Book 5 and 6 return to the swashbuckling adventure of Book 1. Its one of Herbert's strengths, probably honed in his years as a short story writer.
Is the whole series *amazing*, no? Is it weird that it somehow escaped into the mainstream, holy fuck yes. Ymmv, but I think they're neat!
/end

Because Herbert is an aging SF writer of his era he has to make things weird about sex (and religion). Like the space witches with weaponized addictive super sex. The aging general who unlocks his chakra and becomes the ubermensch. Or the clone who has to ask his cult to stop breeding him.

Book 5 and 6 I have the least to say about but not cause they're bad, just I haven't ever reread them. The setting timeline has advanced thousands of years (again, book 4 is also a multi millenia time jump). Now Hebert gets to add new stuff to the setting!

Book 4. 10,000 year empire built for maximum oppression is undone by a love so strong and pure it must have been made in a lab. Because it was. The emperor is that meme, he "can't be killed in any way that matters". The B plot characters are the best part of this novel. 10/10 religious fanatic.

Book 3 is where it starts getting *weird*. The race memory bullshit gets bigger pride of place. I mainly don't like this book because it does (my fav) St Alia of the Knife dirty. But it's got remote control assassin tigers, so there's good with the bad.

Book 2 is Herbert doing "what happens when the dog catches the car?". IE how do messianic and/or revolutionary systems move past the revolution and govern. Prescience is present but there's less irony and more mystery as the protagonist moves through a predetermined path trying to find an off ramp.

I'm a 1-6 guy because I enjoy the batshit the series escalates to.
The first is the most unique because of how it uses dramatic irony to tell a story about prescience. Each chapter starts with an entry from an in-universe history book, reflecting on the upcoming events.
1/

High-larious

Last year someone joined our ttrpg discord server to workshop their anti-fascist and queer take on it called FATAL 2. I am still unsure if it was an elaborate troll. They had a huge PDF they were looking for comments on.

Another movie to make you ask why Joan isn't the more famous one.

I'm not sure if this is the best way to phrase this, but please, stop being the Draw Steel reply guy. The game does not need a defense. If it did, coming into the threads of people critiquing it on Bsky would not be the way.

This behavior is what gives fandoms a bad reputation.