Between the end of Frank Herbert`s DUNE and his next novel, DUNE MESSIAH, lies an intriguing mystery: how a hero adored by a planet became a tyrant hated by a universe. Paul Atreides is the man who overthrew a corrupt empire and then launched a terrible jihad across the galaxy, shedding the blood of trillions. The now-hated tyrant, the blind emperor Paul Muad`Dib, has walked off into the endless desert of the planet Arrakis, known as Dune, leaving his turbulent empire without guidance. It`s up to his mother Jessica, with her daughter Alia, the brave troubadour-warrior Gurney Halleck, the resurrected Duncan Idaho, the Fremen leader Stilgar, as well as Paul`s wife-in-name and biographer, Princess Irulan, to try and hold an empire together even as it tears itself apart from within and without.