God Emperor of Dune is a 1981 science fiction novel
by Frank Herbert. It was published by Putnam. It’s the fourth book in the Dune
saga following Dune, Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. My
reviews on the previous books can be found here.
God Emperor of Dune takes place 3,500 years after the
conclusion of Children of Dune. Leto II Atreides has reigned as emperor
of the known universe for millennia. In an effort to preserve humanity’s
future, Leto sacrificed his own by becoming inhuman. Under his rule, the desert
planet of Arrakis has become a lush paradise, the all-important spice mélange has
become scarce and humanity as a whole has been prevented from exploration. A rebellion
led by Siona Atreides, a distant descendant of Leto’s, has arisen to oppose the
god emperor, but unknown to Siona, Leto’s Golden Path for humanity requires her
to fulfill a destiny she never could’ve conceived.
By far, this was the book I enjoyed the least in the series.
It’s mentioned in the introduction, written by the author’s son, that Dune,
Dune Messiah and Children of Dune formed their own quasi-trilogy and
God Emperor of Dune was the start of a new trilogy and that’s evident by
the overall tone of this novel. Dune was never the most optimistic
story, and it has a recurring theme of “you can’t change what’s meant to happen”
but this novel was far darker and far more cynical than its predecessors. While
I applaud Herbert for making Leto a tyrant and not trying to shy away from the
fact that he’s a tyrant, this series has reached a point where those elements
got tiring for me.
My biggest issue with this novel is the pacing. The copy I read
was nearly 600 pages, but there’s a large section of the book where nothing of importance
seems to happen. The beginning has a lot of things happen, the end has a lot of
activity, but the middle is nothing. Siona plans her rebellion. Leto talks a
lot about the future and his Golden Path but says very little of substance.
There’s a lot of talking and plotting that never seems to go anywhere. This
book basically had a lot of filler, and from the writing, I think the filler
was meant to make the reader consider the overall themes of the book, but the
middle of the book is so dry and boing, that I just found myself getting irritated.
This series has also veered away from its science fiction roots. It’s technically
still sci-fi, due to cloning, space travel and advanced technology, but most of
the plot fits better into the fantasy category than science fiction. I wish the
narrative had stuck closer to science fiction.
This novel has a cast of characters, but there’s not a lot I
can really say about them. Leto II is the main character, but as a result of
his extended life and no longer being human, he doesn’t really have much of a
personality or character growth. Most of the scenes he’s in involve him either
plotting to achieve his Golden Path, finding it funny that no one else realizes
what he’s doing or waxing poetic about humans
unwittingly continuing the same cycle of violence and oppression even as they
work to break the cycle. There is Moneo, a descendant, servant and close confidant
of Leto’s. He’s torn between being scared of Leto’s non-human side and doing
everything in his power to keep the emperor happy and making the Golden Path
come to fruition. Hwi Noree, the Ixian ambassador, is sent to serve in Leto’s
court and he falls in love with her, as she was designed to ensnare him. While I
didn’t have anything against her, Herbert didn’t really give the reader a
reason to like her or care about her relationship with Leto. We’re not really
shown how she’s irresistible to Leto, or the other characters who fall under
her spell. The reader is told that she was designed to make Leto fall for her,
but nothing is really shown to enforce that idea. Lastly, we have Siona, who
was my favorite character because she had a real personality. She had agency and
a goal, which no other character aside from Leto is shown to have, and she read
like an actual person. While she wasn’t necessarily a “good” person, she was
the best character in the novel because aside from Leto, she was the only one
who had real conviction behind her actions, not just blind devotion.
I know this review has been negative so far, however I don’t
want to make it seem like this is a terrible book. It’s just a very boring one
that I struggled to get through. There are three things about this book that
saved it from being a 0 Star book. The first is its message about the nature of
humanity. All of Leto’s actions, every act of oppression he’s caused, he’s done
because he knows something needs to change within humanity. He spent years
keeping humanity as a whole safe, but not allowing people true freedom, in
preparation for what will happen when he’s no longer around. He spent three
thousand years controlling humanity so that when he’s gone, they’ll become
something better than it once was. The second is its discussion about messiahs
and godhood. In Dune Messiah, Paul Atreides struggles with being a
messiah to the Fremen and dealing with the blood their holy war, in his name, has
spilt. In this novel, that idea was taken a step further to explore the idea of
godhood and the affect that has on the person being worshipped. And it’s not a
nice image, but the acknowledgement of the problems with worshipping a person
as a god makes the progression of events and resolution of the plot really
work. The last element I enjoyed was the subversion of a particular trope. Early
in the novel, it’s mentioned that Siona, as an Atreides, is going to be tested
soon. Her “test” is mentioned dozens of times before it happens. The
expectation, even in-universe, is that this test will cause Siona to abandon
her rebellion and hatred of Leto. If anything, Siona being tested results in
her becoming even more convinced of the need for a rebellion. As a result, the
conclusion came as a pleasant surprise to me.
God Emperor of Dune was a disappointment for me.
Herbert clearly had a lot of very big ideas, but didn’t quite manage to explore
on those ideas in an interesting and entertaining way. I liked elements of the
plot, but not the plot overall. I can see how this novel sets up the events of
the last two novels in the Dune saga written by Frank Herbert, but given
how much I disliked this novel, I don’t think I’ll be reading them. Right now, I’m
no longer invested in the rest of this story, as its moved so far away from
what was seen in the original Dune. Instead, I might read one of the
prequel books, particularly the ones focused on the war against the Thinking
Machines. A war against robots seems more entertaining to me than god emperors
playing 5-dimensional chess with themselves.
Rating: 1.6 Stars
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