a shield generator in the first battle is foiled by concentrating troops and fire. Defending the thing that acts as main defense of a planet is not actually tactical genius but is presented as such. (Omnius’ spy probes manage to retrieve the perfect intelligence without anyone mentioning how - like how can they know about the Holtzman Scrambler in the first place?) In the second battle, Agamemnon wins by simply dropping a big thing on top of the shield generator instead. Agamemnon loses his third battle because he apparently has no means to think. Cymeks (brains-in-jars with robot bodies) are especially vulnerable against psionic suicide attacks by the sorceresses of Rossak. In order to deal with that problem, he goes to Rossak, and uses a cymek assault against the group most effective against them. The cymeks get annihilated by predictable means and the Titans leave. Why did we need that scene?

So, in two out of the three battles Agamemnon knows what’s his enemies’ strong and weak points are and completely fails to use them. If all the book wants to do is portray Agamemnon as an incompetent fool then it certainly does well. How did he ever win any battles before? He can’t win them with overwhelming odds and superior intelligence. Sun Tzu is disappointed in you, Agamemnon. How did you conquer an empire before?

The whole thing seems like a comedy of errors. Somehow it needs Erasmus’ duplicate folly of inciting dissent and killing a child in plain view to start a comparatively successful rebellion. The rebellion succeeds largely with element of surprise and few suitable weapons and even destroys a giant Titan. Days later the much bigger ranks of the rebels are incapable of offering any significant resistance to... more Titans, doing the same... because it is not convenient for the plot. It is not really explained how they succeed initially, but they do. They in turn fail to achieve anything inconvient to the plot. And they are all killed to prove how cruel the machines and Titans really are. To top the whole love affair with genocide, the free humans arrive ... months later? And then blast all of Earth with nuclear weapons. Which conveniently prevents that copy of Omnius to ever get cloned. Which hasn’t happened yet because plot.

The slave rebellion on the “free human” world of Poritrin in turn fails but is there to show how cruel humans can be, including another one of these scene of senseless gore that the book provides whenever it wants to make a lasting impact on the reader. One is left with the impression that machines are cruel, brains-in-jars are even more cruel, and free humans are often ignorant and cruel, too, unless they just happen to love their babies or hang out with their family. 2002 also did not seem like a year that needed the point “slavery is evil” reiterated, but somehow the book feels compelled to do so. In the end, all is swallowed by plot convenience: The rebellion on Earth succeeds as far as needed to move the plot forward. Several protagonists escape Earth. Then it falters all of a sudden in spite of having momentum. The rebellion on Poritrin runs in parallel and also suddenly falters in spite of spreading rapidly. The rebellion on Earth is supposed to be ignited by religious fervor inspired into it by one protagonist. The religious fervor of the Zensunni and Zenshiites kepts as slaves on Poritrin, however, proves entirely ineffective.

If all of this is meant as a deep parable on world events or anything I failed to notice it because of the weak writing and pacing of the book. As a prequel it fails to introduce anything new. Its characters are inconsistent. Their reasoning is weak and one is surprised that among the billions of humans in a thousand years no one had better ideas than this. Also, a big part of the story is driven by characters that feel they must act for some reason - like the impatient Agamemnon. How did they fail to act for centuries before? How did their constantly flaring tempers not put them in trouble much earlier? It is said that machines are incredibly patient but you can see the Titans are not. Why does Omnius keep slaves around at all? What does he need of humanity?

The book succumbs to the illogical behavior of its protagonists in the end. The free humans nuke Earth in a symbolical gesture. What is that meant to accomplish? Their reasoning does not make sense at all. They already know the rebellion there is dead. It however provides a good rationale for Omnius to keep humans around: as hostages.

The book revels in portraying cruelty and gore. It also meanders about in search of a plot point it actually, tries to make. All the things setting up the importance of Arrakis also have to happen in the same time frame as if hurriedly setting up a stage. Holtzman shields and Holtzman effect, glowglobes and suspensor fields, the importance of Arrakis spice, folding space - most of this is set in motion during this book, in course of the same few months, as if the authors want to emulate the old fallacy that technological progress is somehow supercharged during times of war (when it really is mostly the hunt for weaponized applications in reality). But there are ten millenia between this time and the next book - I hope they invented something after this war as well?

So, if you think my review meanders all over the place, then let me tell you this book does so much much worse. It portrays parallel story threads for the sake of other books that amount to little in this one. The motivations of both thinking machines and human characters are exceedingly simple. The biggest character arc in this book is reserved for Serena Butler: Starting as a humanitarian she goes from wanting to help people to being abused and tortured and ends up as wanting some sort of glorified revenge.

Unless the other two books are of a higher quality, I’m sure no plot contrivance will be left unattempted to force the needed outcome.

#reviews #dune #science fiction

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