Dune Books Bucket List

Paul Atreides on Arrakis: spice, sandworms and the most imitated world in science fiction.

The Emperor's synthetic-spice project on Ix collapses while Leto goes to war over it; the trilogy ends with the birth of Paul.

Gurney Halleck in the Harkonnen slave pits, Duncan Idaho training on Ginaz, and Jessica sent from the Sisterhood to Caladan.

Alternates between Paul's twelve-year jihad after Dune, fought across the galaxy in his name, and his boyhood on Caladan.

After Paul walks into the desert: Jessica and Alia hold Arrakis together while Bronso of Ix writes pamphlets against the Atreides myth.

Ten thousand years earlier: humanity revolts against the thinking machines, and Serena Butler gives the war its name.

Leto Atreides at home a year before Arrakis, facing a rebel movement called the Noble Commonwealth.

The pursuers are finally named and the cycle is closed, on the outline Brian Herbert found in his father's safe deposit boxes.

Picks up the cliffhanger Frank Herbert left in 1985: the no-ship runs from an enemy the Bene Gesserit cannot name, with a hold full of gholas.

Twenty-four years into the jihad: Vorian Atreides against the Titan Agamemnon, and Norma Cenva working out how to fold space.

Thirty-five years before Dune: Leto is sent to Ix as a boy, Pardot Kynes reaches Arrakis, and Shaddam plots his own father's death.

Jessica is recalled to the Sisterhood on Wallach IX, and Leto and Paul are left with the rebellion and a narcotic grown on Caladan.

The jihad ends with atomics over Corrin, and the Corrino empire, the Spacing Guild and the Great Convention come out of the wreckage.

The last weeks before Dune opens: the Emperor hands Arrakis to House Atreides and Paul turns fifteen.

Three and a half thousand years later, Leto II is mostly sandworm and rules a stagnant empire on purpose.

Twelve years on, the emperor Paul is trapped by his own jihad and his own prophecy.

Herbert's last book: the Sisterhood turns its own planet into a new Arrakis.

The Bene Gesserit against the Honored Matres, fifteen centuries after the God Emperor.

Paul's twins, born with the memories of their ancestors, and the choice Leto makes.