God Emperor of Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 4)
by Frank Herbert
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Book Summary Information
Author: Frank HerbertEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1987-06-15
ISBN: 0441294677
Number of pages: 423
Publisher: Ace Books
Book Reviews of God Emperor of Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 4)
Book Review: Horrible Worm
Summary: 3 Stars
My take on GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE is that it's an absurdist tragicomedy, like CALIGULA. I say absurdist tragicomedy not simply because the main character is 3500 years old and slowly turning into a giant worm (though there is that), but because he's convinced himself and many others that he's the far-sighted savior of humanity when he is in fact a deluded and despicable tyrant.
Though it's discussed briefly, a significant part of the God Emperor's strategy for the salvation of humanity has to do with what's called the "Famine Times". In the Dune universe, interstellar pilots require a rare spice from the planet Dune to navigate starships properly. The Emperor has for centuries been hoarding and otherwise limiting access to this spice, in part to buy himself political power, but also in order to reduce space travel. He plans ultimately to strand the various populations of humanity on their respective worlds for centuries (until an alternative mode of space travel prevails), leading to overpopulation and the various crises that accompany overpopulation (war, starvation, presumably global warming, etc.). The final objective of all this anguish is to leave humanity stronger for the experience and capable of extremely long-term survival.
Needless to say, even if humanity does emerge somehow stronger from this excruciating punishment, we are clearly walking in Cure-Worse-Than-The-Disease territory here. Anyone who would willfully subject generations of billions or perhaps trillions of human souls to this grueling fate is beyond diabolical. The God Emperor, the author of this galactic Famine Time, is clearly demented at a comicbook-villain level.
Nonetheless, the novel plays things straight, or at least ambiguously, and the Emperor functions as the book's protagonist. In fact, he's usually the viewpoint character. But the author offers plenty of clues that we're to take Leto's (the Emperor's) perspective on things with a grain of salt. Here's a few:
1. For one, many of the reviewers here have already pointed out how Frank Herbert disliked hero-kings (or perhaps the blind acceptance that a hero-king encourages). For example, Leto's father, Paul Atriedes, ends the first novel DUNE as the conquering hero; but, in the followup DUNE MESSIAH, he transforms into a taciturn, bitter, and (somewhat justifiably) paranoid hero-king; and, by CHILDREN OF DUNE, he's abdicated political power to his troubled sister (a mistake), and wandered off into the desert to spend his remaining days a raving prophet ala the Old Testament. If Paul's hero-king life experience proves ultimately to be bad news, Leto's godlike superhero-king incarnation must be the worst of the worst.
2. Leto the God Emperor is an outright tyrant. He says as much here and there in the book, but justifies it by pointing out that he's tyrannical only at certain times and always to a purpose, keeping the big picture in mind -- probably the same line of reasoning that every tyrant who's ever lived has used, if he's bothered to reason about it at all. In an entertaining, tyrannical passage about a quarter into the novel, Leto pontificates on the evils of religion and cites Torquemada's burning of heretics as an example. Leto's courtier points out that he (Leto) has burned some historians to death for the crime of falsification. Leto's response: Yes, but they were unconscious at the time.
3. Leto's behavior veers toward the unstable. This is understandable in a 3500 year-old man who's turning into a worm while running the galaxy, but it also underscores the fact that he's hardly the clear-thinking savior of humanity he imagines himself to be. In one chapter, he retires to his room to talk to himself (questions in quotes, responses in italics); then, when he tires of this, he constructs an "imaginary visitor" to carry on the conversation; following that, he proceeds to cry. Also, Leto is one of those people around whom you have to watch everything you say, and how you say it. Leo's chief courtier Moneo pretty much lives by this fact. Every conversation Moneo has with the Emperor carries with it the danger that Leto will lose control of his emotions and squash him (or something equally lethal) without thinking. Moneo spends much of the novel a nervous wreck.
4. And Leto is clearly self-destructive. One example: the Duncan Idaho gholas. For millenia, the Emperor has ordered (or accepted without ordering) gholas/clones of his childhood protector Duncan Idaho, perhaps for companionship. But the usual trajectory of each Duncan ghola is slowly to realize what an abhorrent being the God Emperor really is, and then attempt to destroy him (unsuccessfully). Following that, the Emperor gets a new Duncan to start the whole process over. As if in the subconscious hope that one of the Duncans will get around to actually killing him. (***SPOILER ALERT***) Another example is the Emperor's acceptance of Hwi Noree, whom he knows for a fact that his enemies have constructed for the purpose of weakening and possibly killing him. And there's that perilous wedding procession (on foot), which Moneo warns against, and which the Emperor undertakes anyway for the sake of tradition or something.
While I found the novel pretty engrossing for the above reasons, I thought it had some weak points. For one thing, the whole long story revolves tightly around Leto the God Emperor. Leto is the viewpoint character for at least half the pages in the book, and in the remaining pages, the other characters are talking to or about Leto, or else they're thinking about him. This narrow focus gives the story a claustrophobic feel. Certainly it's inferior to the spectacle and breadth of the original DUNE novel.
Another thing I didn't like was the unconvincing behavior of the above-mentioned Duncan Idaho gholas. When Duncan is regrown/resurrected, he has no memories past his death 3500 years previous. But in the novel, he seems to fit right in as soon as he hits the ground of Dune. Leto appoints him captain of the guard almost right out of the growing tank, and Duncan takes on the job like an old pro (which he was, tens of centuries ago). He has a few problems coping with the idea of the all-female Fish Speaker army, but beyond that, he's surprisingly well-adapted for a person 3500 years out of touch.
And, a final nitpick: Siona's Atriedes heritage. The novel makes a point of Siona's ancestry in a few places, mentioning the Atriedes characterstics of her face, and so forth. Now, I understand that (**SPOILER ALERT**) Siona's a subject of the God Emperor's breeding experiment (**END OF ALERT**), but her Atriedes ancestry really should be no big deal. Atriedes genes have been floating around the population of Dune for at least 3500 years, something like 150 generations. In that amount of time, you'd expect that if anyone at all has Atriedes DNA, then everybody's got some. Again, it's a small nitpick, but it seems like the author forgot the magnitude of his own time scale.
Summary of God Emperor of Dune (Dune Chronicles, Book 4)
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
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