Paul feels trapped by fate the Jihad carried out in his name has killed billions, yet he knows from his visions that alternate futures threaten the destruction of all humanity. Also called melange, spice is highly addictive, lucrative, and essential to interstellar travel. Paul is also the kwisatz haderach, the result of a centuries-long selective breeding program by the Bene Gesserit, an exclusive sisterhood, to produce a powerful, prescient male.Īs Emperor, Paul controls production of spice, a psychoactive substance created by the sandworms on Arrakis.

For 12 years, his Fremen warriors have waged Jihad across the galaxy, subjugating worlds and spreading the indigenous religion of their desert planet Arrakis, aka “Dune,” where Paul is worshiped as a messiah. In the year 10,208, Paul “Maud’Dib” Atreides rules as Emperor of the Known Universe. This guide references the 2020 mass market paperback edition of the novel published by ACE, an imprint of Penguin Random House. Today, the American author Herbert (1920-1986) is considered one of the most influential writers in the science fiction genre, and he received many prestigious awards over the course of his career. In 2003, Dune Messiah was adapted into a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries along with the third book in the Dune Chronicles, Children of Dune (1976). As Paul endeavors to ensure the survival of humanity across the galaxy, the novel explores the nature of time and fate, the intersection of religion and government, and the social and philosophical dangers of hero worship. Taking place in the distant future, the novel continues the saga of Paul Atreides, a powerful messianic figure who overcame a plot against his family to become Emperor of the Known Universe. Originally serialized in Galaxy magazine, Dune Messiah (1969) is the sequel to Frank Herbert’s epic science fiction novel Dune (1965) and the second novel in Herbert’s six-book Dune Chronicles series.

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