Okay, so I adore the Dune series and have done ever since I read Dune for the first time as a teenager, which is why I was so disappointed by how bad this book is. This book is reeeeally bad. At first I thought bad in a fun, wacky sci-fi sort of way, but then it became both boring AND incredibly offensive, and by about 70% I was just powering through, hoping to get to the end so I could be done with it.

The book is ostensibly about Leto's attempt to carry out the "golden path" he foresaw at the end of Children of Dune, a sacrifice which turns him into a giant gross infertile sandworm, and which is important in order to prevent a vaguely alluded to disaster to humanity. (Why was the reveal of the actual potential disaster so low key??? Surely it should be a big deal, as both the reason for Leto's super boring peace empire, and the proof of his own humanity??)

However, there really isn't much plot at all, just the worst kind of pseudo-philosophical pontificating which Herbert confined to a chapter or two in his earlier books. Dune is a novel absolutely bursting with ideas, but none of the ideas in God Emperor of Dune really come together to say anything meaningful, even though it explores a lot of the same themes as the earlier books in the series. Like, reading Dune I thought that Herbert had a really interesting perspective on organized religion and its purpose in society, but reading this book it just seemed like he had a weirdly sexist fixation with female priestesses. This intellectual laziness is compounded by the supposedly incomprehensibly massive intellectual capabilities of the main character who has like a thousand geniuses living in his head, and this makes it impossible to believe in the central conceit of the book, which amounts to a fatal flaw for a sci-fi novel.

As far as I can tell, what the book is ACTUALLY about is Frank Herbert's prejudice and anxieties about sexuality and gender, which he projects onto the characters in really uncomfortable and awkward ways. Maybe I am wrong about this but I DO NOT KNOW HOW ELSE TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING ABOUT THIS BOOK.

It's important to note that Leto is sexually repulsive and has no loins, because this is hammered home to us repeatedly in this book. So, Leto UNCOMFORTABLY PHALLIC Atreides II married his twin sister one time ages ago, and had many unconsummated brides, and shares a love of the soul with his test-tube fiance, and although he can produce no real sperm he carries the metaphorical sperm of the future in his body which he plans to release as tiny pearls of his consciousness during his transformation when he goes Full Sandworm.

Duncan Idaho is super handsome and every single woman of Leto's oversexualised priestess army wants to have his babies, but Leto tells him that his sperm is intended for Siona, which stresses Duncan out because he is not just a stud and wants to be valued for more than just HIS loins. Duncan is alarmed by Leto's bizarre, inaccurate and deeply offensive theory that being in the army makes you sadistic and gay (this is why Leto needs an army of sexually adventurous women who focus all their adoration on him, obvs), because one time Idaho experimented with another guy in his youth. I can't tell if it makes it better or worse for me that Duncan's over the top homophobia comes from a place of repressing his own gay experiences. Everything is so clumsy and heavy-handed. I just can't tell!!

My overriding impression of the book is that it's Weird About Sex, but not in a fun or interesting way, rather in a wearyingly, forcedly, desperately heterosexual way. In the epilogue which tells us about Duncan and Siona's future legacy the people from the future exclaim loudly that they had a lot of sons, because don't you dare forget that the most important thing about these two slightly more interesting than the rest characters is that they ended up PRODUCING MANY MALE HEIRS as a good arranged breeding pair should do!!!! I thought the Bene Gesserit breeding program was another interestingly alien aspect of the world Herbert created but it turns out the concept isn't alien to the author at all; I think actually he just thinks that good relationships are about people breeding according to some appointed scheme. Reading this book is like an open window being slammed shut on your fingers.

Some other things happen in this book: some people rebel pointlessly, some others scheme fruitlessly and at one point a woman orgasms spontaneously from watching Duncan Idaho climb up a wall. Let's just not talk about it.

To give God Emperor of Dune credit where it is due, I laughed quite a lot when I wasn't cringing in horror, and I was very engaged throughout, mostly because I was composing furious rants about Leto Atreides in my head. (Remember how great Leto I was?? And Paul and Chani's tragically dead first baby, also called Leto? It is an OUTRAGE that this deeply inadequate later Leto became the main Leto of the series.) So I nearly gave this book two stars but I didn't because I feel that it's important to recognise how bad it is. As a novel, as a piece of literature, it's awful.

Dzieci, nie bierzcie narkotyków. Ta książka wystarczy.

Diuneczka na yt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0sPw...

Чесно кажучи, ця книга ще менше вразила. Хоча вдалося зловити кілька цікавих ідей. Наприклад ідея лідера-хижака, яка ще відгукується у Пітера Вотса і сліпобаченні.

Ще була загалом хороша ідея із перетворенням впродовж тисячоліть у нову форму життя через симбіоз. Природа/бог/людський розум пізнають різні параметри всесвіту, додаючи одне одного, але при цьому межі втрачаються.

Дещо бракує (і не зовсім зрозуміло) дзенської підготовки Айдаго. Тут він постає як неврівноважений персонаж, який гойдає човна. Також відчутним є занурення автора у гриби ще більше: все намішано, орієнталізм розкривається у тексті сповна, але немає глибини.

Не певен, чи готовий продовжувати цю мандрівку із Гербертом)))

Buddy read with Athena!

“I am a collection of the obsolete, a relic of the damned, of the lost and strayed. I am the waylaid pieces of history which sank out of sight in all of our pasts. Such an accumulation of riffraff has never before been imagined.”

More than three thousand years have passed since the events described in the Great Dune Trilogy, and everything has changed. Arrakis is now a planet of running water and green growth, and the days of stillsuits and crysknives are gone. The Sandworms and the Fremen remain only as legends from the Ancient Days of Dune. Only one part remains from the old days: Leto II, the God Emperor.

God Emperor of Dune is, logically, a book centred around Leto. However, that is precisely its greatest problem. The so-called God Emperor who so valiantly sacrificed his human existence for that of an emperor doomed to serve his people by living through the ages and preserving the universe, has turned into a tyrant. And everyone sees him as such, except for himself and his fanatically loyal Fish Speaker cult. It seems as if though the book is an attempt to justify the government of Leto, and that is a task in which it fails miserably.

Because of that, one should think that there would be other people to sympathise with. People living under the oppression of Leto’s rule joining together in rebellion against the monstrous tyrant. Well… there really aren’t any. The rebels on Arrakis are led by Siona, the last of the Atreides line descending from Ghanima, Leto’s sister. But in reality, Leto is allowing the rebellion to happen while secretly grooming Siona to become another of his instruments. Siona knows this, and knows that the God Emperor doesn’t want her dead. That, of course, makes one wonder what the point is about the whole thing.

Next to Leto and Siona, the rest of the characters are few and uninteresting. There were a couple of them in particular that were a bit interesting in the beginning, but my interest in them quickly evaporated into thin air. And when you don’t have any characters that are fun to read about, the book gets terribly boring after a while.

This book is actually not as bad as it sounds. The story was intriguing at times (not often, mind you), the great writing of Frank Herbert is still present, and the fourth book is just as much of a lesson in power and politics as the first three books. But the point is that compared with Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, three of the greatest books ever written, this one is a disaster.

I liked this one the best so far. It’s gross and weird. I still don’t think Herbert has ever spoken to woman.

Okay, this was my second read of God Emperor of Dune. Honestly, it was quite an useful read because now I understand more precisely what was Leto's goal and the exact purpose of his Golden Path. To make a long story short the Golden Path is nothing more than the survival of the human race. At the end of the old empire (period described in the previous books) the human race has become doomed beyond hope with a corrupt and decadent feudal ruling system, stagnant and with an major addiction to substance ( the spice) that influenced almost all aspects of life (transportation, science, technological advancement, religion, food, etc) across the universe. The Bene Gesserit has foreseen humanity's disaster and they hoped to avoid it with the Kwisatz Haderach, the prescient messiah who will save us all. As we know, they lost control of it and Paul Muad'dib became Emperor on his own. Paul with his ability to see the future also saw the end of humanity and acted on it and he tried to save it with his Jihad. But wiping all resistance to his rule was not enough and something more drastic was needed. Because of Paul's love for his wife and because he still had his thirst for his humanity Paul couldn't make the ultimate sacrifice. Instead his son, Leto did it. Leto transformed himself in to a half man-half sandworm creature that permitted him to guide humanity on the Golden Path journey. The Golden Path acted on several different aspects. First, he needed to free the humanity from the spice addiction, thus during a long period of time he wiped out the sandworms, which wore the only source of spice and could live only in one place: Dune. Upon his foreseen death, Leto would breed a new kind of sandworms, with conscience and more intelligent and also with the ability to live on other planets besides Dune. Second, Leto also begun oppressing humanity like no ruler, (thos the Tyrant nickname) before him. This had also several reasons behind it: he slowly started reducing the spice addiction of humanity, by the end Leto's rule people wore almost free of it and the spice influenced only a few essential aspects of life (ex: space travel) . Also oppressing the people for long enough, he created a longing to be free of him, a desire for freedom (which is basically, the Scattering, in the following books). In particular, by oppressing the ixians and tleilaxu and not destroying them entirely, forced these two factions to be more inventive, creative and eventually it will lead them to discover space travel without the need of spice and the invention of artificial spice. Third, Leto had to be sure that in the future no other will ever posses the power he had possessed and that no person, no matter how prescient, would ever be able to track down all humanity and control like he did. So, he took from the Bene Gesserit their prized breeding plan and with Siona he managed to make a new kind of Atreides, free of the prescience vision. Fourth, with his all-female army, the Fish Speakers, Leto ensured that after he was gone, these women (with their training, discipline and life philosophy) will guaranty humanity's survival and guide them along the right path.
God Emperor of Dune might not by so actioned packed like the previous or the following books in the Dune Saga but it is most certainly the center one and the most important one of all.

An inflection point for the series, and a very odd one at that.

At the end of Children of Dune, Leto II, 12-year-old son of Paul Muad'Dib, had covered himself with sandtrout (the small, water-encapsulating creatures that are an early part of the life cycle of Shai-Hulud, the sandworms of Arrakis) and taken the Imperial throne, in accordance with his prescient visions. Smash cut to:

3500 years later: Leto still rules, now as God Emperor, although over the millennia he has undergone a transformation -- the sandtrout have made him into a small sandworm, albeit with a human face and human arms & hands. And his rule is as absolute as he can make it, as per the constraints of his prescient visions. Arrakis itself, Dune no more, has been transformed into a world of open rivers and forests, with one small desert and, most critically, no sandworms and hence no melange except for the vast stockpiles Leto accumulated before the extinction of the rest of the worms, and which he now doles out grudgingly to the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, the Bene Tleilax and other petitioners.

And not everybody is happy with the status quo ...

Also in the mix: Siona, descended from the Atreides via one of Leto's breeding programs; she's currently rebelling against his reign although Leto has plans in that regard. Duncan Idaho, latest in a series of gholas (cloned from Duncan's original cells and given Duncan's original memories). Hwi Noree, the latest Ixian ambassador, specially bred to be Leto's downfall.

I know this is a divisive book in the series, but I've always liked it. It's definitely on the talkier and more philosophical end of the spectrum, but it's kind of a staggering work of imagination regardless.

And it was directly adapted into an episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy ("Mandy the Merciless").

It always astonished him how a desert provoked thoughts of religion.

Frank Herbert gives the impression of being an iconoclastic, if somewhat dour, thinker and general navel-gazer. But there is a mischievous side to his intellect as well, as evinced by the running joke in ‘God Emperor of Dune’ about Leto II’s scandalous sexual proclivities, a rumour spread by the dastardly Tleilaxu. Does the man-worm have any form of genitalia? At one point, Leto II wonders if he should sport a strap-on just to shock (let alone titillate) his court. However, he decides against it for decorum’s sake.

Thus continues my first reread of the entire ‘Dune’ sequence since my teens, inspired by Denis Villeneuve’s recent ‘Part I’ interpretation of half of the original book. Indeed, one wonders what Villeneuve would make of Leto II, especially given that his interpretation of Baron Harkonnen is probably the weakest element of a generally faithful (if overly reverential) movie adaptation. The reference to the Baron is apt, as there are several comparisons between the two monsters in ‘God Emperor’, and musings as to who has the grossest form. Leto II probably wins this contest hands down (actually, it is flippers.)

‘Children of Dune’ was a hot mess, with way too much expository mumbo-jumbo and clumsy writing that saw pivotal scenes like the sandtrout attaching to Leto’s body failing to make any impact. It is ironic that ‘God Emperor’ starts as ‘Children’ does, with desperately fleeing people hunted by modified wolves – in this instance, it is Siona and her rebel friends who have made off with the man-worm’s journals. (These so-called ‘Stolen Journals’ are the source of all the chapter epigraphs, adding a level of first-person commentary to the narrative rather than being completely extraneous to it.)

Siona lives to fight another day. She features in one of the most magnificent setpieces in the book, when Leto II decides to ‘test’ her by taking her out into the Sareer, the last vestige of the great desert that once covered Arrakis. Herbert’s nature writing, and in particular his passion for the ecology of Dune, shines through again in ‘God Emperor’ in this extended sequence, where you can almost taste the sand and feel its heat. Much of the planet has changed as well, including ironies such as the Idaho River and the Museum Fremen.

Despite its length, ‘God Emperor’ curiously feels tighter than ‘Children’. This seems counterintuitive, especially as it is largely focused on the single character of Leto II. But the writing is certainly more cohesive. And the plot is tightly wound around three key action scenes, the last of which concludes Book #4 in a genuinely nailbiting fashion.

What struck me rereading this is how much of a love story it is, interwoven with a lover’s triangle. The tragic aspect comes from the repeated failing of the Duncan gholas, with the latest iteration falling head over heels for Hwi Noree, Leto II’s own intended bride. Yup, it is Beauty and the Beast on Arrakis. With penis jokes.

Hwi is also the Ixian ambassador. She has been especially bred by those meddlesome tinkerers to be most emblematic of Leto II’s greatest loss: his humanity. The man-worm generally cocks a snook at the proscriptions of the Butlerian Jihad, with everything from the royal suspensor cart to the royal elevators being dependent on Ixian technology.

You just know that this is likely to bite him in the ass, or whatever his equivalent of an ass is, when it is revealed that the Ixians are plotting a widget to replace a Guild Navigator and simultaneously nullify the spice. Which in this book is bright blue, as opposed to the traditional orange and familiar cinnamon smell attributed to it previously. I suppose it kind of makes sense in that melange-heads have blue-in-blue eyes. But I genuinely got the feeling here that Herbert thought: Fuck it, it is my sandbox. I will make the spice blue if I want to.

There is a lot of pontificating in ‘God Emperor’ about social engineering, such as the failed breeding experiments of the Bene Gesserit. Exactly why Siona is invisible to Leto’s godlike prescience, and how this is linked to her being an Atreides herself is never spelt out. Surprisingly, the Golden Path itself barely gets a couple of mentions.

Probably the most controversial aspect of ‘God Emperor’, apart from Leto II’s priapic powers, of course, are the weirdly lesbian-cum-Amazonian Fish Speakers. The man-worm gives a half-assed explanation as to how a female army is more fanatical as it gets rid of homosexuality in its ranks, which drains men’s energy and dilutes their focus on the job at hand of rape and pillage. And if you are thinking what is to stop the Fish Speakers indulging in same-sex proclivities themselves, Herbert has all perversions covered: The latest Duncan is much offended when he stumbles across a pair wrapped up in a passionate kiss. Tsk.

There is a truly bizarre scene towards the end where, watching the latest Duncan free-climb a nearly 1 km high bridge rampart, results in Nayla spontaneously orgasming just as he reaches the top. Go figure. However, I hasten to add that not nearly enough attention has been paid to Herbert’s critique of gender and power relations in the ‘Dune’ sequence, and specifically in ‘God Emperor’.

It’s not easy to make a character as bizarre as Leto II appear both human and alien. The fact that Herbert makes the reader empathise with the man-worm’s fate as his transformation into Shai-Hulud continues apace is testament to the peculiar magnetism of this strange book, probably one of the strangest in the entire Dune sequence, and certainly one of the most baroque SF novels ever written.

What a tragedy, the original 1965 Dune is one of the most legendary novels of all time.

Yet the sequels leave a lot to be desired. I understand the impulse from Herbert to continue the story, I really do. Both for reasons of his own imagination, and because the fans want more of the planet Arrakis and the Atreides line. But with each sequel, it gets less interesting. They aren't so much about plot but world-building, with a new paradigm endlessly explained while little story progresses.

In this iteration, Leto the second has lived for thousands of years and is mutated into a worm by the spice or something. He is the titular "God Emperor" and gets to write secret journals explaining how the whole space empire thing works in this setting.

There seems to be a bit of a plot, I think it concerns someone trying to overthrow him and his weird marriage. And there are Fish Speakers. Mostly though, it's about speeches.

Herbert gets to indulge in long-winded conversations with all his opinions on stuff. On bureaucracy and a female soldier force, etc. Some of it is interesting. Some of it really doesn't age while, like a treatise on homosexuality (which admittedly even the first Dune utilized as something only for the evil villains). Even when the conversations between the giant talking worm and his subjects are fascinating, you have to admit this is not quite a novel.

I'd strongly Dune to everyone, and absolute classic. Read and reread. Then, everyone but the most rabid fandom should just ignore the other books...

Well, I think that's it for me reading this series!

Jak dla mnie jest to najsłabszy tom. Wciąż utrzymuje jednak, że jest to genialna seria i jestem ogromnie ciekawa kolejnych tomów.

Za wysokie miałem oczekiwania po tym, czego nasłuchałem się o czwartej księdze Kronik Diuny.

+ przemyślenia Leto II , z których można wyłuskać ciekawe obserwacje odnoszące się do świata rzeczywistego
+ patos i klimat tego uniwersum, który zdążył się zbudować w czytelniku, jako że to już 4 tom
- nie dzieje się w tej książce bardzo dużo...
- nadal nie do końca wierzę w 3000 lat niemalże stagnacji wszechświata, ale pewnie się czepiam

Postaram się mieć krótszą przerwę przed Heretykami, niż miałem czytelniczo między Dziećmi i Bogiem :)

I absolutely love this book. God Emperor of Dune is different from others novels in the series, and while I can understand why it might be off putting to some, for me this is the most beautiful and personal narrative in the whole series. I applaud Herbert for trying out something different and going for a book that was so heavily focused on an individual...and what an individual he is! A god who dislikes religion, because: “Religious institutions perpetuate a mortal master-servant relationship,” Leto said. “They create an arena which attracts prideful human power-seekers with all of their nearsighted prejudices!” Leto II is one of my all time favourite characters!

I read this book years ago, but so many thoughts from God Emperor of Dune are still with me. I can't tell you how many times my mind has remembered something Leto II has said. If you want to avoid spoilers, now is a good time to stop reading this review. It is impossible to say something coherent about it without referring to the third novel in the series, so if you haven't read that one, there might be spoilers for it here as well. This novel is fourth in Dune's series, and although it is in some ways different from others, I would still recommend you to read the others as well, because this book is best understood in the context of Dune universe. I suppose that in some ways God Emperor of Dune might be an interesting read on its own, especially since it is a more personal narrative, but as I said, it is best read as a part of a series.

This novel is set in a very different universe, one that is thousands of years away from where the third novel left off. Leto II has access to complete historical records, which allow him to study human evolution- an important theme for this book. At the start of this book, Leto II has ruled the known universe for 3, 5000 years, and the son is nothing like the father (even if he has ever been). Leto II has destroyed Paul's Fremen army and their identity, replacing it with his own Fish Eaters, an all female army. Many known powers from the old universe are either destroyed, suppressed or kept on a very tight leash in this world ruled by one power. That's not the only thing that makes God Emperor of Dune different from the books predating it- a large portion of books is written in the form of quotations, monologues and speeches of Leto II. Apparently, Herbert wrote the first draft of the novel as a first person narrative of Leto II. It definitely shows.

I loved learning more about God Emperor of Dune as the novel progressed. At first I didn't know how to feel about him. I mean Leto II is a three thousand year old giant worm, a god of sorts, who also happens to be a ruthless and absolute dictator of the known world, a powerful tyrant who is - wait for it- actually saving the human race by suppressing and opposite them until they can't take it any longer and become ready to scatter into space, thus saving themselves from the threat of extinction. Alright, that was a long sentence. If Leto II wasn't written so brilliantly, this would have been a dull novel. Fortunately, the God Emperor is endlessly fascinating and touchingly human in his strangeness. Another odd but interesting detail was Leto II transformation. He is part animal, part human. As a human, he is more than any human has ever been (having lived for thousands of years as well as having access to full history of human race) but there is also an animal like characteristic to him. When Leto II gets angry, he kills. This kept me on edge as the novel progressed. It created a weird contrast between his highly intelligent and absolutely wild persona.

Leto II take on politics is just as fascinating. Take what he says about conservatives and liberals: “Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat. It’s true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it’s that patterns are repeated. My oppressions, by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least, I teach a new lesson. —”

I can't forget this jewel of a thought either: "“Remember that there exists a certain malevolence about the formation of any social order. It is the struggle for existence by an artificial entity. Despotism and slavery hover at the edges. Many injuries occur and, thus, the need for laws. The law develops its own power structure, creating more wounds and new injustices. Such trauma can be healed by cooperation, not by confrontation. The summons to cooperate identifies the healer.”

What Leto II thinks of police and military is fascinating as well:

“Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available.”

“Unceasing warfare gives rise to its own social conditions which have been similar in all epochs. People enter a permanent state of alertness to ward off attacks. You see the absolute rule of the autocrat. All new things become dangerous frontier districts—new planets, new economic areas to exploit, new ideas or new devices, visitors—everything suspect. Feudalism takes firm hold, sometimes disguised as a politbureau or similar structure, but always present. Hereditary succession follows the lines of power. The blood of the powerful dominates.”

Why did the Leto II had to create the golden path? Because he understood the need. The world he was supposed to rule was deeply unstable. His father Paul unleashed religious fantastic onto the world, the Bene Gessiret were growing increasingly powerful as were other fractions and power allegiances controlling the human race. Let us not forget that Dune society of old is basically a feudal system and as such bound to be unjust. There is so much sense in what God Emperor did- but does that justify him? Leto II is a tyrant but there is logic in his seeming madness. It was fantastic seeing the story unfold. There are a lot of moral dilemmas in this one, lot of things to wrap your head around.

I'm not sure how I felt about Duncan ghola to be honest. I feel like there is more to Duncan that I was able to see. At times he seemed to be there only as recipient of Leto's messages, but at times Duncan seems like something more. I think I still need to figure him out, and the emperor's use of Duncan as well. Why is he so important to him? I mean besides the obvious reason revealed by the end of the book.


“Duncan, I am a teacher. Remember that. By repetition, I impress the lesson.”

“What lesson?”

“The ultimately suicidal nature of military foolishness.”