Ne okudum,hiç bilmiyorum

بنظرم یکی از مهارت های یه نویسنده خوب اینه که بدونه کی دیگه داستانش رو کش نده. گاهی اوقات باید در اوج خداحافظی کرد.
خیلی دلم میخواست این مجموعه رو تموم کنم اما واقعا نمیشه. اصلا راه نداره اینقدر که افت کرده. شخصاً فکر میکردم هیچکس بدتر از جردن نیست تو عاشقانه نویسی اما حالا حرفم رو پس میگیرم و طلب آمرزش دارم!

This is the fourth volume of Dune saga. Just like the previous three it turns the story on its head compared with the previous volume.

Leto II and Ganima, twins of Paul Arteides overcome the plots and were victorious. However, there is no ‘happily ever after’: fast forward 3500 years. Leto is the God Emperor, half-man half-worm, reigning the Imperium with iron hand to keep peace and tranquility. Instead of desert Fremen, there are fanatically loyal Fish Speakers, instead of deserts of Dune, it is a verdant planet with just a small desert; Fremen themselves turned into museum Fremen, who try to emulate the original and fail. Leto II took over the breeding program of Bene Gesserit and breeds Arteides, hoping one day they will be able to overthrow him. The only constant is ghola of Duncan Idaho.

One of the main themes is what right now is called the end of history. I guess it is well summarized in the famous film noir The Third Man:

You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

I finished this after 3 months, everyone cheer!!! I was so excited when I started because the beginning was really fun, and I thought this would be a good book.

Instead, all I got was Leto II and the 47858485th (exaggerated, but could be true, you never know) version of Duncan Idaho talking endlessly throughout the book. Everyone else was just talking too, and it wasn't very interesting.

But Siona and Hwi saved this from being a total trainwreck. And the ending wasn't bad either, it was almost on par with the first couple of chapters, so I'm hoping book five continues like that. This is the worst Dune book (for now), main series wise.

[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

Review to come

I don't accept this monstrosity made of ramblings of an old fart as a Dune book. About 1870 pages of boring drivel that smothers you in it's contemptuous arrogance.

GEoD should have been a 50 pages of intro to the next installment of this series. And that would be about 40 pages too long in my opinion but still 1830 pages less of a torture.

Czwarty tom nie dorównuje poprzednim. Niestety. W porównaniu z wielowątkową i wielowarstwową trzecią częścią ta wypada słabo.
Nie dość, że "akcja" rozgrywa się 3 tys lat po wydarzeniach z poprzedniego tomu (a tak bardzo chciałam poczytać co będzie dalej...) to dzieje praktycznie w jednym miejscu, wokół kilku tych samych bohaterów. Wszystkie dyskusje krążą cały czas wokół tego samego tematu. Nie wiem czy było to aż tak potrzebne. W tej części nie ma za bardzo knucia, spisków i zwrotów akcji. Choć nadal czuć klimat serii to już nie jest to to samo, gdy fabuła nie nadąża i jest zwyczajnie nudna i płaska. Mam poczucie, że w tym tomie niewiele się wydarzyło i był on trochę taką zapchaj dziurą. Finał obiektywnie mocny, ale mnie w ogóle nie zaskoczył, a Herbert przecież umie w zaskakiwanie...
Serię będę kontynuować, ale mocno liczę na więcej akcji. Kolejnego takiego tomu jak ten sobie nie wyobrażam.

God Emperor of Dune
Book 4 of the Dune Chronicles
By Frank Herbert

A Dune Retrospective by Eric Allen

What do you say about the book that was so completely terrible that it so turned you off of the series that you refused to read the four books that came after it for over a decade? This book is bad in a way that few things achieve. Oh, yes, there are worse things than this book in human history, and I do not mean to cheapen the horror of those atrocities, but when it comes to complete and utter failures in fictional exploits, this is amongst the worst.

By this time in his career, Frank Herbert's Dune series had sold multiple millions of books. He was a veritable gold mine for his publisher, and so, he had the power and influence to basically get anything he wanted from them. As a result, God Emperor of Dune is pure and complete insanity. Oh, but its not just normal insanity, oho no. Its a special sort of insanity. Its the sort of insanity that happens when you give crazy way too much money, power, influence, and creative license. I like to call this kind of crazy, George Lucas Syndrome.

Allow me to explain. In 1977 George Lucas, a rookie filmmaker, under huge budget constraints, and with heavy studio influence, managed to produce one of the greatest movies of all time. Though Star Wars was well recieved by the world at large, his distributer still placed very harsh budget constraints on the following two films. These movies were a great illustration of the concept "Art from Adversity". Despite all of the people telling him no, all the limitations of special effects technology, all of the problems with budgeting and studio executives trying to change his work, he managed to produce one of the most lucrative franchises in movie history. He was viewed as a filmmaking genius by many... and then he made the prequels. He had unlimited funds, was no longer constrained by the limits of special effects technology, and most importantly, everyone on earth was utterly terrified to tell him no, because he could very easily take his goldmine of a series elsewhere and be just as happy. When you take the adversity, the thing that CLEARLY created the art to begin with, out of the picture, you are left with a man who is completely insane, making movies that are also completely insane.

What does this have to do with Dune, you ask? Plenty. You see, having sold millions of copies of his first three books in the Dune series, Frank Herbert had enough clout with his publishers that he could have taken a dump on a blank piece of paper and they would have published it, because they were utterly terrified that he would take his series elsewhere. And so, when he handed them the manuscript for God Emperor of Dune, NO ONE SAID ANYTHING ABOUT HOW TERRIBLE IT WAS TO HIM!!! They published it because he wrote it, it had Dune in the title, and people would buy it, read it, and claim to love it because of it.

So, this leaves the question, was Herbert balls out insane from the beginning, and simply constrained by his publishers and editors to create art for his first three books? Or did he just do a crapton of drugs between book 3 and book 4? We may never know the answer for sure.

Why is this book so bad? Well, lets find out, shall we?

I can't put enough quotation marks around the word "story" here, so I won't even try. 3500 years have passed since the events of Children of Dune. Leto Atreides II has become a giant sandworm with a human face and arms... Yeah, I'll give you a minute to wrap your mind around that. You good? Ok, moving on then. The ENTIRE plot of this book revolves around Leto talking, and talking, and talking, and talking, and talking, and talking, and talking. He talks about being a sandworm. He talks about what it means to be a sandworm. He talks about why it's important that he has become a sandworm. He talks about how being a sandworm fits into his plans. And through all that talking, HE NEVER MANAGES TO TALK ABOUT WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT OR WHY I SHOULD CARE!!! And then he dies, easily killed by his utter arrogance in believing that mere humans could never possibly rise up against him. And I get a lot of people telling me I've got it wrong on this... but try reading his last few bits of dialog after falling in the water with this in mind and tell me I don't have a point. If this was not what Herbert meant to convey with this dialog, he sure failed at what he actually meant to get across to me.

The Good? Nada. In fact, skip this book if you plan to read this series. Your life will be better for it. You miss absolutely nothing that the next book does not readily explain in a few sentences, and you don't have to wade through all the complete fail that this book embodies.

The Ugly? First of all, while Herbert's views on women were pretty apparent in his previous works, he is openly sexist in this book to a huge and offensive degree. He has some extraordinarily strange views on the roles women play in society, what they want out of life, and how their thoughts and feelings differ from those of men. He devotes a large section of the book to explaining in great detail why women are inferior to men, veiling it behind the guise of praising them as a gender. Nice try Herbert, but you FAIL to hide your complete contempt for women in general. Every woman that I know that has read this book has come away from it TERRIBLY offended. Women beware, this book basically says that you're the scum of the universe and the source of every problem that man knows. If this sort of thing offends you, and believe me, I'm a guy and it offends ME, steer clear of this book.

Not only does Herbert put forward some very offensive ideas about women, he also puts forth some very offensive views about homosexuals, soldiers, and pretty much all humanity in general. Women get the worst of it here by far, but soldiers and homosexuals come close on their heels. He seems to have great contempt for pretty much anyone that is not exactly like he is. This is an actual line from the book. I have not altered it in any way. "All soldiers are homosexuals at heart." There are so many layers of offensiveness buried in those six little words that I could write an entire essay on that alone. Needless to say, it is offensive to every party mentioned in multiple ways. It takes true talent and bigotry to imbue such a short sentence with so many layers of insult to so many different people. And let me say right here and now, so that there is no mistaking Herbert's views for my own, though I may come from a strong Christian background, I have no problem with gay people. My philosophy on life is that everyone should have the freedom to live as they see fit, and it is not my place to tell them that they are doing it wrong, regardless of my own personal feelings on the matter. I have worked with gay people all my working life and you know what I've learned about them? They're people. Just like everyone else. Doing their best to live their lives in a world that is not very accepting of them. They deserve to live their lives just like everyone else.

Every character in this book other than Leto exists for one purpose and one purpose alone. To ask questions that facilitate even more talking from him. Let me describe to you every scene in this book. Leto rants for about thirty pages on his morality and plan for humanity. Someone is confused by his complete insanity and asks him a question. He then goes on at great length explaining the answer. The other character is still confused and asks another question, which facilitates yet another long and boring rant from him. These characters have no personality. They have no motivation. They have no plans or desires of their own. They exist within the plot for one purpose and one purpose only, to give Leto an excuse to further explain Frank Herbert's insanity.

Leto is still not a sympathetic character. He has more personality here than he did in the previous book, this is true, but here he is even more loathsome because of it. I'm sorry, I do not sympathize with a grotesque mockery of humanity who goes on, and on, and on, and on about he's the only hope of said humanity, and as such has the right to severly subjugate all life in the universe under his strictures and rule. He was not a likeable character to begin with, and here, he has become a loathsome tyrant that it is impossible to sympathize with. So why should I care about a book that is, primarily, about him talking at GREAT LENGTH about his own personal philosophy? I don't. I really, REALLY don't. He's a terrible character, and as an extension of that, any story revolving around him is also terrible.

Herbert STILL does not seem to feel the need to explain what motivates Leto to do what he has done, and why I should care about it. These are basic elements of the plot of this book and the previous one that are COMPLETELY LEFT TO THE READER'S IMAGINATION. IF you want me to care about your character and the story revolving around him, you have to tell me WHAT he is doing, WHY it is important, and most importantly, WHY I SHOULD CARE!!! These are basic storytelling elements that Herbert completely FAILED to employ.

In conclusion, this book is awful. It's a special kind of awful, the sort of which you will rarely find in fiction. It's basically a thinly disguised excuse for Herbert to give his own philosophies on life. If you want to write a book of philosophy, by all means, go ahead and do so. But don't try to tell me it's the next installment of your epic science fiction series. This book gets ZERO stars, but since the rating does not show up here on Goodreads with zero, I threw one up there. It feels FAR longer than it actually is. It centers around a character that is completely and utterly loathesome, without a SINGLE redeeming characteristic, and I'm supposed to feel for this character? Yeah, sorry Herbert, but no. I don't. I really, REALLY don't. This book is terrible in a way that few books are. And worst of all, it's boring. I can forgive bad writing. I can forgive a bad story. I can forgive wooden characters. It is my opinion that one of the truly unforgivable things that a storyteller can do, is to tell a boring story. Only the most hardcore fans of the Dune series will likely be able to find any enjoyment here, to any casual readers I typicaly recomend that this book be skipped over, because it really is THAT bad.

Check out my other reviews.

"He felt excluded from this conversation, an object of amusement by two superior beings."

That sentence from the novel sums up how I felt about almost the entire book. In this fourth entry of the Dune series, the law of diminishing returns is at work. I enjoyed the first three books to a point, but as I'm figuring out now, the more you get into the series the more necessary it becomes to read the next book in order to fully enjoy and understand the previous book---the exception might be the first book since it's pretty good on its own but it does end kind of suddenly.

But with each subsequent book the plot centers more and more around some never fully explained McGuffin that is talked around, mentioned obliquely, or couched in esoteric gobbledygook language that doesn't help in understanding anything. And always this unexplained thing is relatively simple to explain and is actually really important to the overall story... of the next book. All is eventually kinda sorta revealed almost at the end of one book... but we don't see the effects of this revelation until the next book. Having the payoff to the book you're reading now happen in the book you haven't read yet... not so great.

I don't like books that treat the reader as if they can't possibly understand anything and are heavy handed in explaining everything, but neither do I like stories, dialogue, or plot points that skip past being puzzling yet solvable directly into enigmatic and pretentious.

I know this book was more philosophical and... meditative? than the others, but there was this constant bringing up of certain topics that elicited reactions in the characters that were totally lost on me because not even a hint of context is given. There are certain things we as a reader can't possibly know because this made up world hasn't been fully explained to us.

But over and over in this book there are allusions made that assume a certain level of in-world knowledge that just doesn't exist. This was okay in the first book since everything made sense after we spent time in the world (not to mention the glossary's help in defining a lot of words) but now, in this book, which takes place in what is essentially a vastly different world, the reader is left out in the cold.

Also, the plot is rather simple for the number of pages it covers but that's due to innumerable conversations that explain (or more likely obscure) the philosophy and politics of the world/universe. It's interesting (at times) but the characters (except maybe for Leto) are all cardboard cutouts for different points of view. They are challenged here and there, they struggle over their situations and choices, but it was all rather mechanical. I never really got to 'know' them. One example: two characters fall in love. Why do they fall in love? Because, that's why! It's an unbelievable and forced event, plot-dictated rather than 'realistic'.

This is how the book comes across to me:

-The Ixians have sent you a fruit basket.
-The Ixians are... clever, aren't they? (raises eyebrow)
-You mean...? (shudder)
-Yes! They have finally reached their utmost capabilities. It has happened.
-You don't mean they've...?
-Yes.
-They built...?
-Yes.
-And they also...?
-Yes.
-But I thought...?
-No.
-Have they also...?
-Yes.
-Shall I...?
-Mmmmm...... not yet. Let's wait one minute and three seconds.
-May I eat one of the fruits?
-Do butterflies tap dance on a monkey's tricycle?
-Huh?
-ANSWER ME!
-I I I---If it serves my Lord it will be tap danced.
-Ah hah hah, you amuse me. Wandering in a desert is as rewarding as a desert wandering in you.
-Yes my Lord.
-YOU KNOW NOTHING OF DESERTS! YOU KNOW NOTHING OF FRUITS! I HAVE LIVED A THOUSAND LIVES IN A DESERT AND BEEN A MILLION EATERS OF FRUIT!

And so on.

I think maybe I need a break from the series. I will read the next two books that Herbert wrote but I don't know if they're not working very well anymore because they just don't work or because my head is not at the right place for what these later books are trying to accomplish.

3.5*

Dune was a masterpiece. Dune Messiah was pretty good (though too short). Children of Dune was decent though a little too consciously striving for the grandeur of the first book.

Then there's this...

Listen, I know some people love this book and consider it a high watermark in the series, and I can perfectly understand why. It's deep, philosophically complex and unlike almost anything written before or since. But it's _tedious_. Oh man, is it tedious. I've long ceased being a member of the Cult of Herbert and don't consider the Dune series now to be anything more than a well written and deeply conceived work of science fiction. I think this book was the wake up call.

Frank Herbert's never been averse to using his books to propound his personal philosophies but he's always generally tried to tell a story as well. Here he abandons any pretence of that and goes into full lecture mode. Had the book been written differently, as a sort of tongue in cheek autobiography for instance with himself in the role of the God Emperor, then I wouldn't have minded it so much. But the fact that it's part of a series of continuing events brings with it certain responsibilities, namely the obligation to continue and develop the story in an entertaining and illuminating way.

God Emperor brings the story to a standstill. Reading it is like wading through mud. There is no dramatic tension, no real forward movement, characters are reduced to bland ciphers basking in the radiance of the know-it-all Emperor, their only purpose to fawn awesomely at the throne of his wisdom. God-like characters never make for interesting protagonists and when they're smug self-satisfied paraplegic worm-men with a martyrdom complex it gives me even less of an incentive to care.

Herbert's last two books in the series continued in a similar vein, though they at least had the decency to contain a reasonably compelling story. In fact Heretics, the book directly after this, is actually pretty good. Avoid this one though, unless you're enamoured with the mythos.