Once a month, we’re spotlighting a Tor book that’s about to become available in paperback. Today, we’re featuring Mentats of Dune, by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, which will be published on February 3rd!
In Mentats of Dune, the thinking machines have been defeated but the struggle for humanity’s future continues. We hope you enjoy this excerpt:
What do all our accomplishments matter, if they do not last beyond our lifetimes?
HEADMASTER GILBERTUS ALBANS, Mentat School Archives
The great Mentat School was his—from the initial concept seven decades ago, to choosing this location in the remote marshes on Lampadas, to the many graduates he had trained over the years. With quiet efficiency and determination, Gilbertus Albans was changing the course of human civilization.
And he would not let Emperor Salvador Corrino or the fanatical antitechnology Butlerians take it away from him.
In the nearly two centuries of his artificially extended life, Gilbertus had learned how to survive. Realizing that controversial and charismatic figures tended not to remain alive for long, he played his public role with great care—remaining quiet and unobtrusive, even consenting to distasteful alliances that, according to his projections, helped the overall goals of his Mentat School.
Mentats: humans with minds so organized they could function as computers in a reactionary society that reviled any hint of thinking machines. Not even his own trainees knew that Gilbertus secretly drew upon the unique background, wisdom, and experiences of his mentor, the notorious robot Erasmus. He feared that even his most supportive students would balk at that. Nevertheless, after years of consistently reliable performance, his Mentat graduates were becoming indispensable to the noble houses of the Imperium.
In such dangerous times, though, any question or mere suspicion could bring down the school. He knew what had happened to the Sisterhood on Rossak. If he made the slightest mistake and revealed his true identity …
