content: Come on! This book is over rated. It is an amusing story but unengaging. The characters are cold and it is difficult to empathise with them. I did read the next two books to see how the story was resolved...but it wasn't, it turned into the X-files! i.e. continuous suspense, convolutions, but no resolution. A story must have a beginning, middle, and, and, um, an end? The recent appearance of the Dune 'brand extension' books "House Atreides" and " 'Harkonen" confirm that the story continues, be it chronologically before or after the original Dune. Should have been a trilogy at most.