Children of Dune is a sf novel by Frank Herbert, 3rd in a series of six novels set in the Dune universe. The novel was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977. It was originally serialized in Analog Science Fiction & Fact in 1976, and was the last Dune novel to be serialized before book publication. The novels Dune Messiah and Children of Dune were adapted into a well-received mini-series entitled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune by the SciFi Channel in 2003. In 2002, the Science Fiction Book Club also published the two novels in one volume.
At the end of Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides walks into the desert, a blind man, leaving his twin children Leto and Ghanima in the care of the Fremen, while his sister Alia rules the universe as regent. Awoken in the womb by the spice, the children are the heirs to Paul's prescient vision of the fate of the universe, a role that Alia desperately craves. House Corrino schemes to return to the throne, while the Bene Gesserit make common cause with the Tleilaxu and Spacing Guild to gain control of the spice and the children of Paul Atreides.