The recent release of Dune: Part 2 in theaters completes the story of Paul Atreides’ rise to religious power on Arrakis so he can fight back against the evil Harkonnens–but it also leaves a ton of the Dune universe unexplored. But there’s a whole lot more Dune storytelling out there if you want it, and with Humble Bundle’s latest batch of books, you can grab as many as 17 titles that explore the nooks, crannies, histories, and nuances of Dune for just $18. The aptly titled Dune: The Universe Collection is full of prequels and sequels written by Brian Herbert (usually alongside Kevin J. Anderson), the son of Frank Herbert, the author of the 1965 original and its five sequels.
Humble’s Dune: The Universe Collection bundle has three different versions. If you want to keep it cheap, you can nab one book–Dune: The Butlerian Jihad–for $1. That book delves into one of the most impactful and interesting elements of Dune’s history, in which humanity rejected artificial intelligences and went to war with machines, resulting in the world we see in the original novel that includes “mentats,” people specially trained to act as computers, since actual computers have been completely outlawed.
For $10, you get three books: The Butlerian Jihad, its sequel, Dune: The Machine Crusade, and Dune: The Battle of Corrin. All three cover the expansive historical event known as the Butlerian Jihad, which spans decades. The Machine Crusade picks up more than 20 years after The Butlerian Jihad and begins to establish more key elements of Dune lore as the crusade against computers and robots has sweeping effects on the universe’s culture. The Battle of Corrin then jumps more than 50 years forward to see the Butlerian Jihad come to its conclusion, setting the stage for the world imagined in Dune.