All right first things first - the cover artists here did a huge disservice to the characters. This is set two years before Dune. Irulan is of age with Paul, who we all know is 15 in Dune...meaning she's 15 as well. Chani is a year younger then them both.

That means that the Irulan and Chani in this book is 13 and 12 respectfully. This cover? Does not depict a 13 and 12 year old and we're given no indication this is meant to be either character "looking back" and sharing memories. That said, we all know covers can be ignored because they often don't match the contents (I do like the cover though, I just wish it wasn't meant to be the two chars).

For background I've read the original Dune books by Frank Herbert several times over the years. Irulan remains a favorite character that I wish was given more page time. So I was excited for this book as, while I haven't read the other "prequels" from Herbert & Anderson, I had hopes for a book centered around Chani and Irulan's lives before Paul was part of it. In some ways this fulfilled that hope.

The power of creating prequels of pre-established works is that you can foreshadow, set-up details, offer a glimpse as to why canon moments and traits are. Disney did it (with little finesse) with Solo and some of Han's more famous character traits. Marvel did it with Black Widow to...some success depending on if you were watching it for Natasha or Yelena. And we all know what a disaster The Hobbit trilogy became.

PRINCESS OF DUNE is a solid "okay" in that department. Far from giving us a real glimpse into Irulan, she was almost a set piece to Shaddam's petty grievances and machinations against a few different enemies. In a way this does give us a glimpse into why Irulan was willing to take the lesser place as Paul's "Wife in Name Only"; Paul, even if he couldn't offer her emotional connection and respect, did offer her respect for her intelligence and abilities, something her father allowed to be overlooked and sidelined by his advisors for a variety of reasons.

Part of this is that Herbert & Anderson shortcut things a bit - her "go to" move is to marry the problem and deal with it later (so to speak), or so they would have you believe as that's basically what happens here. Only she would have been worse for the arrangement this time then eventually in Dune. Part of this is also because she has some very naive ideas here, born of someone who means well (mostly), but who doesn't understand the game they're playing. She makes some lucky gambles, the kind of help things for the moment and act as a bandaid to larger problems, but overall she is not very adept at the game. Not like her sister. Not like her father (for all that he is also a paranoid, petty person). By the end she learns and that learning is what we see in Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune later.

Chani fares better, and with Chani much of Sietch Tabr's inhabitants, in getting some necessary foundation work. This Chani is very...hopeful isn't quite the right word, but she believes in the vision her father has and believes in the freedom of the Fremen even if she won't see it in her lifetime. She's a curious mix of practical and faithful, that works well.

Was my favorite part watching the Baron flounder around, sputtering and trying to figure out what miscreant sold him out to the Emperor for his embezzling efforts? Yes, yes it was. It was amusing since Shaddam was there for entirely unrelated reasons, to catch out a different political opponent and merely used his visit to the planet as a cover for his own cowardly actions (or rather his Propaganda Minister did). The fact that it also allowed him to make the Baron sweat for crimes they both knew he was committing, but was too cunning to leave a trail leading back to him about, was just a little bit of dessert for an otherwise awful time.

This was a quick read. Clocks in at just over 380 pages and is keeps the pace well as it switches between Irulan and Chani's adventures until they converge in an interesting way, that also speaks to their future...actions with each other in later books. But it was not exactly what I was hoping for. ( )