What a [EDITED BY THE ALMIGHTY MODERATOR]!!EmperorofFatalism
Well if the newer one are crap, then you might as well avoid the series altogether, since a story that ends with a clift hanger is not a propper story.
my answer:
cmsahe
That's not true! the cliffhanger is an invention of the writers (KJA/BH) so that you buy their books. Frank Herbert had as the central subject of the Dune series (since GEoD) the survival of mankind, and that's achieved when Duncan Idaho pilots the no-ship into the unknown, forever out of the grasp of the Bene Gesserit-Honored Matres and the SuperFaceDancers Marty & Daniel (the hacks made them Evil killing robots...) I interpret that you have not read the original Dune series by Frank Herbert.
EmperorofFatalism
Chapter house did end with a clift hanger, and the series would of been complete if he had not died. Because of that we will never know how the series ended. No ending, no story, no read, thus it is best to avoid the series altogether.
About my opinion I might be mistaken, even the wikipedia entry to ChD mentions that the series ended in a cliffhanger. When did you first hear about the "cliffhanger"? I didn't interpret the finale as one when I read the book. Did you? Is it a marketing scheme by HLP? Of course Frank Herbert would have written a sequel, but he died and this is the end, it does not matter if you like it or not. Are some readers so blunt and thick headed that they need a complete explanation of a story since the Big Bang till the Big Crunch (or the cold dead by evaporation of all physical matter)