I did come across something last night about "The Priests of Dur" having attacked the guards at the shrine. Didn't read enough to find out why. Just the fact that there were Priest of Dur running about was enough to bounce me off to another chapter.
I read the Gurney/Enno(?) thing through, too. Didn't get quite the same vibe, but I'll have another look. SPOILER: Gurney ends up slitting the kid's throat later for disobeying a direct order not to kill the leader of a House/group(?) that resisted after they had surrendered. Seems the kid thought he knew the mind of Muad'Dib and what he wanted more than Gurney, and that such "understanding" overruled a direct order.
Tedious.
The scene where Alia taunts and then allows Korba to kill an envoy from Shaddam during Paul's absence was equally so, and trite to boot. I don't recognize any of these people.
There's a scene where Stilgar nearly drowns on some planet. Isn't that how they woke the memories of his ghola in Sadworms? It's all interlinked and related, you see.
There's an assassination attempt organized by Swordmaster/Residency Construction Superviser Bludd involving hundreds of hunter-seekers carrying poisons. The idea was to get Paul to allow them to attack him rather than the guests at whatever event is targeted, in hopes that he won't be able to counteract all of them at once.
Excuse me, but didn't hunter-seekers drill up your nerves and lobotomize you, or something more like that? I can't see ANY way even SUPER PAUL could defend himself against that.
LOTS and LOTS of silliness.
And I've just been sticking mostly to the Emperor sections so far, by the way. I did not enjoy the House books at all and am really not all that interested in reading their version of events before
Dune. Especially since it's already clear that NONE of what they portray was probably even imagined by Frank Herbert.
"Let the dead give water to the dead. As for me, it's NO MORE FUCKING TEARS!"