Book Review: God Emperor of Dune

God Emperor of Dune is a divisive book. It has a sizable cult of hardcore defenders. For me it was the book that put me off of the franchise for a long time. The issue is that it is a huge departure from the original trilogy, Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune. I felt that the first and third books were masterpieces, especially the first. However God Emperor is very far removed both in terms of plot (it is set 3500 years after Children of Dune) and style.

Most of the characters and world we grew to love in the first three books are long gone. We’re introduced to a lot of fascinating new ideas, such as the sandworm/human hybrid emperor Leto, his all female Imperial army of “Fish Speakers,” his Atreides descendent and antagonist Siona, and his mysterious love interest the ambassador Hwi Noree. Unfortunately Herbert isn’t as deft at weaving together these new elements in engaging ways.

The root problem is that the book is very talky and overtly philosophical. A very large percentage of the book is Leto pontificating about society, human biology, politics, religion, and epistemology. The book does a lot of telling instead of showing and takes for granted your interest in the world and characters. It’s also never really clear who to root for since the despotic God Emperor Leto is presented as both a hero and a villain and we can’t know in this book whether his prophecies turn out true.

Ultimately it is just not the direction I wanted to see the series go. God Emperor is a very intellectual work with some insightful commentary and some really neat far out sci-fi concepts. However it just isn’t as well plotted as any of the first three books and it is so distant from them that it leans entirely on its new ideas and themes, neither of which are quite strong enough to carry it. I recommend it to serious fans of the Dune universe, but for more casual fans I would say it is all well to stop after Children of Dune.

Grade: C+