Dune Messiah

Not quite as compelling as Dune but a fantastic read nonetheless. This book and its former show off how to close a major narrative loop in only two books. It's almost like Frank knew we'd all struggle with Children of Dune and made it easy for the uncommitted to tap out at book two.

The first book's theme of choosing the only timeline between rock-solid paths of galaxy-wide destruction continues here, where Paul effectively considers every step and fart through the lookahead of his foresight. My favourite idea about the first two Dune novels is the implication that divination unlocks the next step of humanity. Without it, we'd be doomed to sit through centuries (or an eternity) of schemes trying to achieve ultimate power in the course of benevolence. When you're attempting to govern a huge dark forest, the only outcome that leads to progress is total imperial domination. Any modicum of total power is fragile, short-lived and subject to backstabbing.

But when you can see the future, you can simulate at least a few moves ahead, preventing you from making (undetectably) stupid mistakes. It must be like living in an RPG game where you know the difficulty check and likely outcome of every action and speech you make. There are limitations to clairvoyance, which the book balances beautifully to prevent Paul from being all-powerful and completely uncompelling.