Children of Dune

Children of Dune is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert and the third in his Dune series of six novels. It was originally serialised in Analog Science Fiction and Fact in 1976 and was the last Dune novel to be serialised before book publication.

The political situation follows from the previous volume. At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides walks into the desert as a blind man and leaves his sister Alia to rule the universe as regent for his twin children, Leto II and Ghanima. The children were awakened in the womb by spice, so they are heirs to Paul's prescient vision and to the role Alia badly wants for herself. The children are Leto and Ghanima, and because spice awakened them before birth they carry their father's prescient vision as well as his name.

House Corrino is also scheming, which gives the novel two kinds of pressure: an internal family contest over the regency and an external dynastic threat. House Corrino wants the throne back, so the twins are pursued by a dynastic claim as well as by their aunt's ambition.