My Bookshelf
From the Publisher:
Fifty-six hard years after the events of The Machine Crusade, after the death of Serena Butler, the bloodiest decades of the Jihad take place. The human worlds begin to hope that the end of the centuries-long conflict with the thinking machines is finally in sight. Unfortunately, Omnius has one last, deadly card to play. In a last-ditch effort to destroy humankind, virulent plagues are let loose throughout the galaxy, decimating the populations of whole planets. The war that has lasted many lifetimes will be decided in the apocalyptic Battle of Corrin. In the greatest battle of science fiction history, human and machine face off one last time....And on the desert planet of Arrakis, the legendary Fremen of Dune become the feared fighting force to be discovered by Paul Maud'Dib in Frank Herbert's classic, Dune.
From the Critics:
The Barnes & Noble Review: From Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson comes the spectacular conclusion to their Legends of Dune trilogy (The Butlerian Jihad and The Machine Crusade), an epic saga that takes place 10,000 years before the events in Frank Herbert's classic Dune.
As the brutal galactic war between humans and the thinking machines (led by the evermind Omnius Prime) drags on, the robotic forces of the Synchronized worlds try a new technique to wipe out their carbon-based enemies. A highly contagious plague is bio-engineered and covertly sent to several League planets, where it is released into the atmosphere. Within months, billions of humans are dead or dying. As medical experts rush to find a cure for the mysterious scourge, Omnius gathers together all of its robotic fleet -- hundreds of thousands of warships -- and, in a risky endgame move, launches them all at the League's capital planet.
But because of new space-folding technology that allows ships to travel from one point to another almost instantaneously, Omnius's plans are fatefully uncovered, and the humans launch their own desperate offensive. Led by Varian Atreides, the League forces arm their space-folding ships with atomics in hopes of nuking the more than 500 now unprotected Synchronized worlds. The last planet on the list is Corrin, the stronghold of Omnius Prime and its minions of demon machines...
The Legends of Dune trilogy (especially The Battle of Corrin and its colossal battle sequence, arguably the greatest in the history of the science fiction genre) will absolutely blow readers away. These novels -- which masterfully explain the beginnings of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, the Order of Mentats, the Spacing Guild, and the irreparable rift between the House Atreides and House Harkonnen -- are a must-read for any Dune fan. Like Frank Herbert's original Dune novels, these three prequels are destined to become classics. Paul Goat Allen