Having finished writing the third book of the trilogy, Children of Dune (first published in Analog, January-April 1976), Frank Herbert did not intend to revisit that imaginary universe. He had said all he wished to say about Paul Atreides and his legacy, and about the spice, and sandworms, and the Bene Gesserit, and the like. He would move on to other matters.

And so he did. The Dosadi Experiment followed hard on the heels of Children of Dune, first published in the summer of 1977. This was succeeded by a screenplay for a Dune movie in 1978, and complicated legal wrangling involving the writing and rewriting of The Jesus Incident, which was published in 1979. Competing negotiations for a film version of Soul Catcher preoccupied Herbert during the summer of 1980. During this period he also coauthored a now almost unreadable book about new technology just beginning to arrive on the scene, 1980's Without Me You're Nothing: The Essential Guide to Home Computers.

As early as 1977, however, Herbert had admitted that he felt pressure to continue the Dune series, although he was uncommitted to doing so. He said then: "The thing that attracts me is, say, coming back to the character of Leto 3,400 years later . . ."

When Herbert did decide to return to the Duniverse, he felt free of any constraints so far as the plot was concerned. So long as he remained within the general boundaries established in the original trilogy, he was free to write about absolutely anything he desired. He must have felt very liberated, knowing he had a guaranteed audience and to be able to start fresh. He wrote the fourth book in the series between March 1979 and July 1980. Published in May 1981, God Emperor of Dune is Frank Herbert's magnum opus.

Dune Messiah reads like a convoluted Shakespearian tragedy, but God Emperor of Dune bumps it up a couple orders of magnitude: here we find not excessively Byzantine plot convolutions, but rather a graceful and elegant prose found nowhere else in Herbert's writing. Herbert had begun to consciously try to meld literary and science fiction in Children of Dune, and that experimentation reaches its apex in this novel. God Emperor of Dune is the most literary science fiction novel I've ever read. This is precisely the kind of writing that I wish all science fiction authors would try to meet or exceed.

In Children of Dune the character Leto II had unambiguously declared that the choice for humanity was one of extinction or his Golden Path: some dangerous something was embedded in the human psyche that needed to be corrected. In writing this novel, Herbert asked himself one question: If I had thousands of years at my disposal, how would I fix humanity?

Within that question lies the character of Leto II, and the character of Leto II provokes all of the action of the story.

I'll give away none of the plot here, but in order to appreciate the tragedy that is God Emperor of Dune it's important to consider the quality of the main character, Leto II.

In the earlier Dune books, the primary superheroic gift of Paul Atreides was an ability to foresee many different possible futures. The ability of Alia, and of the Bene Gesserit, was to assimilate the life-experiences of their past ancestors. In Leto II Herbert has merged these gifts. The God Emperor has extraordinary access to all spacetime, past and future: he is the real Kwisatz Haderach. Furthermore, enveloped as he is in a skin that is not his own, he has become virtually indestructible and immortal. He may not have the power of physical creation at his fingertips, but for all practical purposes Herbert has created in Leto II what may be at once the strangest and the most believable god-figure in literature.

Leto II contains and can access the full-life experiences of all his ancestors, back to the dawn of human consciousness. So how many personages are rattling around within the psyche of the God Emperor? Counting n generations backwards in time, each of us has 2*2^n ancestors, which means after only n = 19 (i.e., 19 generations back), we each have more than a million ancestors. As Herbert elsewhere (i.e., in Destination: Void) posits human consciousness originated 16,000 years ago, a bit of math suggests that Leto II has direct access to approximately 3.0 x 10^371 fully integrated ancestral lifetime memory-records! Add to that his prescient abilities, and this character is suddenly discovered to be the Alexandrian library incarnate multiplied to an unprecedented degree. His experience of humanity is legion. Nowhere else in fiction, to my knowledge, has the portrayal of a character even remotely like this one been attempted. Given this understanding, Leto's unique perspective on the human condition becomes a bit more comprehensible. 3,500 years to such a creature can seem little more than the blink of an eye. He can scarcely be concerned with the individual: it is only survival of the species that matters to him. This makes him the ultimate alien, the enigmatic sphinx whose utterances may be heard and recorded but must be interpreted within the context of millennia.

God Emperor of Dune presents us with Herbert's most careful, most thoughtful, most philosophical, most profound writing of his life, and the prose of its telling is exquisite. Every page is alive and electric, jolting with new insights. To have made the prolonged journey with Herbert over the long years and to arrive at this point with him is a kind of privilege. For more than any other character he created, Leto II is inseparable from Frank Herbert. If nowhere else, Herbert will live forever in God Emperor of Dune.

Поредната част на сагата за Дюн надмина всичките ми очаквания.
Не посягайте към нея, ако не сте прочели поне "Децата на Дюн", защото ще е почти невъзможно да вникнете в идеите й.
Тази част има силно философска и психологическа насока. Голяма част от посланията са предадени под формата на писма , като лична изповед и завет към съмишленици, но и към бъдещите поколения.
Определено това е една силна история за нечовешка саможертва,отдаденост на човешкия род и непримиримост в преследването на мечтата за спасяване на човечеството по пътя на Златната патека. След хилядолетия управление на малкия Лито ,еволюиарала симбиоза на човек и пясъчна твар, достигнала стадий предчервей , Аракис е оставена в ръцете на подготвените от него селектирани атреиди.
Нямам търпение да прочета какви изпитания е подготвил авторът за Айдахо и Сиона.

I keep going back and forth on this rating. Reading this series has been a truly weird experience. The first book is a straight up classic that I enjoy reading, despite some issues with it being dated and gross in places. I will read it again! I will see the movie. The second two books I appreciated on an intellectual level but they did not engage me emotionally at all. I was very much dreading the rest of the series after reading those books. And then . . . this book. I don't even really know what to say about it? In general, my reaction is just sort of . . . what the fuck? But not in a bad way, mostly?

So, the title of this review may have given it away, but our main character is Leto Atreides II, the son of Paul and Chani, and he's 3,500 years old at this point, and is basically God Emperor of the universe. He's also transformed physically, and is still transforming, into a sandworm of Dune, though he still retains a human face and arms (his feet are vestigial "flippers" . . . gag). (I'm still not clear on why this is happening, or even why he chose to merge with the whatever they're called at the end of the last book, but whatever, I'm going with it.) He is full on a tyrant. Like, he acknowledges this to everyone, out loud. He is all-knowing, and prophetic, and he has the entirety of human history in his mind. And he has some overarching bullshit plan that he likes to vaguely hint at while proselytizing to anyone who will listen.

So the thing about this book is that I kind of hated the storyline, and the main character was incredibly unlikable and almost totally unrelatable, but! It did engage me emotionally. I read it pretty fast, all things considered, when I crawled through the previous two. I'm not sure if it was the WTF factor, or the fact that Leto kept making me angry, or that the things that were happening were escalations of fuckery, or all three. There's also the fact that 3,500 years have passed since we last visited Arrakis so we get to go through the process of discovery again, sort of. It's still the same basic universe and planet, but things have changed, and it was interesting to see how, and speculate as to why. I also did like several of the secondary characters (although, some of them verge on sharing protagonist credit with Leto).


This is our guy!

One of those characters is a clone of Duncan Idaho. I keep thinking we've seen the last of this character (I thought he was full on dunzo halfway through book one, and I was so sad, because Jason Momoa is playing him, but don't worry, Jason, your paychecks are secure forever as long as the movies are a hit). But I think that Herbert was in love with him (despite his very obvious homophobia) and kept bringing him back. Just like Leto does in this book, and in the 3,500 years leading up to it. There have been a succession of Duncan Idaho clones, or gholas as they're called in this universe. Leto goes through a lot of them, either losing them to old age, or more likely, to betrayal or "treason" as the Duncans grow bitter about their master and turn on him. Basically, Leto has been tormenting Duncan Idaho for thousands of years.

There's a lot of politicking with the Bene Gesserit and the dirty Tleixaxu, as per usual, but also introduced here is a rebellion led by Leto's sister Ghanima's descendant, Siona. Cool thing to know about Siona: She's the result of Leto's "breeding program." Breeding for what, who knows! Oh, and did I say cool? What I meant is fuck you, Leto. Apparently one of Leto's favorite things to do in order to control a population (aside from making them all complacent with peace and feudal level technology) is to foster rebellion and then disarm it by bringing the leaders to his side. He did this with Siona's father, Moneo, who is also a POV character.

I almost two starred this because Leto will not shut up, and half of what he says is worth thinking about and he had some points, but then the other half is absolute nonsense. Like his gender essentialist thoughts about why it's the best to have an all female army, and his homophobic thoughts about how armies make you gay if you're a dude, and homosexuals are bad! There were strong hints of Herbert's homophobia in book one, what with making the main villain being a gay pedophile, but here it's all out in the open. Leto spouts all his theories with a surety that is aggravating. The problem here is that if this type of character did exist in real life (one who could see all of history and desires to shepherd humanity away from destruction), he would not hold a lot of these opinions. A lot of the opinions don't even make sense! Literally, did not know what he was saying. Herbert was not the best at making his meaning clear, so the result is garbled. And yet, I did not stop reading. It grabbed me.

The thing is, I see what Herbert was going for (after having read the Dune wiki to make sure), and I admit some of the themes he was working with here are interesting. Leto gives up his humanity because he wants to make it so that no single threat can every destroy the entirety of humanity, and this is the only way that his prescience tells him he can do that. Also, there's a lot of stuff in here about the conflicting desires and needs of humans. We want peace, but we flourish under adversity. This is partly how Leto has been Emperor for so long, because he understands this. The story he used to convey this was such weird nonsense, though. I can't emphasize that enough. Leto sucks.

Last thoughts. Only Frank Herbert could have turned this:





Into this:



[2.5 stars, rounded up because what even??]

[SPOILER ALERT: if you never read Children of Dune STOP NOW!]
Leto II is now the God Emperor after merging with the sandtrout and becoming a monstrous worm-man powered by melange. He rules the known universe with an iron fist - not unlike his Aunt Alya did actually - but this is of course because he is SAVING the human race from itself. He has an army of woman, the Fish Speakers, that carry out his bidding spreading terror and, still, peace across his vast domain. He has reigned for 3000+ years and sees the end nearing.

There is a lot of philosophy here and it is interesting. perhaps it gets a little slow. I know several people that get fed up with the Tleilaxu ghola of Duncan Idaho's appearance (and, yes, he is back in Heretics of Dune as well). But overall, it was a good read.

One thing I still don't understand - and perhaps someone more versant in the Dune universe will enlighten me - is what was the threat to humanity that the Golden Path was initiated to alleviate? Was it just infighting that he thought would exterminate the human race? If so, just enforcing a brutal 3500 year peace was just postponing the inevitable? Perhaps this will be revealed in Heretics or Chapterhouse.

Another puzzling thing was the tolerance of Ix. Apparently, in the distant past before Dune, the Butlerian Jihad was raged against "thinking" machines which resulted in a world with human computers (Mentats and Guild Navigators) and a formal universal proscription of computers. However, Leto II apparently allows Ix to wind up production again as he purchases machines for transcribing his thoughts among other things. I found it a bit frustrating not to understand more how the Ixians themselves.

I really love this series although I probably will not read the apocryphal 7 and 8 written after Frank died.

[UPDATE] I am looking forward to Denis Villeneuve's Dune in October 2021. The previews I have seen so far seem to be quite coherent with respect to the book. I was a fan of Lynch's Dune and am curious to see what Villeneuve does with this one. Feel free to comment below.

Fino's Dune Reviews
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune

non c'è mai stata sociologia più solitaria di questa

I just finished this one and liked it almost as much as the first, which is really saying something. I have to say that Leto disgusted me at first ... gave me the willies just reading about him, kind of like squishing a snail, but by the end of the book, I felt dreadfully sorry for him, and had a reluctant respect for the lonely choices he made. I'd certainly have never made those sacrifices. I have a pile of quotes from the wise Mr. Herbert to add here ....

*** 3.43 ***

3.5 – 4 stars

March 2024 re-read thoughts:

Sorry haters, but you’re wrong, this is a good book. That said I would have to agree that it has its issues: Herbert’s penchant to tell instead of show (esp. through inner monologues, or in this case Leto worm-splaining his ways to others) is on display, but somehow I find that it works in the Dune books, perhaps partly because I find the content so intriguing, and partly because sometimes a writer can break the ‘rules’ when it serves the story overall.

And yes, I agree that this is a weird book…and they’re only going to get weirder as the series progresses, but I think that’s a feature, not a bug. My guess is that most readers coming off of the initial ‘trilogy’ with its close-up view of the initial seizing of power in the Imperium by the Atreides ultimately want more of the same. More Muad’Dib, more rhythmless desert-walking, more blue-within-blue eyes, but Herbert wanted to move on…and I applaud him for it. It likely goes without saying that the universe in which a cadre of drug-addled psychic witches with a secret breeding scheme for humanity that results in the untimely advent of the messianic Kwisatz Haderach who launches a galaxy-spanning jihad through the use of prescience can only go somewhere truly weird from where it began. The evolution of a worm-human hybrid that holds humanity’s future in a steel grip for ends that only he came foresee seems like a great swerve to me. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Herbert was pretty brave in moving forward with his story of the Dune universe instead of simply cashing in and giving the public more of the same (oh, hi there Brian Herbert!) Like it or not, he went where the story took him even if it wasn’t where all of his readers necessarily wanted him to go.

Aside from his ecological themes and concerns I think you could safely say that one of Herbert’s main interests in the Dune series is the investigation of what it means to be human. From the first testing of Paul by the Reverend Mother Mohiam to something of a culmination of the topic in this volume, the distinction between what is truly human and what is merely an animal with a veneer of culture is an important one. In God Emperor we see Leto attempting to truly ‘humanize’ the race, breaking us away from an unknowing slavery to our animal instincts, which he is able to see so clearly thanks to his millennia of contemplating the inner lives of his ancestral memories. But towards (or away from) what exactly is Leto’s grand plan leading humanity? What’s the point? In part it seems to be away from apathy, mere safety, and the repetition of their mistakes which are constantly repeated throughout history. In part it seems to aim to protect them from some larger, perhaps external, threat that could snuff out humanity if they continue to follow the path of their natural evolution. The Bene Gesserit apparently had inklings of this knowledge, as seen in their philosophy and breeding program, but it apparently required the creation of a seemingly immortal worm-human hybrid, a true alien, to understand what was required to break humanity out from under the chains of their instinctual responses and allow them to move forward and onward to something truly new.

One other element of Herbert’s Dune series that’s intriguing is the seeming black and white nature of its heroes and villains which then seem to shift under our very eyes. Of course, we have the honour-bound Atreides struggling against the vile, decadent Harkonnens…only to find that they are actually one and the same (genetically speaking). Our hero Paul, the young victim that witnesses the slaughter of his family and friends, becomes the instrument for the largest genocidal war in the history of humanity. Making the hero the villain and then making the villain sympathetic seems to linger behind much of the Dune series: the Atreides are the most obvious example, but there is also the Bene Gesserit who are painted as witches and masters of Machiavellian manipulation only to ultimately shine forth as guardians of humanity and heroes in later volumes. Is Leto evil? Or is he merely a paternalistic figure who can see beyond our limited vision? Was Paul evil, or was he driven by circumstances beyond his control? Is Herbert side-stepping the issue or pointing out the inherent ambiguities? I find it intriguing regardless.

Original review:

Leto II has re-made the Imperium in a bid to re-make the human race. For three and a half thousand years humanity has lived under his despotic rule, molded by seemingly undying hands that are no longer human. But remnants of the old world still linger on and the Bene Tleilax and Bene Gesserit, not to mention the technologists of Ix who skirt the edges of the Butlerian prohibitions, still hope to wrest the reins of power from the godlike worm-man Leto Atreides. In addition to this not all of the Atreides scions, produced by the god-emperor’s breeding program, are content to be pawns to their illustrious and (seemingly) ever-living forebear. The spark of rebellion smolders and Herbert’s wheels within wheels within wheels continue to turn. Leto would have it no other way as all appears to work towards his design. Leto is a self-proclaimed predator whose prey is humanity and his purpose is to teach them the lessons that only the cruel truths of survival can teach in the hopes that it will bring humanity out of its long adolescence that had been motivated by primal fears, myths, and instincts into a more nuanced and adult form of understanding and perceiving their universe. It is, in his words “…the predator’s necessary cruelty.”

Whatever others may think of it I find this volume of the Dune series fascinating. I wonder if some of the traditional aversion to these later three volumes of the saga doesn’t come from many readers’ desire to have ‘more of the same’? In contravention to this, Herbert’s opposed aim of developing his ideas and themes beyond the initial conditions and circumstances of the first three books can obviously frustrate expectations. We aren’t in Kansas (or old style Arrakis) anymore. I have to admit that there’s probably a small part of me that agrees with the dissenting voices and wishes for more of the same as well, but the other part of me is glad that Herbert resisted temptation and followed his story where it led him…however far out that may have been.

Arrakis (no longer “Dune” in any parlance) is now green, with the small ‘Sareer’, maintained by Leto as his refuge, as the sole remnant of the once planet-spanning desert. The Fremen have finally achieved their paradise, but at what cost? They are now known sneeringly as the ‘’Museum Fremen” and exist only to perform in hollow re-enactments of their cultural traditions, traditions they no longer understand, for tourists. Leto has arranged everything in his empire according to his design, a design that is meant to bring about the ‘golden path’ for humanity, but just what does this mean? For a great part this has apparently meant an enforced tranquility and the dampening of all travel and conflict throughout the Imperium…though of course, humans being humans, conflict still exists as sparks of rebellion flourish but Leto harshly puts these down with his new ‘Fish Speaker’ army of amazon warriors who are solely devoted to their god-emperor. According to Leto humanity’s fatal flaw has been their reliance on the past and the patterns ingrained into them by eons of evolution. Only one such as Leto, with access to the nearly infinite memories that lay at the foundation of these instincts, can see this and force humanity out of its rut. This is Leto’s golden path. A way for humanity to move beyond its heritage.

Leto’s golden path also hinges on a breeding plan taken, much to their chagrin, from the hands of the Bene Gesserit. Leto’s aim, however, differs from theirs as he seeks a different ‘perfection’ in the Atreides genes of his descendants that veers sharply from the original goal of the kwisatz haderach. In addition to this breeding program Leto has also been serially producing gholas of Duncan Idaho. He claims to miss his old friend, but his reasons for this serial resurrection appear to go well beyond the personal. These Duncan gholas, remnants of a bygone era and forced to adapt to circumstances that are strange indeed, have a unique place in Leto’s brave new world. The newest Duncan, like all of those before him, struggles with the observation “this is not Atreides” as he witnesses the actions, one might say the atrocities, of the god-emperor. It brings to mind the fact that the Harkonnens and the Atreides are simply two sides of the same coin…literally. Though, of course, whatever the appearances may be Leto II has only the good of the human race at heart…at least that is what he avers. Aside from this overarching concern, the Duncans also have a purely personal reason for their ambivalence towards Leto. As the one we come to know quite well in this volume says himself: “There’s a time, Leto, a time when you’re alive. A time when you’re supposed to be alive. It can have a magic, that time, while you’re living it. You know you’re never going to see a time like that again…and [now] it’s supposed to start all over again. But it doesn’t. It never does, Leto. That’s a crime!” Duncan is truly a man out of time forced to confront realities he would never have imagined possible, especially under Atreides rule, and the psychic dissonance proves to be a hard strain on him/them.

Besides Leto and Duncan there are four other characters that play a pivotal role in the story: Siona Atreides and her father Moneo, one a stalwart opponent of Leto intent on bringing down his empire no matter the cost, and the other his majordomo and right-hand man: both the products of Leto’s breeding program they play key roles in his design whether they are aware of it or not; Hwi Noree, the mysterious new ambassador from Ix, whose apparently sweet nature and immediate attractiveness to the emperor may hide the seeds of his destruction; and finally Nayla the Fish Speaker, who gives fanatical devotion a face and finds herself conflicted by the very orders of her god.

The crux of the plot centers around the question of whether, after enduring millennia of his rule, the enemies of Leto II have finally managed to find the chink in his armour. Is the god-emperor at last to be brought down by an appeal to his almost vanished human nature? Will a god abandon his plan of millennia to fulfill the desires of his heart? If he does, what will be the result?

This is a very thought-provoking book with a lot to say about politics, philosophy, and religion. I might not buy everything that Herbert is selling here, but he definitely gives the reader a lot to chew on and I was pleased with this extension of the Dune universe into new and intriguing directions.

The view of the desert soothed him.

Quite a heady experience, and not one to be entered lightly.

Don’t even consider reading this if you haven’t read the novels preceding it. However, if you are invested in the Dune Universe and you have read the original Dune Trilogy (Dune / Dune Messiah / Children of Dune) this can be a very rewarding, albeit challenging, read.

Presented as part future historical text, part memoir and part mythos, God Emperor of Dune is somewhat unlike any of the Dune novels that came before. Taking place more than 3000 years after the events of Children of Dune , but still revolving around Leto II (yes, he is that old by now), this book continues the Dune / Herbert tradition of subverting events that came before. And then some.

While some of what transpires here was hinted at in the previous novel, it is still a somewhat uneasy turn of events. The book doesn’t make it entirely clear who you should be rooting for, either. It’s all grey area, and it takes a long time for character motives to become clearer. Half the people in the story don’t seem to know what the hell is going on either, which does make for a truly remarkable reading experience (intended or otherwise).

There are fewer characters this time round, with just about everything revolving around the God Emperor and his actions. The only additional characters are the (befuddled) few with whom the emperor has surrounded himself.

The narrative is interspersed with quotes from the history of the Dune universe, as well as diary entries, notably those of the God Emperor himself. As such, the flow of the novel takes some getting used to. It is heavy on philosophical meandering and, to a lesser extent, political maneuvering. The story takes the long view, and concerns itself with the future of the human race on an intergalactic scale as dictated by the “Golden Path” that Leto is following via his (by now very formidable) prescience. As such, there is very little in the sense of immediate gratification. In fact, compared to this, the original Dune is a pretty straightforward adventure yarn. This, by the way, is not a criticism; I love the original Dune.

I suppose it would be easy to dislike this book, based on how strange it truly is. And you wouldn’t know how strange unless you read it. It is perhaps worth noting that Herbert had some aid in the form of magic mushrooms when writing some of his Dune stories (by his own admission). Perhaps God Emperor of Dune is case in point. All in all, a mind-bending affair.

…they saw only the great emptiness, an eerie place especially in moonlight – dunes at a distance, a distance which seemed not to change as the traveller moved – nothing anywhere except the seemingly eternal wind, a few rocks and, when they looked upward, stars without mercy.
This was the desert of the desert.

In the end, though, it is telling that I wasn’t indifferent to the fates of the main character(s). There are some memorable scenes (and one fairly moving one) toward the close of the novel that puts everything in perspective. The story had, after all, managed to get under my skin, and in the end, everything makes a tragic sort of sense. Such is the nature of the Dune novels.

The truth is, they don’t make them like this anymore, and any return to Dune is likely going to be a rewarding experience.

The Worm comes!

I felt like I was reading a philosophy book. It's nothing but rambling and thoughts by Leto II, and the more I read of the Dune books, the more I'm lost. This whole spice / prescience / breeding shit is get even more out of control if that's even possible.

God Emperor of Dune
(Dune #4)
by Frank Herbert
I didn't enjoy this as much as the earlier ones but I did enjoy it. It had long sections that was a bit boring but important for future story lines. I was intrigued by the clones of Duncan and the long life and changes of Leto. It was sad at the end.

I'm not one for worms, or for assholes, but Leto II is...something



Absolutely brilliant novel, and my favourite so far in the series. While Children of Dune is quite underrated in my opinion, I believe that it is the spice that is harvested for God Emperor to truly have visions. (And I'm not even done here)