The Dune franchise is having a moment. Dune: Part Two tore it up at the box office in 2024, getting a new generation up to speed on Frank Herbert classic sci-fi story about religion, politics, fanaticism, and giant sandworms that can swallow armies whole.
These first two Dune movies from director Denis Villeneuve adapt the whole of Herbert's original Dune book, published in 1965. The third movie, Dune: Part Three, adapts the 1969 sequel book Dune Messiah, out in theaters this December.
And if you've fallen in love with the Dune universe (known by fans as the Duniverse, obviously), then you'll be happy to know there's a lot more material out there. In addition to Dune and Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert wrote four more sequels before his death in 1986. Years later, his son Brian Herbert teamed up with writer Kevin J. Anderson, and together they've written another 17 Dune novels to date. There are 23 Dune books total!
The original Dune book starts with the story of young Paul Atreides, and Frank Herbert's remaining sequels move forward from there. The books by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson — which we'll call the expanded Dune books for simplicity's sake — branch out in all directions. Some are prequels, some are sequels, and take place in between the original six novels.
It can be confusing to keep track of everything. In this article, we're going to lay out all 23 Dune books in chronological canon order, starting from the earliest part of the Dune timeline and stopping at the very end. We've marked each of Frank Herbert's original six Dune books with an asterisk*.
Into the Duniverse...
1. The Butlerian Jihad (2002)
Dune is unique in that it's a sci-fi story set in the far future where no one uses computers. The closest thing they have is mentats, which are people trained to think like computers with the help of the powerful drug known as the spice melange.
It ends up there's a reason why no one uses computers. Tens of thousands of years before the original Dune book, human beings fought a war against intelligent thinking machines. We won, but the whole thing scarred everyone so badly that they swore off computers forever.
The Buterian Jihad tells the story of that man-vs-machine war. It starts when humanity is already under the thumb of humanoid robots called Titans, which are themselves under the thumb of an artificial super-intelligence called Omnius. Humanity is fed up with this crap. When the independently minded robot Erasmus kills a young human in front of his mother, humanity rises up and starts the Buterlerian jihad, which is opposed to all things mechanical.
The Butlerian Jihad kicks off a trilogy of books written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, the earliest in the timeline. Let's skip ahead to the next volume:
2. The Machine Crusade (2003)
The Machine Crusade continues the story of the war behind man and machine begun in The Butlerian Jihad. Several of the characters in these books are the ancestors of characters we know from the original Dune book; you'll meet Atreides, Harkonnens and Corrinos here.
The Machine Crusade also introduces us to the first mentat, the result of a bet the robot Erasmus makes that he can raise a human child to grow up civilized like a machine. Think of it as sci-fi My Fair Lady.
We also spend time on Arrakis, where human settlers first discover the spice.
3. The Battle of Corrin (2004)
The Battle of Corrin takes place decades after the start of the Butlerian jihad and brings this trilogy to an end. Humans are finally able to destroy the artificial intelligence Omnius and decimate the robot army. The books ends with the formation of the political climate that will endure until the original Dune book. We see the origins of the Atreides-Harkonnen fued, the first Corrino emperor, and of course, the ironclad prohibition on making thinking machines.
4. Sisterhood of Dune (2012)
It's been years since the end of the Butlerian jihad, and new structures of power are starting to emerge. That includes the nascent Bene Gesserit sisterhood, which is trying to establish a breeding program with an aim towards creating a super-being they can use to control the new order. But the fanatical anti-technology Buterlians are still out there, harshly punishing anyone who even looks at a computer funny. That's hard for the Bene Gesserits, since if you want to keep track of generations off offspring from throughout the galaxy, computers are a big help. That kind of project demands a spreadsheet.
Sisterhood of Dune is the first book in another trilogy by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson called Great Schools of Dune. They're all set in vaguely the same time period: a while after the Butlerian jihad but still many thousands of years before the events of the original Dune.
5. Mentats of Dune (2014)
Mentats of Dune continues the story of a new crop of powerful organizations — the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats and the Guild Navigators — fighting against the fanatical anti-machine Butlerians. In this book we spend some time with Gilbertus Albans, who runs a school for Mentats. Remember: mentats are basically human computers. No actual machines are involved, but it's still close enough to tick off the Butlerians.
6. Navigators of Dune (2016)
This trilogy wraps up with Navigators of Dune. Naturally, the book spends a lot of time with the Guild Navigators, humans who have taken so much of the spice that their bodies have become strange and alien. But they have limited precience, which allows them to navigate through the reaches of speace without the need of computers.
The Imperium is at war in Navigators of Dune, with the extremist Butlerians fighting against a number of factions. By the end, the Butlerians are pacified. Next, the books will skip ahead thousands of years to bring us much closer to the period of the original Dune novel.
7. Dune: House Atreides (1999)
This next trilogy is called Prelude to Dune. House Atreides is set some 35 years before the events of Dune and catches up with characters like Leto Atreides, Vladimir Harkonnen and Shaddam Corrino as younger men before they came to power. Naturally, there's lots of back-and-forth scheduling between Leto and Vladimir. There's a reason the two are rivals in Dune.
8. Dune: House Harkonnen (2000)
Set years after the events of House Atreides, House Harkonnen catches up with our main players as they grow into the men we remember from Dune. Emperor Corrino is getting worried about the Harkonnens illegally stockpiling spice, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is growing debilitatingly obsese (the result of the Bene Gesserit punishing him for crossing them), and Duke Leto meets up with Lady Jessica, the mother of Paul Atreides. Initially, the Bene Gesserit plant Jessica within Leto's household as a way to control him, but she ends up falling for him, and he her.
9. Dune: House Corrino (2001)
We jump ahead again for the conclusion of this trilogy. This time, Lady Jessica is pregnant will Paul, Emperor Shaddam is trying to get the great houses dependent on his synthetic form of spice, and Duke Leto sponsors an assault on the planet of Ix, the one planet in the Imperium that still uses computerized technology.
10. Princess of Dune (2023)
We are tantelizeingly close to the events of Dune at this point, but Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have more prelude to do. This book revolves around two of the most important women in the life of Paul Atreides: Chani the Fremen fighter and Princess Irulan, daughter of Emperor Shaddam IV Corrino. We see what they were up to a couple of years before Dune proper.
11. Dune: The Duke of Caladan (2020)
We're still leading up to the start of Dune here. The Duke of Caladan helps us get to know Duke Leto II when he was the ruler of Caladan, a rainy world very much unlike the parched planet of Arrakis, aka Dune. In this book, Leto's enemies are starting to suspect that he's rising above his station, which sets the stage for the events of Dune.
12. Dune: The Lady of Caladan (2021)
This book takes place in the same period as The Duke of Caladan. Paul is born but is just a boy living on the forest planet of Caladan. Predictably, The Lady of Caladan focuses on the Lady Jessica, Paul's mother. Her Bene Gesserit handlers are none too pleased that Jessica bore a son for Duke Leto when she was instructed to bear only daughters. The Bene Gesserit foresee danger coming as a result of this choice. We know they're right.
13. Dune: The Heir of Caladan (2022)
The final book in this trilogy focuses on young Paul Atreides, who learns about leadership as his parents navigate a political minefield. The book ends with Duke Leto being given the fiefdom of Arrakis, which finally takes us to the beginning of Dune proper.
Alright, at long last, we come to where it all began:
14. Dune (1965)*
We finally made it to the original Dune book written by Frank Herbert! Sometimes I thought it would never happen.
If you've seen the movies, you know more or less what happens. Paul Atreides travels to Arrakis with his family. Eventually, the Atreides are overthrown by the vile Harkonnens, and Paul's father Leto is killed. Paul flees into the desert with his mother Jessica where they live and train among the native Fremen people. Paul eventually becomes something of a religious leader among the Fremen. He gets revenge on the Harkonnens and then some, ending the book by deposing the emperor of the whole galaxy and taking his place.
Dune remains one of the most successful, potent works of science fiction ever created. As you now know, there's a lot that comes before it. There's a lot that comes after too.
15. Paul of Dune (2008)
The next official book in the Dune series is Dune Messiah, written again by Frank Herbert. However, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson also wrote Paul of Dune, which takes place between the end of Dune and the beginning of Dune Messiah.
And this is a pretty interesting period of time to fill in. Dune ends with Paul's Fremen followers on the cusp of carrying out a brutal, galaxy-wide genocide in the name of Paul Muad'dib, whether he wants them to or not. With his prescient vision, Paul sees that he is powerless to stop it. Dune Messiah opens after the genocide is already over. Paul of Dune takes place during the great galactic purge.
We see Paul become more callous as savage as his followers go beyond his orders and many in the Imperium come to hate his rule. We also get flashbacks to a turbulent period in Paul's youth on Caladan. It all effectively sets up the more muted tone of Dune Messiah.
16. Dune Messiah (1969)*
As mentioned, the first official sequel to Dune, written by original author Frank Herbert, picks up years after the end of the first book. Paul is established as the emperor of the galaxy, his Fremen have killed billions of people in his name across the stars, and he's adjusted to his unhappy life as a living legend. Various factions from across the Imperium still want to take him down, including his own wife Irulan.
Dune Messiah forms the basis of Dune: Part Three. All in all it's a much more insular, downbeat story than the first Dune, which had some pretty grim aspects to start with.
17. The Winds of Dune (2009)
After Dune Messiah, the story skips forward another handful of years before we get to Frank Herbert's next sequel, Children of Dune. However, Brian Howard and Kevin J. Anderson have written another bridge book to plug that gap. Without spoiling anything, there's a power vacuum on Arrakis after the end of Dune Messiah. In The Winds of Dune, Paul's mother Lady Jessica returns to the planet to try and put things to rights.
18. Children of Dune (1976)*
Back to Frank Herbert's novels, Children of Dune mainly centers around twin siblings Leto II and Ghanima, the children of Paul Atreides and Chani. Think of this book as a passing of the torch to the next generation of Dune characters.
Like the first Dune book, Children of Dune is a sweeping epic with some memorable action scenes, which it serves up without sacrificing the heavy tone of the series. While Denis Villeneuve has said he wants to direct a Dune Messiah movie, he doesn't think he'll get to Children of Dune. That's a shame, because it would make a good movie. If Villeneuve doesn't want to direct it, I hope someone else does.
19. God Emperor of Dune (1981)*
God Emperor of Dune takes us to a whole new era of the Duniverse. Thousands of years after the events of Children of Dune, the galaxy is ruled by a god emperor, a man who was merged with a sandworm. You'll just have to take my word for it that it makes sense if you've read the books. This one is a little more like Dune Messiah, which is to say that's ponderous and concerned first and foremost with the interior intellectual lives of the characters. It's one of the trickier Dune books, but full of food for thought.
Okay, now we're going to jump ahead to the final era of the Duniverse yet recorded:
20. Heretics of Dune (1984)*
After the end of God Emperor of Dune, masses of humanity travel into the stars in an event known as the Scattering. In Heretics of Dune, which is set a another few thousand years after God Emperor, some of those people are returning to our corner of the galaxy, much changed in the meanwhile.
Heretics of Dune introduces us to some of the characters we'll be hanging out through to the end of the story, including Sheeana, a girl who can control sandwords; a militarily minded mentat named Miles Teg; and Murbella, a member of a new group called the Honored Matres. The main conflict in Heretics of Dune is between the Bene Gesserit, who are still around after all these years, and the Honored Matres, who have returned from the Scattering with conquest on their minds. The book ends with the story incomplete; it's clear that Frank Herbert was building to something.
21. Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)*
Chapterhouse: Dune continues the fight between the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres. Things are more or less settled between the two factions by the end of the book, but there's a hint about a greater enemy — the reason why the Honored Matres returned from the deeper reaches of space in the first place — that humanity will soon have to contend with.
Unfortunately, Frank Herbert died before he could reveal the nature of that enemy. However, working off Frank's notes, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson eventually concluded the story as Frank outlined it. The final two books bring things to a close, at least for now.
22. Hunters of Dune (2007)
Much of Hunters of Dune concerns further conflicts between the Bene Gesserit and the Honored Matres, now uneasily integrated into one group, as well as fights against Tleilaxu Face Dancers, shape shifters who use their abilities to infiltrate and undermine organizations.
But the biggest surprise comes near the end, when we find out the idenity of "the great enemy": It's Omnius, the artificial super-intelligence from way back at the start of this list, the AI that humanity thought it had destroyed in the Butlerian Jihad! Well, Omnius found a way to survive. It took a long time for it to regroup, but it's back with an army of killer robots bent on destroying humanity. That sets up the final book:
23. Sandworms of Dune (2007)
The final book in the Dune saga brings much of these storylines to a head, as the new characters we've met — along with some old favorites brought back as ghola, aka clones — battle it out with Omnius and its robotic menace. It's a cool way to bring things around back to the start of the story, with the caveat that Frank Herbert never actually wrote the story of the Butlerian Jihad, nor the books that brought the killer AI back to bear.
There are two sets of novels within the Dune series: the original six written by Frank Herbert, and the 17 prequels and sequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Fans debate back and forth whether the later books are part of the official canon or not, but altogether these books comprise a huge body of work that gives any fan plenty to sink their teeth into.
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