"The Butlerian Jihad" by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Contuning in my Dune deep dive, I have begun reading the works finished after Frank Herbert's death. I can handle tons of character establishment and build up of circumstance but I have difficulty with cheesy dialogue. Based on Frank Herbert's notes of this immense universe he created, this first prequel is interested and mixes in tons of characters referenced thousands of years later in the original 6 Dune novels. I was surprised to see how difficult it must be to immitate Frank Herbert's voice but, the dialogue really didn't measure up. The reader is given far too much information plainly laid out as opposed to thinly intimated. That was the biggest dissappoinment. That said, this world has me captive and I'll continue down this road as far as I am able. I'm thankful to see that most of the central characters from this installment continue in the next and I'm hopeful that all the heavy character and circumstanial establishment will pay dividends in the upcoming novels.

"Before We Were Strangers" by Renee Carlino

This book found me at an awkward moment, in place away from home with nothing to read. It is not my normal literature. It is young adult romance with tinges of eroticism. It was fine. Nothing was particularily well written or ingeniously engineered. It breaks no ground but it gave me something to read and is set in NYC which added a degree of pleasure for me. I'm not seeking out further works by this author but I was happy to delve into such a different style of book.