“The longer I endure, the more vulnerable I become” (425).
Once described by Frank Herbert as “a totally new kind of love story,” the fourth novel in his original Dune series marks another extraordinary achievement as well as a remarkable departure for the series. God Emperor of Dune takes place approximately 3,500 years after the previous Dune novel, Children of Dune. And as with the previous installments in the series, God Emperor of Dune is utterly saturated with philosophic ponderings and elemental questions of human consciousness, politics, and the future of life. This novel offers an intimate portrait of the God Emperor, Leto Atreides II (son of Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides and his Fremen consort Chani). After having assumed the sandworm body in the previous novel, Leto has now morphed into a giant half-man-half-sandworm who has ruled the known worlds like a tyrant for some thirty-five-hundred years from his Citadel on the planet Dune (once known as Arrakis, now called “Rakis”). By now, much has changed on Dune. The planet is no longer a dusty desert world. Instead, it has become a lush, terraformed planet, complete with a Forbidden Forest, the Last Desert of the Sareer, the Kynes Sea, and even the Idaho River. Roaming satellite weather controllers float above and produce gentle rainfall on this once vast desert. Old landmarks have since vanished, such as Shulloch (the “haunted place”) which is now called Goygoa, Splintered Rock, and the land that once was called Tanzerouft, or the “Land of Terror.” All the old sandworms have since died except for Leto II who hoards over his massive stash of spice mélange (later revealed to be hidden beneath the old Sietch Tabr, now simply known as “Tabur”), and all of the known universe still remains reliant upon his spice for prescience and space travel. Why? Because spice mélange ignites the linear prescience of the Guild Navigators without which people will only cross the parsecs of space at a snail’s crawl. And without mélange, the Bene Gesserit will not be able to endow Truthsayers or Reverend Mothers, and additionally, without the geriatric properties of mélange, people will merely live and die according to their ancient measure.
The image we receive of this God Emperor, Leto II, is grotesque and horrifying. His giant wormlike body is seven-meter-long body, more than two meters in diameter, ribbed for most of its length, with his face situated at “man-height” at one end, while his legs and feet have mostly atrophied (they are essentially flippers now). His long metamorphosis and acceptance of sandtrout skin gave him “amplified strength plus virtual immunity from conventional attack and aging –that skin still covered a form recognizably human: two legs, two arms, a human face framed in the scrolled folds of the sandtrout… All the rest of my flesh has remained covered by the linked bodies of those tiny deep sand vectors which one day can become giant sandworms” (19). Leto’s brain is no longer in human form, it has spread in nodal congeries throughout his body. Sometimes, the worm instincts overtake him and he instills the fear of death in his subordinates. He weighs five tons and often moves about on a floating “Royal Cart” designed by the Ixians. In fact, the Ixians have constructed many of the God Emperor’s devices, and not just floating glowglobes and royal cart. Leto also uses various neural transmission implant devices as well as largescale surveillance technology designed by the Ixians to monitor his vast empire. At this point, the Ixians now operate in the “terra incognita of creative invention which had been outlawed by the Butlerian Jihad. They made their devices in the image of the mind –the very thing which had ignited the Jihad’s destruction and slaughter” (216-217). The Buterlian Jihad once tried to rid the universe of machines which simulate the mind of man, but now the Buterlians have left armies in their wake and the Ixians continue to make their questionable devices. This is but one expansive example of the richness to Frank Herbert’s world in God Emperor of Dune. Elsewhere throughout the book, we are given brief references to other planets like Parella and the planets of Dan, the Bene Gesserit planet of Chapterhouse, the Cult of Alia on Giedi Prime, as well as the return of the Tleilaxu face dancers who wear cibus hoods. These nods to the previous books wonderfully manage to connect our historical imagination to the previous world of Dune we were introduced to thousands of years earlier in the first trilogy of Dune novels.
Also in God Emperor of Dune, Leto II claims to remain committed to his father’s vision of the Golden Path – “It is the survival of humankind, nothing more nor less” (18). He uses his monopoly on spice to impose peace and order across all the worlds by forbidding various practices that threaten his iron-fisted rule (such as the use of interest payments and even the use of crysknives). However, pockets of rebellion have arisen from time to time and the Ixians, the Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and Tleilaxu, along with descendants of the ruling houses, never seem to cease their quiet machinations designed against Leto. The Bene Gesserit fear that the Ixians are developing a new artificial intelligence, meanwhile the Bene Gesserit are clearly violating Leto’s orders against their practices, and many wonder if the Tleilaxu have actually created a Duncan Idaho face dancer in order to seduce Leto. Suspicions arise around every corner, even though the God Emperor seems to be entirely indestructible. This all comes to a head during a festival held in the city of Onn (a major population center on Arrakis that is pronounced with a strange rising “n” nasal inflection). While Leto is on his way to the ritual of Siaynoq in Onn, a failed assassination attempt is unleashed against him, but he easily overcomes it. People still have not found his true vulnerability.
Other characters in the novel include Moneo, Leto’s majordomo and chief aide, as well as Moneo’s rebellious daughter, Siona (full name: Siona Ibn Fuad al-Seyfa Atreides). She is actually an Atreides descendant, the result of Leto’s multi-thousand-year breeding program thanks to Leto’s sister, Ghanima, who apparently mated with Harq al-Ada Siona and produced the new generation of Atreides descendants (at one point, it is acknowledged that the Atreides can trace their lineage all the way back to the Greeks as described in in the Homeric literature). As God Emperor of Dune begins, Siona leads a small band of friends wherein they attempt to uncover the location of the spice hoard but they wind up stealing two copies of Leto’s journals from his Citadel in the hopes of discovering a weakness in the God Emperor (only Siona survives the assault from Leto’s D-wolves). “We believe that a higher power will settle with the tyrant worm. We are that higher power.” Curiously, Leto seems to be obsessed with Siona: “Siona is fresh and precious. She is the new while I am a collection of the obsolete, a relic of the damned, of the lost and strayed. I am the waylaid pieces of history which sank out of sight in all of our pasts. Such an accumulation of riffraff has never before been imagined” (50). Why does he speak so highly of Siona? More is later revealed about Siona being a “unique phenomenon” because she can “fade from the prescient view at times.”
“We are myth-killers, you and I, Moneo. That’s the dream we share. I assure you from a God’s Olympian perch that government is a shared myth. When the myth dies, the government dies” (55).
Additionally, Leto has been producing numerous Duncan Idaho gholas spanning many thousands of years, but many of the Duncans have been rebellious and thus killed. Only nineteen of the Ducans died what might be called a natural death. So why would Leto continue to order the Tleilaxu to continue reincarnating the same individual? The answer to this question was a little unclear to me. At any rate, after killing another Duncan who tried to pull a lasgun on the God Emperor, the Tleilaxu bring forward yet another new Duncan ghola whom Leto places in charge of his legions of Fish Speakers, his highly-trained all-female armies. They are called Fish Speakers because the first priestesses spoke to fish in their dreams. Leto explains that he once employed male soldiers but they were less efficient because their fighting often turned inward against their allies and civilian support base, and they also tended to pursue homosexual activities. The Fish Speakers live by a strict religious code of unwavering loyalty to the God Emperor. One of the Fish Speakers is Nayla, a muscular bodyguard assigned to Siona and instructed to obey all of her commands. Leto’s intention is to breed Siona with the latest Duncan Idaho, even though both seem resistant (and Duncan Idaho actually sleeps with Leto’s betrothed, Hwi Noree).
“…You will not understand me. The harder you try the more remote I will become until I finally vanish into eternal myth –a Living God at last! That’s it, you see. I am not a leader nor even a guide. A god. Remember that. I am quite different from leaders and guides. Gods need take no responsibility for anything except genesis. Gods accept everything and thus nothing. Gods must be identifiable yet remain anonymous. Gods do not need a spirit world. My spirit dwells within me, answerable to my slightest summons. I share with you, because it pleases me to do so, what I have learned about them and through them. They are my truth… Beware of the truth, gentle Sister. Although much sought after, truth can be dangerous to the seeker. Myths and reassuring lies are much easier to find and believe. If you find a truth, even a temporary one, it can demand that you make painful changes. Conceal your truths within words. Natural ambiguity will protect you then. Words are much easier than are the sharp Delphic stabs of wordless portent” (175).
Much of God Emperor of Dune is ensconced in dialogue-heavy passages, which are often the cryptic musings of Leto to one of his subordinates, such as Moneo. Throughout thee passages, we are given the image of a larger than life being who listlessly wanders through the vast echoing halls of his Citadel, occasionally prone to outbursts of anger and frequent bouts of extreme boredom and loneliness. He describes his purpose: “to be the greatest predator ever known.” He calls himself “a metaphoric vector of the holy sandworm –Shai-Hulud!” He claims to be a teacher of a lesson about “the ultimately suicidal nature of military foolishness.” All of these opaque riddles and parables make it difficult to decipher Leto’s true purpose. He explains that he is the last in a long line of human rulers: caliphs, mjeeds, rakahs, rajas, bashars, kings, pharaohs, emperors, primitos, presidents, and so on. Is he a vicious tyrant? Or a lonely pitiable being? The brilliance of Frank Herbert’s writing shows that we sympathize with Leto at times, while also finding his tyrannical rule (or “holy obscenity”) to be detestable. Indeed, much like his father before him him, for Leto a fanatical religion has sprung up around his persona even though “religion always leads to rhetorical despotism.”
“Safaris through ancestral memories teach me many things. The patterns, ahhh, the patterns. Liberal bigots are the ones who trouble me most. I distrust the extremes. Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and you find a closet aristocrat. It’s true! Liberal governments always develop into aristocracies. The bureaucracies betray the true intent of people who form such governments. Right from the first, the little people who formed the governments which promised to equalize the social burdens found themselves suddenly in the hands of bureaucratic aristocracies. Of course, all bureaucracies follow this pattern, but what a hypocrisy to find this even under a communized banner. Ahhh, well, if patterns teach me anything it’s that patterns are repeated. My oppressions, by and large, are no worse than any of the others and, at least, I teach a new lesson” –The Stolen Journals
While much of Leto’s body is essentially invincible, his face can be injured by the firing of a lasgun, and in time we learn just how vulnerable Leto truly is to his own emotions –he is shown to be one of the loneliest creatures in the whole universe, entirely one of a kind. Thus, when the Ixians produce a woman for Leto, Hwi Noree (the Ixian new ambassador), he quickly falls in love with her and she agrees to marry him (even though they will never be able to consummate their union). But this ploy with Hwi Noree is quickly revealed to be a conspiracy of some sort devised by the Ixians –Siona’s uncle, the former Ixian ambassador named Malky, is later executed by Moneo over his involvement in her conception and creation by the Ixians (she was deliberately formed to be a gentle, kind, honest, and beautiful female for Leto). Thus, many conspiracies against Leto continue to expose the cracks in his long-enduring regime. However, over time we learn that Leto’s greatest vulnerability is to water, much like the great sandworms of the past. At one point, when Leto stands beside the Idaho River, Moneo notices an increased agitation and anger in Leto’s words, a result of the moisture in the air. Slowly, Leto’s humanity has been overwhelmed by the worm transformation.
“Most civilization is based on cowardice. It’s so easy to civilize by teaching cowardice. You water down the standards which would lead to bravery. You restrain the will. You regulate the appetites. You fence in the horizons. You make a law for every movement. You deny the existence of chaos. You teach even the children to breathe slowly. You tame.” -The Stolen Journals (506).
When Leto takes Siona out into the desert in order to test her strength of will and introduce her to the old Fremen ways, a plot is hatched against the God Emperor from within his own inner circle. When Siona survives and returns from the desert intact, she joins Duncan Idaho and Nayla as they flee to the village of Tuomo, where Leto and Hwi are soon to be wed. And when the royal procession arrives at the edge of town to cross the bridge along the Royal Road, Nayla is commanded to fire her lasgun. Despite being a devoted follower of the God Emperor, she has been instructed to obey all of Siona’s commands, which she fully obeys, but nevertheless still suspects this is all a test because the God Emperor likely has a miracle in store. However, when she fires her lasgun, the bridge suddenly collapses, killing all of Leto’s entourage as they tumble downward into the rushing waters below. Among them, Hwi Noree and Moneo are both killed, but Leto II manages to linger on for a few moments longer inside a cave as his worm skin is brutally shed and all the sandtrout scurry about –the future lineage of sandworms on Arrakis. The remains of Leto’s disgusting blue body rapidly disintegrate and burn away as Duncan Idaho and Siona arrive to watch Leto writhing and suffering in agony. With a hoarse and fading voice Leto explains his secret: that Siona is the true key to the Golden Path. Through his breeding program, she has been given the ability to avoid detection by the spice’s prescience. Therefore, her thoughts and actions are unpredictable. Leto has given humanity a new “mimesis,” or biological imitation, which neither the Ixians nor the Bene Gesserit can foresee either through “arafel” or prescience. In other words, humanity’s future can no longer be foreseen. It marks a renaissance of human freedom and also human chaos. With that Leto dies and his long saga as God Emperor is finally at an end.
“My gift… Nobody will find the descendants of Siona. The Oracle cannot see her” (579).
Uniquely, God Emperor of Dune is bookended by historical discussions that look back on the era of Leto II, akin to a museum tour taking place in the future many years henceforth. They come to us in the words of Hadi Benotto, a mysterious archaeological figure who announces new discoveries at Dar-es-Balat on the planet “Rakis” (the planet formerly known as Arrakis) where researchers have uncovered the original journals of Leto II (or “The Stolen Journals”) which were written on ridulian crystal paper (only one molecule thick), printed by an Ixian dictate of “truly ancient make” and translated by the Spacing Guild using the “Guild Key.” These are the oral recordings of Leto II on an “ancient microbubble system” –likely the same journals stolen by Siona in the novel. As a brief prologue and epilogue, these journal entries are quoted throughout the book and endow the book with a sense of deep historical importance as it sheds light on the historical epoch known as “The Scattering,” a chaotic period of humanity as it spreads out far and wide following the downfall of the God Emperor.
“The only past which endures lies wordlessly within you” (176).
I found God Emperor of Dune to be another staggering achievement in Frank Herbert’s Dune saga. It is the kind of novel that fearlessly takes an extraordinary risk and seems to defy all manner of predictability and cliché. However, even after I completed this rich experience and attempted mine its depth for meaning, I found myself continuing to ask: Was this a “good” science fiction novel? Did I walk away with something new here? My one qualm with God Emperor of Dune is that it is a dialogue-heavy novel that is often mired in Leto’s endless cryptic riddles and has minimal bouts of plot momentum. The story feels fairly stagnant for much of the book leading me to often wonder what is at stake much of the time. But perhaps this stagnancy is partly the purpose of the novel. It shows us the remarkable gravity of Leto’s life, and the endless inanity and boredom within his empire. In God Emperor of Dune, Herbert shows us that a key ingredient for the human experience is unpredictability, the space for evolution and growth, and the need for freedom of will and conscience. To quote Nietzsche, “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.” Empires and religions can never sufficiently harness and control this deep primal human need. Because of this, in God Emperor of Dune Herbert continues his trend of “myth-busting” and exposing the idea of the “dystopia in the utopia.” All-encompassing technology (of the kind Ixian variety), supernatural prognostications (of the Bene Gesserit variety), and limitless order (of the God Emperor variety), are all threats to our very species survival. At our core, we yearn to overcome both gods and tyrants, yet we tragically remain tied to both. Only at the end of God Emperor of Dune do we truly come to see the sheer weight of Leto II’s burden and sacrifice he has made for the species.
Herbert, Frank. God Emperor of Dune. ACE, published by Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, NY, NY (2008, originally published in 1981)
God Emperor of Dune is dedicated to Peggy Rowntree “with love and admiration and deep appreciation.” Peggy Rowntree was Frank Herbert’s maternal aunt. As a teenager, he fled to her house and stayed there with his little sister, Patricia, in an effort to escape his parents’ drinking.
Oooh, I am a big fan of Dune. Only to book 2 yet though. Lovely review!
Thank you! Hope you enjoy your Dune journey. Cheers-