An aging tyrant sits on the Golden Lion Throne and rules all of the known universe, while his son grows dangerously impatient for the crown. A quasi-religious order of black-robed women move their secret breeding program one momentous step closer to creating the god-child they call the Kwisatz Haderach. And a minor family among nobility, House Atreides, chooses a course of honor that will bring it to destruction at the hands of its mortal enemy, House Harkonnen, or take it to new heights of power.