^ I thoroughly agree!
There is only one Dune and it's author was Frank Herbert. It stands alone as a masterpiece and I even think he lost a bit of steam on the books that followed.
I make it a point to re-read Dune and some other books every year, if only to remember the first time I read them. I still find something new every time.
As for the usurper's "new" books, I personally find them to be more of an insult to fans and his father. I don't see them as a labor of love, only a weak attempt to regain lost glory and establish a literary career on the coat tails of a dead master. Let's roll out the corpse and pick at the bones one more time for a bit of grissle or maybe an eye. It's an old story; instead of protecting his father's life work, regardless of his motivation, he will only tarnish his legacy with substandard imitations.
And I will throw my hat in with the Fading Suns crowd; it's a great game. The basic premise and game mechanics easily support a Dune universe campaign. It's a compact universe with five Great Houses, ruling over billions of serfs and slaves, vying for the imperial throne. There are, of course, a number of areas of FS canon that would have to be winnowed away, but this shouldn't require that much work.
It was available on Drive Thru as a free upload not to long ago.
