In Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Mentats of Dune the thinking machines have been
defeated but the struggle for humanity's future continues. Gilbertus Albans has founded the
Mentat School a place where humans can learn the efficient techniques of thinking machines.
But Gilbertus walks an uneasy line between his own convictions and compromises in order to
survive the Butlerian fanatics led by the madman Manford Torondo and his Swordmaster Anari
Idaho. Mother Superior Raquella attempts to rebuild her Sisterhood School on Wallach IX with
her most talented and ambitious student Valya Harkonnen who also has another goal-to exact
revenge on Vorian Atreides the legendary hero of the Jihad whom she blames for her family's
downfall. Meanwhile Josef Venport conducts his own war against the Butlerians. VenHold
Spacing Fleet controls nearly all commerce thanks to the superior mutated Navigators that
Venport has created and he places a ruthless embargo on any planet that accepts Manford
Torondo's anti-technology pledge hoping to starve them into submission. But fanatics rarely
surrender easily . . . The Mentats the Navigators and the Sisterhood all strive to improve
the human race but each group knows that as Butlerian fanaticism grows stronger the battle
will be to choose the path of humanity's future-whether to embrace civilization or to plunge
into an endless dark age.
