Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (Legends of Dune Series #1)

by Brian Herbert, Kevin J. Anderson

Overview

The war against the thinking machines

The betrayal that turned House Atreides and House Harkonnen into mortal enemies

The discovery of spice—the most valuable substance in the known universe

The birth of the Sisterhood, Suk Doctors, Mentats, and Spacing Guild

The origins of the Fremen—former slaves who find a new home on the desert planet

Ten thousand years before Frank Herbert’s masterpiece Dune, humanity is oppressed by powerful machine rulers—the computer overmind Omnius, the maliciously curious robot Erasmus, and their monstrous half-machine collaborators, the cymeks.

But embattled worlds, led by brave Xavier Harkonnen and his firebrand fiancée Serena Butler, fight for the freedom of the human race. They must find new technologies, and the strength of the human spirit, to fight the terrible thinking machines.

Vorian Atreides is born among the machine worlds and trained to be loyal to his cymek father, but he finds all his preconceptions challenged when Serena Butler becomes a prisoner of Erasmus and a victim of his insidious experiments. After a heart-wrenching tragedy, Serena’s passionate grief ignites the religious war that will sweep across the Galaxy and liberate humans from their machine masters—no matter the cost. Will Vorian discover that he belongs among humanity, or remain a pawn of the thinking machines?

Here, too, is the amazing tale of the Zensunni Wanderers, who escape bondage to flee to the desert world where they will declare themselves the Free Men of Dune. Experience how they learn to summon and ride the majestic sandworms.

Read the origins of Frank Herbert’s Dune.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250388742
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Series:	Dune , #1
Pages:	624
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

BRIAN HERBERT, the son of Frank Herbert, wrote the definitive biography of his father, Dreamer of Dune, which was a Hugo Award finalist. Herbert is also president of the company managing the legacy of Frank Herbert, and is an executive producer of the motion picture Dune, as well as of the streaming series Dune: Prophecy. He is the author or coauthor of more than forty-five books, including multiple New York Times bestsellers, has been nominated for the Nebula Award, and is always working on several projects at once. He and his wife, Jan, have traveled to all seven continents, and in 2019, they took a trip to Budapest to observe the filming of Dune.

KEVIN J. Anderson has written dozens of national bestsellers and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFX Readers’ Choice Award. His critically acclaimed original novels include the ambitious space opera series the Saga of Seven Suns, including The Dark Between the Stars, as well as the epic fantasy trilogy Wake the Dragon and the Terra Incognita fantasy epic with its two accompanying rock CDs. He also set the Guinness-certified world record for the largest single-author book signing, and was recently inducted into the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame.

Read an Excerpt

Princess Irulan writes:

Any true student must realize that History has no beginning. Regardless of where a story starts, there are always earlier heroes and earlier tragedies.

Before one can understand Muad'Dib or the current jihad that followed the overthrow of my father, Emperor Shaddam IV, one must understand what we fight against. Therefore, look more than ten thousand years into our past, ten millennia before the birth of Paul Atreides.

It is there that we see the founding of the Imperium, how an emperor rose from the ashes of the Battle of Corrin to unify the bruised remnants of humanity. We will delve into the most ancient records, into the very myths of Dune, into the time of the Great Revolt, more commonly known as the Butlerian Jihad.

The terrible war against thinking machines was the genesis of our political-commercial universe. Hear now, as I tell the story of free humans rebelling against the domination of robots, computers, and cymeks. Observe the basis of the great betrayal that made mortal enemies of House Atreides and House Harkonnen, a violent feud that continues to this day. Learn the roots of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, the Spacing Guild and their Navigators, the Swordmasters of Ginaz, the Suk Medical School, the Mentats. Witness the lives of oppressed Zensunni Wanderers who fled to the desert world of Arrakis, where they became our greatest soldiers, the Fremen.

Such events led to the birth and life of Muad'Dib.

*
• *

LONG BEFORE MUAD'DIB, in the last days of the Old Empire, humanity lost its drive. Terran civilization had spread across the stars, but grew stagnant. With few ambitions, most people allowed efficient machines to perform everyday tasks for them. Gradually, humans ceased to think, or dream…or truly live.

Then came a man from the distant Thalim system, a visionary who took the name of Tlaloc after an ancient god of rain. He spoke to languid crowds, attempting to revive their human spirit, to no apparent effect. But a few misfits heard Tlaloc's message.

These new thinkers met in secret and discussed how they would change the Empire, if only they could overthrow the foolish rulers. Discarding their birth names, they assumed appellations associated with great gods and heroes. Foremost among them were General Agamemnon and his lover Juno, a tactical genius. These two recruited the programming expert Barbarossa, who devised a scheme to convert the Empire's ubiquitous servile machines into fearless aggressors by giving their AI brains certain human characteristics, including the ambition to conquer. Then several more humans joined the ambitious rebels. In all, twenty masterminds formed the core of a revolutionary movement that took over the Old Empire.

Victorious, they called themselves Titans, after the most ancient of Greek gods. Led by the visionary Tlaloc, the twenty allocated the administration of planets and peoples among themselves, enforcing their edicts through Barbarossa's aggressive thinking machines. They conquered most of the known galaxy.

Some resistance groups rallied their defenses on the fringes of the Old Empire. Forming their own confederation--the League of Nobles--they fought the Twenty Titans and, after many bloody battles, retained their freedom. They stopped the tide of the Titans and drove them back.

Tlaloc vowed to dominate these outsiders one day, but after less than a decade in power, the visionary leader was killed in a tragic accident. General Agamemnon took Tlaloc's place as leader, but the death of his friend and mentor was a grim reminder of the Titans' own mortality.

Wishing to rule for centuries, Agamemnon and his lover Juno undertook a risky course of action. They had their brains surgically removed and implanted in preservation canisters that could be installed into a variety of mechanical bodies. One by one--as the remaining Titans felt the specter of age and vulnerability--all of the others also converted themselves into "cymeks," machines with human minds.

The Time of Titans lasted for a century. The cymek usurpers ruled their various planets, using increasingly sophisticated computers and robots to maintain order. But one fateful day the hedonistic Titan Xerxes, anxious to have more time for his pleasures, surrendered too much access to his pervasive AI network.

The sentient computer network seized control of an entire planet, followed quickly by others. The breakdown spread like a virulent infestation from world to world, and the computer "evermind" grew in power and scope. Naming itself Omnius, the intelligent and adaptible network conquered all the Titan-controlled planets before the cymeks had time to warn each other of the danger.

Omnius then set out to establish and maintain order in its own highly structured fashion, keeping the humiliated cymeks under its thumb. Once masters of an empire, Agamemnon and his companions became reluctant servants to the widespread evermind.

At the time of the Butlerian Jihad, Omnius and his thinking machines had held all of the "Synchronized Worlds" in an iron grip for a thousand years.

Even so, clusters of free humans remained on the outskirts, bound together for mutual protection, thorns in the sides of the thinking machines. Whenever attacks came, the League of Nobles defended themselves effectively.

But new machine plans were always being developed.

Copyright © 2002 by Herbert Properties LLC

Interviews

Inventing History for Dune
When Frank Herbert first created the Dune universe almost four decades ago, he placed his story on a canvas that spanned more than 20,000 years. A masterpiece of world building and history, Dune is richly detailed, full of characters and cultures, clearly giving the impression that the author knows much more than he's letting on.

One of the most tantalizing events mentioned in all six of Frank Herbert's Dune novels is the Butlerian Jihad, a titanic conflict of humans against thinking machines, which serves as the genesis for many of the familiar ingredients in Dune. This fascinating part of Dune history is the single event most hotly anticipated by Frank Herbert fans.

After completing three immediate prequels to Dune -- House Atreides, House Harkonnen, and House Corrino -- we reawakened the fervor for Frank Herbert's grand history. Many readers have returned to the original novels, and new fans have picked up the books. Our first prequel trilogy features all familiar characters and events, leading directly into Dune.

For The Butlerian Jihad, we had to travel back 10,000 years before the events in the original story. This posed a difficult, but entertaining, challenge -- to create an original universe, building our own characters and events, yet one that captures the flavor and essence of Dune.

Armed with Frank Herbert's unpublished notes and background material, we had some important clues to the events of the Butlerian Jihad, but none of the extensive details. Building on this material, The Butlerian Jihad answers the most vital questions fans have been asking: the circumstances behind the great betrayal that made mortal enemies of House Atreides and House Harkonnen, the foundations of the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood, as well as the creation of the Order of Mentats, the Suk doctors, the Swordmasters of Ginaz, and the Spacing Guild. We also show the dramatic struggle of the oppressed Zensunni Wanderers who escape their bondage and flee to an uncharted desert world, where they settle among the spice and sandworms and declare themselves "Free men" of Dune. Readers will recognize some familiar names and meet new friends and enemies.

Because The Butlerian Jihad is so far removed from the original classic novel, we felt we had a greater freedom but also a greater responsibility. We are opening a new chapter in this grand history, yet it must be familiar enough to belong beside the other Dune novels. We created a new set of characters that we found remarkable in their own right -- the half-machine tyrant Agamemnon and his brainwashed son Vorian Atreides, the dedicated free human Xavier Harkonnen, the genius scientist Tio Holtzman, and of course the incomparable heroine, Serena Butler. The independent robot Erasmus -- whom Publishers Weekly calls "a Thinking Machine Hannibal Lecter with whimsical Mr. Spock-ish meditations" -- is probably the best villain either of us has ever concocted. The Butlerian Jihad is just the first of a projected trilogy. Frank Herbert has left us a vast landscape to explore, but at least we have a map. We still have a lot more history to create. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Editorial Reviews

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad offers the kind of intricate plotting and philosophical musings that would make the elder Herbert proud.” —Publishers Weekly starred review

“A stunning, emotionally wrought look at the impetus behind humanity's rebellion against machine tyranny. Herbert and Anderson create vivid characters—both human and machine—with passionate goals. Fans of the Dune saga will relish discovering the origins of familiar technology.” —Romantic Times

“The authors have managed to capture much of the feeling as well as the names and places of the Dune series.” —Science Fiction Chronicle

From the Publisher

This prequel to the Dune novels of Frank Herbert, and other books in the Dune series, will mean different things to different people. For Dune fans, it will provide deep background on the relationships, alliances, and feuds that shape those novels. To those who have not previously delved into this world, it will be a science fiction book with conflict at the fore and a glimpse of a world in which “thinking machines” rule. Scott Brick’s narration is as fresh on the twentieth disc as it is on the first. His focus is unwavering, and his pace never falters as he maintains his enthusiasm for the story and its characters. Brick is adept at leading his listeners through long narrative passages. His sense of timing is helpful in drawing out humor, as well as suspense and intrigue, and is key in his development of vivid personalities. J.E.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2003 Audie Award Winner © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

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