The legendary Dune science fiction series started by Frank Herbert has spawned a second generation of novels under the authorship of Herbert's son, Brian Herbert, and his co-author Kevin J.
Anderson.
The second book in this fertile series is Dune: House Harkonnen published by Bantam Books in 2000.
Because, as a rule, Dune novels are complex, you should read Dune: House Atreides before Dune: House Harkonnen.
The epic setting of the Dune universe is a galactic empire that sprawls across thousands of planets.
The most crucial planet at the epicenter of the novels is Dune, which is the sole source of Spice, a psychoactive substance that makes fast space travel possible.
The efficient space travel, which is called the folding of space, is critical to binding all the planets under one government.
Spice is a metaphor for our real civilization's dependency on oil.
Highlights from Dune: House Harkonnen include:

• Emperor Shaddam IV grows increasingly uneasy as his Bene Gesserit wife fails to produce a male heir.
  
• Duncan Idaho, the famous fighter from the original novels written by Dune creator Frank Herbert, has the story of his military education told as he trains on the planet Ginaz.
  His acumen with weapons and his unswerving loyalty to the Atreides destine him to be ceaselessly cloned throughout the series.
  
• Baron Vladimir Harkonnen starts to succumb to a debilitating and mysterious disease that is ravaging his once marvelous physique.
  His declining health and bloating body, however, do not prevent him from mercilessly exploiting his minions and plotting for greater power.
  
• Guild Navigators, the mutated humans who fold space, have always been a mystery throughout the Dune series, but they are revealed in this novel as one character makes the fascinating transformation from human to navigator through intensive Spice use.
  

For readers of the original Dune novels, Dune: House Harkonnen presents the relationship of Jessica and Duke Leto from the beginning.
And, at the end of the novel, you will learn the reasons that motivate her to defy her Bene Gesserit orders and succumb to her love for Duke Leto and bear him a son.
Overall, Dune: House Harkonnen is a creative work filled with characters both sympathetic and repulsive.
The violence is often sadistic, but as any Dune reader would agree, with Harkonnen in the title, it has to be that way.
Upon a stage of complex intrigue, this novel delivers an epic story with crushing tragedy and inexhaustible ambition.