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 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. Mass Market Paperback God Emperor of Dune is one of those books you can measure inner growth and change by.
As a child, I hated it. I got bogged down in what I felt was a lack of story and plot. I hated the characters which I felt were very, very one dimensional and boring. I hated the protagonist, Leto II, who I thought was stuffy and pretentious.
Then, as an adult, I rediscovered it and it is now my favorite book of the Dune series (the original Dune is right behind it) and indeed one of my favorite books in the world.
I think it takes an experience of time and pain to be able to understand Leto. The sacrifice he makes to save the human race is doubly painful because his prescient gifts make every nuance available so that he can see exactly what he is missing and will never experience. He is the ultimate outsider staring in, in love with the human race, and completely reviled by them in return. One wonders if they deserve the great sacrifice he has made for them and if they will ever understand or deserve the great words he leaves behind in his journals.
Every time I read God Emperor of Dune I find new layers of meaning, new ideas to ponder, and new beauty to appreciate. Frank Herbert was a genius ahead of his time. Give the series a try and if you can not read God Emperor yet, set it aside and try again another time. You may end up being pleasantly surprised and greatly touched. Mass Market Paperback 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. Mass Market Paperback It's not until the end of this book that you begin to understand Herbert's grand plan for his series. DUNE is really about shaking man out of an evolutionary cul-de-sac, showing a frustrated civil(?) society that despite its technological and social superiority is stagnating. The inventions of the Bene Gesseritt, the Guild, the Mentats, all of these are bulwarks against the decline of man that are failing. And the only one to understand this is Leto II, God Emperor of the Known Universe. In his transformed state, he rules a bizarrely changed Dune, and through more political intrigue and the continued centuries-long resurrection of Duncan Idaho clones, we learn that Leto has seen this decline of man coming and his twisted machinations are an attempt to prepare the human race to evolve beyond this end. Fucking BRILLIANT stuff here, even if it's not fully borne out until the next novel. But wow. They don't make 'em like they used to. Mass Market Paperback God Emperor of Dune (Dune #4), Frank Herbert
God Emperor of Dune is a science fiction novel by Frank Herbert published in 1981, the fourth in his Dune series of six novels.
Leto II Atreides, the God Emperor, has ruled the universe as a tyrant for 3,500 years after becoming a hybrid of human and giant sandworm in Children of Dune.
The death of all other sand-worms, and his control of the remaining supply of the all-important drug melange, has allowed him to keep civilization under his complete command.
Leto has been physically transformed into a worm, retaining only his human face and arms, and though he is now seemingly immortal and invulnerable to harm, he is prone to instinct-driven bouts of violence when provoked to anger.
As a result, his rule is one of religious awe and despotic fear. Leto has disbanded the Landsraad to all but a few Great Houses; the remaining powers defer to his authority, although they individually conspire against him in secret.
The Fremen have long since lost their identity and military power, and have been replaced as the Imperial army by the Fish Speakers, an all-female army who obey Leto without question. He has rendered the human population into a state of trans-galactic stagnation; space travel is non-existent to most people in his Empire, which he has deliberately kept to a near-medieval level of technological sophistication. All of this he has done in accordance with a prophecy divined through precognition that will establish an enforced peace preventing humanity from destroying itself through aggressive behavior. ...
تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز هجدهم ماه ژانویه سال 2019 میلادی
عنوان: خداوندگار تلماسه: کتاب چهارم از سری تلماسه؛ نویسنده: فرانک هربرت؛
داستان تلماسه در آینده ای دور میگذرد و در جامعه ای ملوک الطوایفی که با الهام از جوامع اعراب بدوی ساخته شده است؛ سه عامل اثرگذار در این جامعه ی فراسیاره ای، عبارتند از: «پادشاه امپراتور (صدام چهارم)»، و «خاندانهای حکومتی»، «اتحادیهٔ فضایی (صاحب انحصار حمل و نقل فضایی)» و گروه «بنی جزریت».؛ پس از جهاد بزرگ «باتلری»، ساخت و ایجاد دستگاههای خودکار، و رایانه ها تابو شده، بنابراین جوامع انسانی مجبور به افزایش تواناییهای جسمی، و ذهنی انسانها، با استفاده از پرورش نژاد، و نیروهای مرموز، ماده ای به نام «اسپایس ملانژ» یا ادویه شده اند؛ «ملانژ» ماده ای است، که قادر است نیروهای ذهنی آدمی را، تا حد بسیار زیادی افزایش دهد، حتی در مواردی میتواند باعث ایجاد پیش آگاهی از رویدادهای آینده، و طی الارض شود؛ «ملانژ» تنها در سیارهٔ بیابانی، و بسیار خشک «آراکیس (اقتباس از نام عراق)» یافت میشود؛ خشکی «آراکیس» به حدی است که مردم آن (فرمنها = مردان آزاد)، برای از دست نرفتن رطوبت بدن، مجبورند از جامه های مخصوصی استفاده کنند، و آب در آنجا ارزشمندترین چیز است؛ «ملانژ» را ماسه کرمهای «آراکیس» میسازند، و استخراج کنندگان ادویه، علاوه بر جنگ دایمی با آب و هوای وحشتناک این سیاره، مجبورند گاه و بیگاه با آنها هم سر و کله بزنند
ماسه کرمهایی که قطر آنها گاهی به بیست متر هم میرسد؛ «آب حیات» نیز از همین موجودات استخراج میشود؛ ماجرای اصلی رمان، نبرد بین سه خاندان بزرگ: «آتریید»، «هارکونن» و «کورینو (خاندان صاحب مقام امپراتوری)» بر سر تصاحب این سیاره، و زندگینامهٔ قهرمان افسانه ای فرمنها «پل مودیب» است؛ خاندان امپراتوری، تسلط خود را با کمک نیروی نظامی هولناکی به نام «ساردوکار» بر عالم مسکون حفظ میکند؛ «ساردوکار»ها از کودکی آموزش میبینند که بیرحم باشند و در نبرد از هیچ عملی فروگذار نکنند
گروه «بنی جزریت» هم از سوی دیگر، برنامه ای دیگر برای خود تدارک دارند؛ آنها نسلهاست که اذهان مردم را با اعتقاداتی مذهبی اسیر کرده اند، و برنامه ای دقیق و حساب شده برای کنترل نژادی نسل انسانها دارند؛ هدف آنها تولد «کویساتزهادراچ» است، تا بر عالم حکومت کند؛ «آتریید»ها جزو محبوبترین خاندانهای حکومتی هستند؛ «پادشاه امپراتور صدام چهارم» که از قدرت «آترییدها» هراسان شده، و به خاطر ترس از اعضای درباری «لندزراد» نمیتواند خود مستقیماً علیه آنها وارد عمل شود، کنترل منابع «ملانژ» در «آراکیس» را، از «بارون ولادیمیر هارکونن (بزرگ خاندان هارکونن و دشمن قدیمی دوک آتریید)» میگیرد، و به «آترییدها» میسپارد؛ «دوک لتو آتریید»، سرور خاندان «آتریید»، «آراکیس» را با وجود آب و هوای خشک و سختش، سرزمین خوبی میبیند، زیرا امید دارد ارتشی از «فرمن»ها، که زندگی در «آراکیس»، آنها را سخت و خشن و شکست ناپذیر کرده، بسازد، تا با گارد ترسناک پادشاه امپراتور، «سارژوکار»، برابری کنند؛ از سوی دیگر پسر «دوک آتریید»، «پاول»، و وارث «بارون هارکونن، فیض-روتا»، هر دو از پروردگان برنامهٔ «بنی جزریت» هستند؛ تنها با این اشکال که طبق برنامهٔ «بنجزریت»، «پاول» باید دختر به دنیا میآمد، تا از «فید-روتا هارکونن»، «کوییساتزهادراچ» را به دنیا بیاورد؛ اما سرپیچی مادر «پاول»، «لیدی جسیکا»، این برنامه را برهم زده است.؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 22/04/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی Mass Market Paperback
review ✓ PDF, DOC, TXT or eBook Ñ Frank Herbert
Centuries have passed on Dune, and the planet is green with life. Leto, the son of Dune's savior, is still alive but far from human, and the fate of all humanity hangs on his awesome sacrifice...Rich fare...heady stuff.--Los Angeles Times God Emperor of Dune (Dune Chronicles, #4)
*** 2021 reread -
Paul M’uab Dib: Son, I’m going to break all the rules and then provide a new order to the galaxy. I’m going to change everything and establish a revolution that will affect tens of billions of people and then when that’s done, I’m going to be a prophet of what went wrong and institute a theological framework for the continuation of our rule.
Leto II: Hold my beer.
This is the greatest reversal of opinion about a book I’ve ever had.
There’s an old saying about how you can never step twice into the same river, because both you and the river have changed. Wonder if that’s what happened here. I reviewed this in 2011, giving it a two star, and taking a break from the Dune series and even from Frank Herbert for over three years. In the past ten years, I’ve grown more comfortable with my love of all things Dune, and maybe matured some in my appreciation of fantasy literature.
I’ve reread Dune several times, reread Dune Messiah a couple years ago and then Children of Dune this year, enjoying Herbert’s writing more and more. As I turned the last page on Children, as Leto is demonstrating his superhuman powers, I looked ahead knowing that I had rung up a 2-star rating on the next book.
Critics of God Emperor, and I was one, compare this to the original, even lamenting the absurdity of Leto’s transformation into a near worm. Herbert was too good for such a continuation; in Leto he crafted a character unique in SF literature.
Leto as Superman.
As great a character as Superman is in the DC universe, and in our superhero mythos over the past 80 years, becoming an iconic image of all things symbolizing truth, justice and the American way, critics have correctly lampooned that he’s too perfect, god-like in his power and invulnerability. Garth Ennis, in his brilliant anti-hero satire The Boys, made up Homelander, a hero much like Clark Kent except he is twisted to evil. Ennis poses the delicious question, if superman is bad, what are you going to do?
As Children of Dune ends, Leto has become a symbiosis of man and sand trout, becoming something else. He demonstrates his new powers to the Fremen, revealing that he is inhumanly strong and seemingly invincible.
Hold my beer.
More than three thousand years later and he has transformed the known universe as completely as his appearance. He is a massive creature, more worm than man, and possibly immortal. THREE THOUSAND AND FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. It would be like if an Egyptian pharaoh began to rule in 1500 BCE and is still in power! All the world a vassal under his sandaled feet.
Herbert describes the Pax Leto, an enforced tranquility where Leto is worshipped as a god, supreme in his power and influence.
And here is where Herbert demonstrates his genius: this is a character study, a glimpse into ultimate power. The galaxy is ruled by the iron hand of a single entity, a thing who is both man and woman and neither, having a complete recall of millennia of collective memories and a prescience of future events.
There is a scene where Leto discusses with one of his most trusted servants about how the man, already elderly, is a mote in the god Leto’s eye, his long life a mere speck in the measurement of a being who had lived more than thirty times as long and without a definite life span ahead.
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
Herbert, the Science Fiction Hall of Fame member, and winner of the Nebula and Hugo awards, then reveals in Leto a lost humanity. He laments his lost manhood and weeps for love and intimacy that he can never realize.
Leto and Duncan Idaho.
When I first read this over ten years ago, I found some comic relief in the endless parade of Duncan Idaho ghola clones who came to serve Leto from the axolotl tanks of the Ixians. When one Duncan dies, usually at the hands of Leto, his replacement arrives soon thereafter, recalling his death in the pages of the original Dune and not understanding the world in which he lives nor the master he now serves. This time around I see that Herbert uses Duncan not just as a tie in to the earlier story, but as a grounding vehicle for Leto, Duncan is his connection to his humanity, and from the perspective of as voyeur his surrogate.
Duncan’s relationship with Hwi Noree is all the more poignant when considering this odd love triangle.
Leto and The Worm.
Many characters in the book note that Leto is a composite of man and worm, even distinguishing behavior associated with Leto and other, more bestial and unpredictable and dangerous, as that of the worm as apex predator. In this way Herbert evokes the duality of man allusion from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hide. Stephen King noted, in Danse Macabre, that Stevenson’s 1886 work was a fundamental template upon which much of the horror genre was based. Storylines and themes as divergent as werewolves and The Incredible Hulk all share horrific foundations of man and monster, of man losing control of the thin veneer of civilization to quickly and irrevocably become beast. In Leto, Herbert has envisioned the culmination of this concept – man to god, man to devil – and we can also consider an association with Arthur Machen’s 1890 publication the Great God Pan as Leto is referred to as wild and threatening, a hulking killer.
And of course a sand worm has special significance in Frank Herbert’s Dune world building. Leto has become that time’s Shai-Hulud.
So, my opinion of this great book has been radically changed. Not the weakest link in a great series, but a brilliant work in its own right.
Mass Market Paperback [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 Mass Market Paperback 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. Mass Market Paperback I hated this book the first time I read it. Hated every person in it, did not understand why anyone acted the way they did. Now it's one of my top-ten comfort reads, and I see so much in Leto I want for myself.
Dune was the perfect hero book, and then Herbert turned the trope of “boy becomes Messiah and saves the noble people” on its head with Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. In those two volumes, everything assumed and trusted became so much sand, and a son had to destroy his Messiah father’s legacy to save the universe from religious genocide and tyranny. We closed on the boy becoming yet another saviour and had only a vague, hopeful idea of what he intended to do next.
Herbert could have left us there, many thought he would when he finished his Dune Trilogy. Instead, he published his most difficult and daring book yet. In Emperor, we discover that the boy’s plan to save humanity from tyranny is... to become the ultimate Tyrant, and Predator of humankind. Yeah, I’m with you. Just say “huh?” and get it over with. I can’t explain without giving plot away. Emperor is a masterpiece of philosophy, and the best book in the series, but I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped somewhere in the middle and stuffed it to the back of your shelf for ten years before you gave it another chance. Who am I to argue? I did. Mass Market Paperback Bardzo się cieszę, że jednak nie poprzestałam na przeczytaniu Diuny.
Bóg Imperator Diuny jest inny. Różni się od poprzednich tomów między innymi ilością metafor i odniesień do współczesnego świata. Nikogo nie zdziwię faktem, że swego rodzaju melanż naprawdę istnieje, a ludzie nie różnią się bardzo od tych w diunie (choć nikt nie jest tak brzydki jak imperator).
SPOILER PONIŻEJ
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Zdanie: Będziemy czerwiem i żoną jest najśmieszniejszym zdaniem jakie pojawiło się w literaturze. Mass Market Paperback