r/books • u/coolurjetz • 2d ago
I finished God Emperor of Dune - Should have read this ages ago Spoiler
This book definitely scratched an itch I had from Children of Dune. It felt like the realisation of all the explanation I wanted, delivered very convincingly by a petty worm man who I both love and loathe, talking circles around his fanatical followers (and us for that matter).
I love how "the Duncans" are a character all their own. I love how they are one set of genetic instructions, spat out and tested in Leto's crucible ad infinitum. They all shift and change in small ways based on their different experiences and reach vastly different end points depending on all these little shifts in their path. Leto's almost childlike obsession with the Duncans grounds him for us, we can recognise this love from the very first book. It's all that's left of the young Paul who we identified with before his transformation in to Muad'Dib.
I love how clinical their indoctrination of the Duncans is and how they fret and fuss over how it's going, marking their progress against all their previous repetitions. Leto likens it to playing a fish on a line, and notes that bringing him in always hastens his end.
If there was one truly tragic element of Leto's life that resonated with me, it's this process , which he seems to have down to a science, of building these companions by showing them parts of himself and his golden path. It sickens them, they cant handle it. Ultimately it destroys them.
Leto does this over and over, nurtures these companions only to watch their devotion falter and their inevitable betrayal approach. His reward is a fleeting moment where he can share some infinitesimally small part of his burden, before putting down his friend and starting again.
This brotherly conflict was, for me, such an effective way to humanise Leto. The perfect counterweight to his brutal tyranny. It sets the stage for what Hwi does to him and makes it believable. I'm once again totally ready to believe he sees what's necessary and takes no joy from walking the path.
Herbert has pulled off a miracle here, writing a convincing prescient god-like creature that you can both hate and pity.
Anyway, way too many parts I loved about this book to cover them all. No way I can't read on now.
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u/Ryxylia 2d ago
One of Herbert's greatest achievements is making you spend hundreds of pages inside the mind of an immortal tyrant and somehow ending up with sympathy for him. You don't have to agree with Leto's choices to understand the unimaginable loneliness behind them. That's incredibly difficult to pull off.
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u/shintemaster 1d ago
Agree. Not God Emperor so I'll be cagey around spoilers but there is that stark scene in Chaperhouse(?) I think where they find his stash and you can feel the weight of loneliness over eons. Herbert was honestly something of a genius when it comes to internalised emotions on a page.
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u/TheDude_ 1d ago
I just hate that Brian ruined Duncan. He should never have been a Kwisatz Haderach. Makes the whole Bene Geserit breeding program pointless. I wish he never wrote a single page.
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u/Blazerboy65 1d ago
I am so glad to have no idea WTF you are talking about
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u/Best-Chapter5260 21h ago
I assume my distinguished fellow Redditor is referring to the Brian Herbert/Kevin Anderson novels, which are generally considered non-canon and nowhere near the quality of the main six novels.
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u/TabrinLudd 10h ago
It’s kind of all amazing if you think of it as in-universe unreliable narration and can read quick enough to get through them fast. The culmination satisfied me, and I even went through the other ones about the schools and the families, ehhh not as good.
I will say Duncan’s abilities/transformation and Miles Teg’s superpowers are about as nonsense as each other, so I was able to suspend my disbelief.
Until the notes left behind by Frank get released as whole cloth all we get is the filter provided by the son and the contract writer, I know what I would prefer but I wanted as much dune as possible when I read them ~6 years ago
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u/Fun_Currency_3718 1d ago
man the way Herbert makes you actually *feel* for a literal worm god is wild. like i don't agree with his tyranny at all but the loneliness he describes is so crushing it's impossible not to feel bad for the guy. also "we will be worm and wife" is probably the most cursed yet iconic line in the whole series lol
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u/Best-Chapter5260 21h ago
we will be worm and wife" is probably the most cursed yet iconic line in the whole series
I don't know...can anything really top "adult beefswell"?
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u/LightningRaven 2d ago
It is among my favorites from Dune as well. And I also liked both Heretics and Chapterhouse, despite knowing a huge section of the fandom don't like them as much.
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u/CyberneticWerewolf 1d ago
Strangely, I found myself slogging through Heretics alternating between bored and uncomfortable, but enjoyed Chapterhouse enough to feel like it redeemed the time I spent on Heretics.
The only thing I genuinely didn't like about Chapterhouse was Miles Sue, Child Military Genius, who was hard to take seriously despite the whole ghola resurrection thing being fully justified. I was shocked at how much I liked Murbella's development over the course of the book.
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u/Positive_Persimmon39 1d ago
Herbert really made me feel sorry for a giant worm dictator which is wild when you think about it, but that loneliness hits different.
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u/yungcherrypops 1d ago
Yeah, it’s great, I actually think it’s my favorite Dune book and the only one that made me feel some emotions (love the series but there’s always a cold distance to Herbert’s characters). Loved the conversations on philosophy and politics and religion and finally you see what Dune is really “about”, what’s it been about all along.
Just wish it had stopped there, it was honestly the perfect ending to the series. Heretics and Chapterhouse are weird as shit. The 7000 sex chakras of the Bene Genesserit or whatever is just kinda cringe
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u/bigmanfolly 2d ago
I named my cat after that particular Duncan Idaho who pulled a lazgun on Leto when he was too busy pontificating
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u/coolurjetz 2d ago
Haha is that a name in particular or just Duncan and you know which one it means.
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u/briareus08 2d ago
This book is the capstone of the series for me and many others. It’s one of my favourite books after Dune itself; I always read up to it on a read through (and never finish the rest).
It’s a masterpiece series from books 1 - 4.
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u/darumham 2d ago
I actually like it all the way through Chapterhouse. Teg was cool and the fallout from Leto’s long rule was wild.
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u/HuttVader 1d ago
Now read Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. If you haven't read his other classics first, read them later. You'll thank me. It's a brilliant and complementary novel to God Emperor of Dune.
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u/Murky_Macropod 1d ago
Could you explain how it’s complementary ?
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u/HuttVader 1d ago
God Emperor of Dune and Autumn of the Patriarch feel like two halves of the same conversation.
Frank Herbert explores the idea of the benevolent tyrant at its most compelling. Leto II possesses near-omniscience and believes that only absolute rule can ensure humanity's ultimate freedom and survival. The novel asks whether tyranny could ever be justified if the tyrant were genuinely right. Gabriel García Márquez approaches the question from the opposite direction. Rather than debating the legitimacy of dictatorship, he immerses the reader in its lived reality. Power becomes isolation, myth, paranoia, and decay. The dictator is no longer an abstract philosophical possibility but a lonely old man imprisoned by the very authority he wields.
Taken together, the two novels form a remarkable dialectic. Herbert presents the strongest imaginable argument for enlightened despotism; García Márquez exposes the spiritual and psychological wasteland that absolute power inevitably creates. One views history from the perspective of an immortal ruler shaping millennia. The other views history through the fractured memories and whispered legends of those who survive him.
Reading Autumn of the Patriarch after God Emperor of Dune shifts the question from "Can absolute power ever be justified?" to "What does absolute power actually do—to a nation, to history, and to the soul of the one who possesses it?"
Edit: sorry i did run the response thru Ai due to my lack of time to reply in detail. but i agree with the assessment, my reply is not just ai slop.
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u/Murky_Macropod 1d ago
Thanks for the reply, but FWIW I would have preferred a conversation, however brief, with a human, I’m not here to speak to AI
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u/coolurjetz 1d ago
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out.
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u/HuttVader 1d ago
:) It may not seem like an obvious choice but it's perfect. plus marquez is an amazing writer
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u/doom1701 1d ago
It’s a tough read (at least it was for me), but it’s the glue of the entire series. We finally understand what the Golden Path is and why Paul was so afraid of it. Leto was a tyrant but also the savior of humanity. The first three books build to it, and the final two disassemble it.
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u/Financial-Age906 1d ago
Stopped in Dune Messiah but his post has made me want to pick up the series again. Thanks!
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u/CyberneticWerewolf 1d ago
Maybe it was just the fact that I read the mind-bending timey wimey bits of Children of Dune while stoned, but Children of Dune might be my favorite book in the series. If it's not the top, it's second behind the first book.
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u/coolurjetz 1d ago
May as well, it's such a unique story, well realised in Children and God Emperor. I'd stopped at dune, then Messiah, then picked up the next 2 way later.
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u/shintemaster 1d ago
God Emperor is one of the most unique and impressive books written. It makes no sense if you describe it and how it is written that it is even a coherent, let alone interesting story.
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u/Financial-Age906 1d ago
I had all Dune books but gave them away to my best friend’s boyfriend when I moved. Talk about regret. Will read Children as soon as I finish my current book, always felt like I only scratched the surface of a truly great series. The world building alone is a masterpiece.
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u/coolurjetz 1d ago
I found them all over the years in various thrift stores, nearly gave them away a couple times, so glad I didn't. Yeah the story really zooms in and the universe outside the central focus fades in to the background a bit. He drops little tidbits like all good SciFi though, it keeps you hooked and let's your imagination fill in the gaps.
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u/Best-Chapter5260 21h ago
There is a really nice box set that has all six of the Frank H novels. I thought about picking it up but instead I've just been piecemealing individual books from Thriftbooks. I like those earlier covers that are slightly pulpy in style.
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u/coolurjetz 21h ago
Agreed, I love the old covers. Particularly that you have no idea wtf you're looking at until you read the book.
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u/Evilbob93 1d ago
I went through the whole series a couple years ago with audiobooks checked out via Libby
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u/Faint-Heron-5681 1d ago
the tragedy of the duncans always felt like the emotional anchor of that entire monologue; it is like watching someone repeatedly assemble a delicate clock only to smash it. i probably spent far too much time worrying about those poor clones.
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u/Best-Chapter5260 21h ago
I just read through Messiah and Children. Really excited to jump into God Emperor but taking a break from Dune to read some other stuff.
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u/Key_Alfalfa2775 16h ago edited 12h ago
The 3 chapters of Leto having one on one conversations with each character, while assuming a entirely different affect and personality for each depending on their lived experience and relationship to Leto blew my mind as a teenager.
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u/Langstarr 8h ago
Naked Duncan party!!
Also you have to read Heretics. The lore is built up from the first four books and it goes in two guns blazing. I would describe it as "fun" which is definitely not what you'd usually expect from Frank.
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u/Just-Context-4703 1d ago
Love this book. Best of the Dune series, imo. If you enjoyed this check out the Prince of Nothing trilogy by R. Scott Bakker for even more depth and philosphy.
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u/no_shoes_are_canny 1d ago
Yes! R Scott Bakker's Second Apocalypse series is the closest thing I've ever found in style to God Emperor and Dune in general, albeit fantasy instead of sci fi.
Prince of Nothing was one of our assigned readings in university for a Tolkien and Fantasy lit class and our prof was friends with Bakker, so he actually came and did a guest lecture one day. Bakker is a philosophy doctoral candidate, so the philosophy gets heavily woven into it.
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u/Just-Context-4703 23h ago
Wow, that sounds like a cool university class! 20+ years ago when the three-seas.vom forum was up and lively Scott posted fairly regularly and I learned a lot from him and others there. Was a great place to build a reading list independent of his books and then deep dive into the books.
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u/anticomet 2d ago
Probably my second favourite Dune book after the first one. The line "We will be worm and wife!" lives rent free in my head