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Originally Posted by GJN
I didn't realize they were written as one book, but my opinion still stands. Dune was great, Dune Messiah not in the same class, Children of Dune better than Messiah but still not comparable to the original in my opinion. Everything afterwards shouldn't have been written.
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That was about what I thought, and I mostly agree. Dune Messiah wasn't as well thought of when it was first released, either, but the weakness was generally ascribed to being the middle book in a trilogy. For structural reasons, those are almost always weaker than the other volumes.
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The original Dune was great in large part because of Herbert's detailed world-building and the complexity of the associated societies. Once this was done in the first book, there was little left for the rest except for their respective plots and further character development; these were OK but unexceptional.
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Agreed again, but I'm not sure how you get around it. If you have to substantially complete the world building on book one for the rest to make sense, what you describe is hard to avoid.
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Dennis