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| {{short description|1981 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert}} | |||
| {{Infobox book | |||
| | name = God Emperor of Dune | |||
| | image = God Emperor of Dune-Frank Herbert (1981) First edition.jpg | |||
| | caption = First US edition | |||
| | author = ] | |||
| | audio_read_by = Simon Vance | |||
| | cover_artist = ] | |||
| | country = United States | |||
| | language = English | |||
| | series = ] | |||
| | genre = ] | |||
| | published = 1981 | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | media_type = Print (] & ]) | |||
| | pages = 496 | |||
| | isbn = 0-575-02976-5 | |||
| | oclc = 16544554 | |||
| | preceded_by = ] | |||
| | followed_by = ] | |||
| }}<!-- This article is the redirect destination of ], ], ], ], and ] --> | |||
| '''''God Emperor of Dune''''' is a ] novel by American writer ], published in 1981. The fourth in his ] of six novels, it was ranked as the No. 11 hardcover fiction best seller of 1981 by '']''. | |||
| 3,500 years have passed since ] became the ] of the ] and the Emperor of the universe. | |||
| His son, ], seeing a different path than his father, accepted the mantle of godhead from the ] and began to transform himself into a monster of the ], a ], that has dominated the ecology of Dune for millennia. Leto is confident that his ] — a course into the future in which humanity's survival is guaranteed — is now secure and he has started looking for a way out. | |||
| ==Plot== | |||
| {{spoiler}} | |||
| ], the God Emperor, has ruled the universe as a tyrant for 3,500 years after becoming a hybrid of human and ]. The death of all other sandworms as a result of the ] of ], and his control of the remaining supply of the all-important ], 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 ] fear. | |||
| Leto has disbanded the ] to all but a few Great Houses; the remaining powers defer to his authority, although they individually conspire against him in secret. The ] have long since lost their military power and have been replaced by the ], an all-female army who obey Leto without question.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-] level of technological sophistication. All of this he has done in accordance with a ] divined through precognition that will establish an enforced peace preventing humanity from destroying itself through aggressive behavior. | |||
| ==Synopsis== | |||
| Arrakis has been transformed via terraforming from a ] to a lush forested biosphere with the exception of "The Sareer", a single section of desert retained by Leto for his Citadel. A string of ] ]s have served Leto over the millennia, and, during that time, Leto has also fostered the bloodline of his twin sister ]. Her descendant, ], is Leto's ] and closest confidant, while Moneo's daughter, ], has become the leader of an Arrakis-based rebellion against Leto. She steals a set of Leto's secret journals from his archives, not realizing that he has allowed it. Leto intends to breed Siona with the latest Duncan ghola, but is aware that the ghola, moved by his own morality, may try to assassinate him before this can occur. | |||
| God Emperor of Dune places us in a very different universe than ]. ], because of his merging with the sandtrout, still lives and rules the Empire 3000 years later. He is much further along in his journey to being a worm — he has only useless flippers for arms and legs and moves about on a mechanical wagon. The one physical remnant of humanity he has retained is a human face. From the beginning, our moral viewpoint is played with a fine hand. In Children of Dune, Leto II was a hero, clearly a force for good, but 3000 years on this view seems far more doubtful. Does he still retain his humanity? Is he a force for good? | |||
| The ]s send a new ambassador named ] to serve Leto, and though he realizes that she has been specifically designed and trained to ensnare him, he cannot resist falling in love with her. She agrees to marry him. Leto tests Siona by taking her out to the middle of the desert. After improperly using her ] to preserve moisture, dehydration forces her to accept Leto's offer of spice essence from his body to replenish her. Awakened to Leto's prophecy, which he calls the ], Siona is convinced of the importance of it. She remains dedicated to Leto's destruction, and an errant rainstorm demonstrates to her his mortal vulnerability to water. | |||
| Our action begins with a deadly chase. A band of humans is pursued by a pack of deadly genetically modified wolves and is hunted down one by one and slain. As we join the chase only three still survive and almost immediately another is brought down horribly. The penultimate runner, hampered by an injury, then makes a brave stand to try and give the last runner a few more precious minutes. The last runner, a woman on her last reserves, makes the safety of the opposite bank of the Idaho River. From the safety of the other side of the river, our heroic runner, looking across at the baying wolves curses the Emperor of Arrakis, a curse all the more meaningful because we learn that she too is an Atreides. | |||
| When Duncan falls in love and copulates with Hwi, Moneo sends him and Siona out to Tuono Village, an outcropping along the Royal Procession road, to keep them safe from Leto's wrath. Leto changes the venue of his wedding from Tabur Village to Tuono Village. Siona and Duncan overcome a mutual hatred of each other to plan an assassination. As Leto's wedding procession moves across a high bridge over a river, Siona's associate ] destroys the support beams with a ]. The bridge collapses and Leto and his entourage, including Hwi, fall to their deaths into the river below. Leto's body rends apart in the water; the ] which are part of his body encyst the water and scurry off, while the worm portion burns and disintegrates on the shore. | |||
| Our sense of right and wrong is further challenged by the behaviour of Duncan Idaho. In order to ease the loneliness of the centuries, Leto has been bringing back Duncan Idaho gholas as a companion and leader of his army. Leto, prewarned by the ], is aware that Duncan has purchased a lasgun from an Ixian, and probably intends to try and assassinate him. Nor is ] particularly shocked, because it turns out that generally speaking, all the ghola Duncan Idahos eventually turn against him, a fact that makes us wonder how corrupted Leto must be to make Duncan Idaho turn against an Atreides. | |||
| With his dying breaths, Leto reveals a secret portion of the Golden Path: the production of a human who is invisible to prescient vision. Having begun millennia before with the union of Leto's twin sister Ghanima and ] of ], Siona is the finished result, and she and her descendants will retain this ability. He explains that humanity is now free from the domination of oracles, free to scatter throughout the universe, never again to face complete domination or complete destruction. After revealing the location of his secret spice hoard, Leto dies, leaving Duncan and Siona to face the task of managing the empire. | |||
| However, Duncan, despite buying his weapon, has not fully convinced himself of his intentions and seeks further justification to kill Leto, perhaps also searching for his bravery. During a meeting with Leto, Duncan acts as if nothing is unnatural, as if was it was nothing more than a normal meeting between the two of them. In the midst of the meeting, we learn that a woman named Siona has escaped with some of Leto's personal diaries and a map to the citadel. Leto II has lapses into sleep during the conversation, and Duncan takes this chance to kill Leto II. However, Duncan has never seen Leto move his worm body and is unaware of just how fast he is, and so Leto reacts faster than any human could leaping instinctively in the air and crushing Duncan with his body, almost before Duncan gets off a shot. Leto II is barely injured, losing an unnecessary flipper in the process. | |||
| The Ixians have also begun the construction of navigation computers that will render the ]'s ]s obsolete. Leto's death causes ], a great forced exodus of the former Imperium citizens to other galaxies and planets. | |||
| ], Leto's chief minister, is called in to arrange the disposal of Duncan. Moneo, we learn, had seen the same scene before and his unsurprised, and is merely bothered by how it will affect the routine of government. To make our moral quandaries even more confusing we discover that loyal Moneo is the worried father of the rebellious Siona. During their conversation about her, we discover that Siona is in some way vital to Leto's plans. | |||
| ==Analysis== | |||
| We have, however, not seen the end of Duncan Idaho. The Tleilaxu were aware of Duncan's plans and send along a new Idaho before the previous version even dies. Duncan is met by two members of Leto's personal guard — Fish Speakers — who are an army of solely women. They, being used to the arrival of Duncan, tell him as much as he needs to know and as little as Leto wants him to know to prepare him for a meeting with the God Emperor. Duncan is unsettled, not only be the fact he learns he has been brought back into a world three thousand years after his own, but also by the Fish Speakers because he can see that they have been heavily conditioned to obey without question. | |||
| In ''God Emperor of Dune'', Frank Herbert analyzes the cyclical patterns of human society, as well as humanity's evolutionary drives. Using his ancestral memories, Leto II has knowledge of the entirety of human history and is able to recall the effects and patterns of tyrannical institutions, from the ]n empire through to the ] on ancient Earth, and thus builds an empire existing as a complete nexus encompassing all these methods. This ] differs from the historical tyrants in that it is deliberately designed to end in destruction, and is only instituted in the first place as part of a plan to rescue humanity from an absolute destruction which Leto II has foreseen through his prescient visions. Leto II personally explores the emergent effects of civilization, noting that most hierarchical structures are remnants of evolutionary urges toward safety. Thus, by forming a perfectly safe and stable empire, Leto II delivers a message to be felt throughout history.<ref>{{Citation|surname=Touponce|given=William F.|year=1988|title=Frank Herbert|place=Boston, Massachusetts|publisher=Twayne Publishers imprint, G. K. Hall & Co|isbn=0-8057-7514-5|id=PS3558.E63Z89}} <!-- Part of Twayne's "United States authors series"; 136 pgs --></ref> | |||
| Stylistically, the novel is permeated by quotations from, and speeches by its main character, Leto, to a degree unseen in any of the other ''Dune'' novels. The quotations are from Leto's own dictated records, made for future humanity. In part, this stylistic shift is an artifact of how Herbert wrote it: the first draft was written almost entirely in the ] narrative voice, only being revised in later drafts to insert more third-person narration of events.<ref>"''God Emperor of Dune'' is unique in the series, however, because almost all of the quotations are from ''The Stolen Journals'' (and not from the complete journals found at Dar-es-Balat). They were written by Leto to personalize himself to distant readers in the future....Written in the first person (the early drafts of ''God Emperor'' show that Herbert wrote most of the novel in the first person and left notes for himself to transcribe into the third person; material that he did not transcribe resulted in the journal quotations), they range informally and thought-provokingly over a broad range of subjects from government to prophecy to the nature of language...I believe this is their primary function, for Leto so dominates the book that the other characters seem to exist at times only to bring out differences in him. Even in their most private thoughts they are all obsessed with the God Emperor." pg 87, Touponce 1988</ref> | |||
| The rebels on Arrakis give the encrypted diaries of Leto to the Ixian ambassador in a secret meeting. The Ixian ambassador mocks Siona for her disguise, asking why she bothers when it is well known she is the leader of the rebels. He goes on to mock her 'rebellion' by asking her when she intends to join the god Emperor, since one generation after another the young Atreides have 'played' at being rebels before being called into the loyal service of Leto. But Siona turns the tables on him by threatening blackmail. Also at the end of the meeting Siona unmasks a spy, sending him back to Leto with a message. Ironically, however, the spy is actually her father's, and it is Siona's closest companion, Nayla, who is Leto's true spy. | |||
| ==Critical reception== | |||
| Moneo and Leto meet again and we learn that the new Duncan is untainted by the Bene Tleilaxu. In the past, they had attempted tampering which Leto had not taken well. Moneo and Leto discuss Leto's human breeding programme, a programme he had taken from the ], much to their disquiet. We also learn that Duncan Idaho has played an important role in this programme and that, in Leto's own words, that he rather strangely sees himself as a predator on humanity, a concept that Moneo fails to understand, much to Leto's disappointment. Moneo also raises his fears about his daughter, which Leto sympathises with, but says that she must be tested and that Moneo should trust in his daughter's capabilities. | |||
| ''God Emperor of Dune'' was ranked as the No. 11 hardcover fiction best seller of 1981 by '']''.<ref name="20th Best">{{cite web|url=http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/s05/best80.cgi|title=20th-Century American Bestsellers|work=]/]|publisher=LIS.Illinois.edu|access-date=January 5, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719211204/http://www3.isrl.illinois.edu/~unsworth/courses/entc312/s05/best80.cgi|archive-date=July 19, 2011}}</ref> The '']'' wrote that the novel was "Rich fare ... heady stuff", and '']'' called it "a fourth visit to distant Arrakis that is every bit as fascinating as the other three—every bit as timely."<ref name="Praise">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RxxwnkPHlfEC&q=Praise%20for%20the%20Dune%20Chronicles|title=Children of Dune|chapter=Praise for the ''Dune'' Chronicles|first=Frank|last=Herbert|date=1976|edition=2008|publisher=]|isbn=9781440630514|access-date=May 24, 2020}}</ref> Critic ] of '']'' was less charitable, stating the original ''Dune'' novel "was just about a perfect science fiction" that had not been improved on: "not in ''Dune Messiah,'' in ''Children of Dune'' or in ''God Emperor of Dune.''"<ref name="NYT Review">{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/27/books/books-of-the-times-104040.html |title=Books of the Times |last=Leonard |first=John |date=April 27, 1981 |newspaper=] |access-date=August 5, 2020}}</ref> | |||
| ==In popular culture== | |||
| Later, Leto meets Nayla, his spy in Siona's camp. This is a very disquieting meeting, because we discover that Nayla is the perfect Fish Speaker, she is a complete fanatic, and utterly devoted Leto, taking his title of God Emperor utterly seriously. He orders her, for unknown reasons, to obey every command of Siona. During their conversation we learn from Nayla that Siona is ready for testing, a fact Leto was unsure of, because she wasn't always visible to his prophetic dreams. We do learn, in Leto's favour, that he is not proud of his accomplishment with Nayla, and regrets the necessity of such religious conditioning. | |||
| The book is parodied in the animated television show '']'' in the ] episode "Mandy, the Merciless", with Mandy as the emperor Leto II, and Billy as Duncan Idaho.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.slashfilm.com/1529708/cartoon-network-grim-adventures-billy-mandy-parodied-weirdest-dune-book-god-emperor/ |title=That Time a Cartoon Network Show Parodied The Weirdest ''Dune'' Book |first=Rafael |last=Motamayor |date=March 1, 2024 |work=] |access-date=March 4, 2024}}</ref> | |||
| ==References== | |||
| Leto initially meets Duncan in a darkened room so Duncan can gradually become adjusted to him. Leto begins the conversation in Paul Atreides' voice, so as to calm Duncan down. He first tells Duncan that it was a face dancer pretending to be Paul who triggered Duncan's memories, rather than a ghola version, in order to calm Duncan down. He then goes on to confirm the things that the Tleilaxu had told Duncan were true — that he was turning into a worm, that it was 3000 years later, that Leto has brought Duncan back many times, etc. Once he calms Duncan's near hysteria, he changes over to his real voice, and switches on the light so Duncan can see him as he really is. He explains why he has done what he has done. He then reveals that he needs Duncan to command his army. Duncan then gets sidetracked by his chauvinism into asking why Leto has an all female army. Leto gives the short answer that they minimize the level of violence. After having his doubts about the religious mantle Leto has taken on mollified, Duncan swears into Leto's service with the caveat that if he is worse than Baron Harkonnen then he will turn against him. Leto we learn is amused that that is always the way the Duncan's measure evil. | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| The next day Moneo and Duncan talk. Duncan returns to the subject of his doubts — the female army and the religion Leto has created. They first discuss Leto's ideas about the value of a female army, that basically unless really well disciplined the male army is essentially rapist and a threat to its own population. During the conversation Duncan learns that Moneo is an Atreides and also a descendant of previous Duncan Idaho gholas, that Leto had taken over the Bene Gesserit breeding programme. Duncan also questions Moneo about the 'god business' and is shocked and pleased that Moneo makes no attempt to defend it and says in point of fact that Leto himself calls it a 'Holy Obscenity.' | |||
| {{wikiquote|Dune}} | |||
| * {{isfdb title|id=1863}} | |||
| * | |||
| {{Dune franchise}} | |||
| We are then introduced to Anteac and Luyseyal, ], who have come to Arrakis to represent the ]. They are disquieted by their poor accommodation, and thus, lack of favour in the eye of the God Emperor. They learn that the Ixian embassy has been overtaken by face dancers and that an attack is planned on the God Emperor that day and try to warn Leto. | |||
| {{Frank Herbert}} | |||
| {{Authority control}} | |||
| ] | |||
| The Bene Gesserit do not reach the God Emperor in time and so while the God Emperor is traveling between cities, the Emperor's convoy is attacked by Face Dancers who try to confuse the Fish Speaker guards by imitating Duncan Idaho. Duncan, however, foils their plan by stripping himself of his clothes and the unprepared Face Dancers are unable to copy him, allowing the Fish Speakers to easily slaughter them. The God Emperor tells his guards to hide all evidence of the battle, so the Tleilaxu will think that their attack didn't even inflict a single casualty. | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| The Ixians send a new ambassador to Leto, and he is immediately taken by her. Hwi Noree is a hugely empathic and intelligent woman, and hugely admires Leto, and almost immediately understands him. She is exactly the kind of woman that if he was still a man would have wanted as a mate. As such, she is a kind of delicious agony for him because his sexual organs have long since disappeared. He is aware that she quite obviously is some kind of Ixian trap, since obviously someone must have deliberately created and trained her to be such a perfect fit for him, but he cannot resist the pleasure of her company even so. Furthermore, he possessed no foreknowledge of her, which meant that somehow the Ixians had managed to hide her existence from his prophetic dreams. | |||
| ] | |||
| ] | |||
| The Bene Gesserit are in the God Emperor's good graces for warning him of the attack on his convoy and remain in his good graces even though they bring concentrated spice essence with them in the hope of triggering his transition to a worm. In fact, this attempt on his life amuses him because it is so unusual and so he treats this attack as a gift and offers himself as an oracle as a reward. Of the two Bene Gesserit, Leto is insulted at the naivety of Luylesal but is impressed by the abilities of the other, Anteac, and, semi-jokingly, offers her a job working for him. | |||
| ] | |||
| Leto decides that Siona has been let off the leash for long enough and so sends his Fish Speakers to induct her into his service. She does not enter his service willingly and is in fact guarded at all times. Leto intends to breed Siona with Duncan Idaho, and so he arranges for them to go on a trip together expecting that things will happen naturally sooner or later. Siona being angry decides to take Duncan to Goygoa village. This is a cruel trick because he is stared at as soon as he arrives in the village and is unpleasantly surprised. He is confronted by a young boy and learns that the previous Duncan Idaho was the father of the boy. Unable to resist he discovers that the mother of the child resembles Jessica Atreides greatly. Roomed together by the Fish Speakers, Siona and Duncan swap insults in their irritation at Leto's breeding plans for them both. | |||
| When he returns Duncan is introduced to the Siaqnoq. This is the major religious ceremony of the Fish Speakers where they celebrate their relationship with the God Emperor. Duncan witnesses it firsthand and is stunned by the power of it. During the ceremony Duncan reswears his allegiance to the Atreides, though not directly to Leto. The whole experience does little to ease Duncan's doubts. | |||
| Hwi Noree and Leto meet for the second time. Hwi Noree is hurriedly called to audience with Leto. When she arrives, she learns that her embassy had been overrun by face dancers and the only reason she had survived was because they needed the time to perfect their mimicking of her in order to fool the God Emperor. Shocked by this, she wonders why the God Emperor hadn't wiped out the Face Dancers. He answers that they have their uses and furthermore that the only political group Leto ever actually considered destroying were the Bene Gesserit, because they are so near to what they should be, yet so far. Finally he asks her to his bride, though he 'reassures' her that he is incapable of being her physical lover. He tells her that she can have children with a discreet lover if she so wishes. | |||
| Duncan and Leto talk again. Duncan is still filled with doubts and confusion. He doesn't understand the shape of Leto's empire. Leto laughs when Duncan says this, and says that realising you don't know something is the first step to understanding. Leto explains more about his Empire. He tells Duncan that he has no prisons because breaking the law in his Empire is a religious crime and thus punishable with death, which does not make Duncan feel any better because he realizes that Leto is the leader of a group who is judge, jury, and executioner. At the last when he tells Leto that he will not worship him, Leto tells him that the Fish Speakers understand that he has special dispensation. | |||
| Moneo meets with Leto. He has news. He first suggests that Anteac is a secret mentat, a skill prohibited in the Empire. Leto agrees but says that it amuses him. Moneo goes onto say that they have pressured the Bene Tleilaxu into giving him information about Hwi Noree. The Bene Tleilaxu played a role in her birth, by supplying the Ixians with technology to do a cellular restructuring. Leto suggests that it is interesting that Hwi Noree seems the total opposite or Malky, the previous Ixian ambassador crafted by the Ixians as a being of pure evil. | |||
| Hwi Noree and Leto talk again. Leto explains the shape of his Empire and what he is trying to produce. He talks about how in human affairs each cycle is a reaction to the previous cycle. He explains what will happen when he goes into the sands and his empire falls apart. Basically, he believes that the process will make humankind more mature, through being confronted by the same desperate experience of the disasters his death will cause. Hwi Noree, unlike Moneo and the Duncans understands what Leto means, which pleases Leto greatly. At the end of the audience Leto asks her if she has given any thought to his proposal, and she answers that she has chosen to marry him. | |||
| Upon leaving Leto, Hwi goes to see Anteac and shares her knowledge of the environment she was brought up in. Anteac has been conscripted by Leto to lead a Fish Speaker assault on Ix, to wrest the secret of Hwi's secret origins. Anteac is shocked at the knowledge that Hwi is to marry Leto and at the same time annoyed that her order had allowed so talented a woman as Hwi to pass through their training programme without turning her into a Bene Gesserit. | |||
| Later, the city of On rises in rebellion against Leto. Leto is completely surprised, which is interesting in itself. The rebels attack the Ixian embassy, which, because of the threat to Hwi, sends Leto into a rage. He leaps out of his cart, and attacks the rebels. The Fish Speakers, using the confusion and panic his assault causes, wipe out the rebels. Regaining his calm upon discovering Hwi is safe, Leto regrets his intervention because he has created a dependency among his Fish Speakers. Now they know that he awaits in the wings, a seemingly invincible death machine. Leto realizes it will take generations to erase this dependency. Leto also realizes that this attack must have been planned by Malky, hidden away within the Ixian machine that protects people from his vision. | |||
| The announcement that Leto is marrying Hwi Noree upsets Moneo immensely. Moneo believes the wedding will bring Leto's enemies in alliance against him. He asks Leto for an explanation for why Leto must do this. Leto tells him that it is because of emotions. He says the Hwi provokes glorious emotions within him that he had long thought he had lost. She restores his sense of humanity. During the conversation we learn more about Moneo's abilities and limits. Leto tries to raise Moneo's level of awareness but ultimately fails. Moneo's idea of himself limits him from being all he could be. | |||
| After the frustration of having to deal with Moneo, Leto answers Duncans calls for audience. Duncan, Leto realizes, is suffering from what he call 'Since Syndrome', something which happens to most gholas, but with this one had happened much earlier than ever before. Duncan feels out of sync with this time and place. Duncan is also upset by the news Leto is marrying Hwi, a woman he finds intensely attractive also. Leto orders him not to spend time with her. | |||
| Some time later Moneo and Leto discuss Duncan. Leto is irritated that Duncan is courting Hwi Noree. However, Moneo informs him that it is Hwi Noree herself who is initiating the meetings. He says that Hwi feels a great deal of sympathy for Duncan because he is so out of his time and place. But this does not calm Leto because he says Duncan is very clever with women. Leto asks when a new Duncan ghola can be provided by the Tleilaxu. Moneo says that the Tleilaxu claim they are having problems and that it will be a year. Leto orders that his marriage to Hwi be hurried along. | |||
| Leto meets with Siona to assess her readiness for the testing. They talk about many subjects, including his worm body, and the state of his Empire. She points out that his position is much weaker now, because of his reaction to the attack on the ], people now realize that he is vulnerable to attacks on the people he loves. She goes on to question his right to rule which is the root of her rebelliousness. His response is that he rules by right of loneliness and sacrifice. This puts Siona on the back foot, because she had never considered that Leto might have any rights as a consequence of his uniqueness. | |||
| Moneo and Duncan talk. Moneo tries to get Duncan to call off his pursuit of Hwi Noree. The conversation becomes very heated and Duncan says a number of critical things about the ], within the hearing of Fish Speakers. When Duncan finally returns to his room he finds Hwi waiting for him. She had been told of his latest outbursts by some sympathetic Fish Speakers and had rushed to calm him down. However, things do not get any calmer. Hwi says to him that she was produced to seduce the God Emperor, to seduce an Atreides, and that he, Duncan, is as much the Atreides ideal as any. In the heat of the emotional interchange, Hwi Noree and Duncan ]. Afterwards she tells Duncan that she is still going to marry the God Emperor. When Duncan asks why, she says it is because he has the largest needs of the two of them, the largest need in all the Empire. | |||
| Siona is tested in the deep desert by Leto. She is forced to drink Spice Essence from his body which sends her into a spice trance and into ]. In her dreams she sees the various possibilities in the human future, and more importantly how in many futures humans are hunted and killed to the last person by deadly ]s. But she also sees Leto's Golden Path which leads to the survival of the human race. | |||
| Duncan and Moneo meet. Duncan wants to know where Leto is. Moneo explains he is in the desert with his daughter. Duncan is also upset he discovered that the some of the Fish Speakers are lesbians. Moneo's grows impatient at Duncan's 'puerile' questions and treats him in an offhand way. The conversation goes from bad to worst and he accuses Duncan of not having the courage to fulfill Leto's expectations. Duncan is enraged by Moneo comments and attempts to strike him a blow but, to his utter shock, Moneo not only avoids the blow, but with amazing quickness hurls Idaho to the floor. Idaho looks up in shock, 'How?' is all he can say. And the ] Moneo utters words he later regrets 'Leto has been breeding us for generations. You're just an older model.' Duncan is upset beyond words, and retires to his rooms in shock. | |||
| After a day of contemplation, Duncan's mood is interrupted by a Fish Speaker relaying Moneo's requests for Duncan's presence. Duncan is uninterested until he is told Hwi is there. He goes. It is clear that they have been discussing him before he arrives. They are both worried by the fact that Duncan arrives without his ]. Moneo apologises for his actions and words in front of Hwi Noree. Duncan takes this well and apologises himself. Duncan experiences a weird feeling that only Moneo, Hwi, and himself are the only real humans in existence. Duncan asks about Siona's experience in the desert. Moneo explains his experience and explains that the reason he serves Leto so faithfully is that after seeing the prophetic visions he is relieved that he never had to make the decision Leto made to become a worm and is free just to serve. Duncan seems unconvinced by this argument and indeed flies into a rage at the fact that he and Hwi cannot see each other. This exasperates Hwi and Moneo, but as Duncan leaves we realize that for once his actions do not reflect his true feelings, and that he had deliberately made himself pathetic for Hwi's sake, so that she can be happier in her choice to put Leto first. | |||
| Moneo is relieved at his daughter's survival. To Moneo's shock, Duncan asks a very un-Duncan question: 'What was it the other Duncan Idaho's didn't learn?' Moneo answers him that they did not learn how to trust. Duncan his shocked by this comment in turn, since he has always considers himself to be a man who trusts others. Moneo responds that the circle of his fellowship is too limited — it includes only fellow warriors and women who complement his sense of himself. Siona interrupts this conversation. Moneo tries to save Duncan by sending him and Siona away for the time of the wedding to Tuono village. | |||
| When Leto learns of this, he is amused that Moneo is attempting to save Idaho and changes the location of his wedding to Tuono. Malky has been captured by the Fish Speakers. Anteac died capturing him. When Leto moved against Ixians, Bene Gesserit and Bene Tleilaxu struck just before in order to steal the secret of the device. The secret of the Ixian device has been scattered far and wide. Malky is escorted into Leto's presence. Malky and Leto talk about old and new times. At the end of this conversation, Moneo does what Leto cannot and kills Leto's friend at Leto's behest. Leto and his convoy set off to Tuono village. | |||
| Duncan and Siona talk at Tuono village after a difficult start. And realize that they both still believe that the God Emperor needs to be killed, and overthrown, so they plan to kill the God Emperor. They both realize that he can be killed by water. Duncan and Siona hatch a desperate plan to kill the God Emperor. Idaho climbs a high cliff by himself without ropes, using the experience he learned in his youth. From their he lowers a rope down for Siona and Nayla. From the cliff they await the arrival of Leto's convoy. When the convoy does arrive, Siona orders Nayla to fire her lasgun at the bridge and Nayla, having been directly ordered by Leto to obey Siona's every order, obeys, fully expecting it to be religious test of Leto's. The shot shatters the bridge and Leto is hurled into the water. He escapes to the shore, but it is his death and sandtrout desert his dying body into the sands. Hwi Noree is accidentally killed by the blast sitting as she was in the same carriage. Duncan is distraught, and kills the utterly shocked Nayla. Leto leaves Duncan and Siona ] of his Empire by telling them where he has hidden his spice reserves. | |||
| The series: | |||
| * ] | |||
| * '']'' | |||
| * '']'' | |||
| * ''God Emperor of Dune'' | |||
| * '']'' | |||
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| ] | |||
Latest revision as of 17:17, 14 December 2024
1981 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert_First_edition.jpg) First US edition | |
| Author | Frank Herbert |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Simon Vance |
| Cover artist | Brad Holland |
| Language | English |
| Series | Dune series |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Published | 1981 |
| Publisher | Putnam |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardcover & paperback) |
| Pages | 496 |
| ISBN | 0-575-02976-5 |
| OCLC | 16544554 |
| Preceded by | Children of Dune |
| Followed by | Heretics of Dune |
God Emperor of Dune is a science fiction novel by American writer Frank Herbert, published in 1981. The fourth in his Dune series of six novels, it was ranked as the No. 11 hardcover fiction best seller of 1981 by Publishers Weekly.
Plot
Leto II Atreides, the God Emperor, has ruled the universe as a tyrant for 3,500 years after becoming a hybrid of human and sandworm. The death of all other sandworms as a result of the terraforming of Arrakis, and his control of the remaining supply of the all-important spice, 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 military power and have been replaced 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.
Arrakis has been transformed via terraforming from a desert planet to a lush forested biosphere with the exception of "The Sareer", a single section of desert retained by Leto for his Citadel. A string of Duncan Idaho gholas have served Leto over the millennia, and, during that time, Leto has also fostered the bloodline of his twin sister Ghanima. Her descendant, Moneo Atreides, is Leto's majordomo and closest confidant, while Moneo's daughter, Siona, has become the leader of an Arrakis-based rebellion against Leto. She steals a set of Leto's secret journals from his archives, not realizing that he has allowed it. Leto intends to breed Siona with the latest Duncan ghola, but is aware that the ghola, moved by his own morality, may try to assassinate him before this can occur.
The Ixians send a new ambassador named Hwi Noree to serve Leto, and though he realizes that she has been specifically designed and trained to ensnare him, he cannot resist falling in love with her. She agrees to marry him. Leto tests Siona by taking her out to the middle of the desert. After improperly using her stillsuit to preserve moisture, dehydration forces her to accept Leto's offer of spice essence from his body to replenish her. Awakened to Leto's prophecy, which he calls the Golden Path, Siona is convinced of the importance of it. She remains dedicated to Leto's destruction, and an errant rainstorm demonstrates to her his mortal vulnerability to water.
When Duncan falls in love and copulates with Hwi, Moneo sends him and Siona out to Tuono Village, an outcropping along the Royal Procession road, to keep them safe from Leto's wrath. Leto changes the venue of his wedding from Tabur Village to Tuono Village. Siona and Duncan overcome a mutual hatred of each other to plan an assassination. As Leto's wedding procession moves across a high bridge over a river, Siona's associate Nayla destroys the support beams with a lasgun. The bridge collapses and Leto and his entourage, including Hwi, fall to their deaths into the river below. Leto's body rends apart in the water; the sandtrout which are part of his body encyst the water and scurry off, while the worm portion burns and disintegrates on the shore.
With his dying breaths, Leto reveals a secret portion of the Golden Path: the production of a human who is invisible to prescient vision. Having begun millennia before with the union of Leto's twin sister Ghanima and Farad'n of House Corrino, Siona is the finished result, and she and her descendants will retain this ability. He explains that humanity is now free from the domination of oracles, free to scatter throughout the universe, never again to face complete domination or complete destruction. After revealing the location of his secret spice hoard, Leto dies, leaving Duncan and Siona to face the task of managing the empire.
The Ixians have also begun the construction of navigation computers that will render the Spacing Guild's Navigators obsolete. Leto's death causes the Scattering, a great forced exodus of the former Imperium citizens to other galaxies and planets.
Analysis
In God Emperor of Dune, Frank Herbert analyzes the cyclical patterns of human society, as well as humanity's evolutionary drives. Using his ancestral memories, Leto II has knowledge of the entirety of human history and is able to recall the effects and patterns of tyrannical institutions, from the Babylonian empire through to the Jesuits on ancient Earth, and thus builds an empire existing as a complete nexus encompassing all these methods. This galactic empire differs from the historical tyrants in that it is deliberately designed to end in destruction, and is only instituted in the first place as part of a plan to rescue humanity from an absolute destruction which Leto II has foreseen through his prescient visions. Leto II personally explores the emergent effects of civilization, noting that most hierarchical structures are remnants of evolutionary urges toward safety. Thus, by forming a perfectly safe and stable empire, Leto II delivers a message to be felt throughout history.
Stylistically, the novel is permeated by quotations from, and speeches by its main character, Leto, to a degree unseen in any of the other Dune novels. The quotations are from Leto's own dictated records, made for future humanity. In part, this stylistic shift is an artifact of how Herbert wrote it: the first draft was written almost entirely in the first-person narrative voice, only being revised in later drafts to insert more third-person narration of events.
Critical reception
God Emperor of Dune was ranked as the No. 11 hardcover fiction best seller of 1981 by Publishers Weekly. The Los Angeles Times wrote that the novel was "Rich fare ... heady stuff", and Time called it "a fourth visit to distant Arrakis that is every bit as fascinating as the other three—every bit as timely." Critic John Leonard of The New York Times was less charitable, stating the original Dune novel "was just about a perfect science fiction" that had not been improved on: "not in Dune Messiah, in Children of Dune or in God Emperor of Dune."
In popular culture
The book is parodied in the animated television show The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy in the 2003–04 season episode "Mandy, the Merciless", with Mandy as the emperor Leto II, and Billy as Duncan Idaho.
References
- Touponce, William F. (1988), Frank Herbert, Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers imprint, G. K. Hall & Co, ISBN 0-8057-7514-5, PS3558.E63Z89
- "God Emperor of Dune is unique in the series, however, because almost all of the quotations are from The Stolen Journals (and not from the complete journals found at Dar-es-Balat). They were written by Leto to personalize himself to distant readers in the future....Written in the first person (the early drafts of God Emperor show that Herbert wrote most of the novel in the first person and left notes for himself to transcribe into the third person; material that he did not transcribe resulted in the journal quotations), they range informally and thought-provokingly over a broad range of subjects from government to prophecy to the nature of language...I believe this is their primary function, for Leto so dominates the book that the other characters seem to exist at times only to bring out differences in him. Even in their most private thoughts they are all obsessed with the God Emperor." pg 87, Touponce 1988
- "20th-Century American Bestsellers". The Bowker Annual/Publishers Weekly. LIS.Illinois.edu. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011. Retrieved January 5, 2010.
- Herbert, Frank (1976). "Praise for the Dune Chronicles". Children of Dune (2008 ed.). Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 9781440630514. Retrieved May 24, 2020.
- Leonard, John (April 27, 1981). "Books of the Times". The New York Times. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
- Motamayor, Rafael (March 1, 2024). "That Time a Cartoon Network Show Parodied The Weirdest Dune Book". /Film. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
External links
- God Emperor of Dune title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- God Emperor of Dune
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| ConSentiency |
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| The Pandora Sequence |
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| Standalone novels |
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