I’ve been working on a used bookstore sci-fi haul.

The Gray Prince by Jack Vance: mentioned this one before. Mostly enjoyable read but becomes aggravatingly strawman-like by the end regarding its political subtext.

Three Herbert books:

Destination: Void: I liked this one a lot, but oh boy is it dense. Large swaths of technobabble that may last pages dealing with semi-fictional tech. Are people meant to understand anything out of those passages? Also very philosophical and technical. The book breaks out into fucking equations at one point. You can practically hear a distant Herbert screaming “look how clever I am” as you read it. Despite all that I still really liked it.

Direct Descent: got this for the novelty factors as it’s an illustrated novel. Gave up on it halfway though. Pretty much garbage unless something amazing happens in the second half. Unlike the previous entry, there was no likeness to his other works. I imagine that this was written with a teenage audience in mind given the illustration and the overly thin and simplistic story, however nothing else about this book could be seen as appealing to a teenage audience. The inner turmoils of a library planet? Can’t get dustier than that.

God Emperor of Dune: best in the lot by far, but I’m not too deep into it yet. Four books in it’s still really nice to return to Dune.