Be warned, this will be boring (and a bit geeky). Sorry, but it's tough to do much with these "book report" posts. And hey, I don't have any other ideas right now. Anyway, I've just finished a couple of works of fiction, NEXT by Michael Crichton and Hunters of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. I expected a good read from NEXT, but I must say I was disappointed. The science in it isn't very interesting, and the cultural implications aren't either. I usually really like Crichton, and admire him for being ahead of the curve on the backlash to the global warming hysteria (yes, the backlash exists) with his last effort, State of Fear. But this one just didn't do much for me. Trangenic animals are a bit of a snoozer, I guess. A parrot that talks. Wow! Somehow I don't think Spielberg will be fighting for the movie rights to this one. The Dune book is the conclusion to Frank Herbert's original six novels. He died before he could write a seventh book. The original Dune is the best selling scifi book ever, and for good reason. He created a complex universe and was thought provoking, inventive and still relevant to current society. His son Brian partnered a few years back with Kevin Anderson and wrote a couple of prequel trilogies to the original novel. This served as practice for this effort, and they were good (but not great or as good as any of the original six). That, and it was a way for them to sell a lot of books. Now they're wrapping up the series, which is exciting because the sixth book ended with a lot of unanswered questions. They claim to have Frank's notes for the finale, but after reading this book, I doubt that because of all the references to the prequels. For a while I was afraid they were going to jump the shark, but they didn't. Oh, and the conclusion will span two books. That said, it's so far so good. Hunters of Dune is better than any of the prequels they wrote, and a worthy sequel to the original novels. A final verdict will depend, however, on whether the conclusion to the finale is at least as good. So when it comes out, you can look forward to yet another book report from yours truly. :-p