God Emperor of Dune
Table of Contents
Books by Frank Herbert
THE BOOK OF FRANK HERBERT
DESTINATION: VOID (revised edition)
DIRECT DESCENT
THE DOSADI EXPERIMENT
EYE
THE EYES OF HEISENBERG
THE GODMAKERS
THE GREEN BRAIN
THE MAKER OF DUNE
THE SANTAROGA BARRIER
SOUL CATCHER
WHIPPING STAR
THE WHITE PLAGUE
THE WORLDS OF FRANK HERBERT
MAN OF TWO WORLDS
(with Brian Herbert)
DESTINATION: VOID (revised edition)
DIRECT DESCENT
THE DOSADI EXPERIMENT
EYE
THE EYES OF HEISENBERG
THE GODMAKERS
THE GREEN BRAIN
THE MAKER OF DUNE
THE SANTAROGA BARRIER
SOUL CATCHER
WHIPPING STAR
THE WHITE PLAGUE
THE WORLDS OF FRANK HERBERT
MAN OF TWO WORLDS
(with Brian Herbert)
The Dune Chronicles
DUNE
DUNE MESSIAH
CHILDREN OF DUNE
GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE
HERETICS OF DUNE
CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE
Books by Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom
THE JESUS INCIDENT
THE LAZARUS EFFECT
THE ASCENSION FACTOR
Books edited by Brian Herbert
THE NOTEBOOKS OF FRANK HERBERT’S DUNE
SONGS OF MUAD’DIB
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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South Africa
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Published by arrangement with Herbert Properties LLC.
Copyright © 1981 by Frank Herbert.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herbert, Frank.
God Emperor of Dune / Frank Herbert ; with a new introduction by Brian Herbert.
p. cm.—(The Dune chronicles ; bk. 4)
eISBN: 9781101386118
1. Dune (Imaginary place)—Ficton. I. Title.
PS3558.E63G6 2008
813’.54—dc22
2008025629
PS3558.E63G6 2008
813’.54—dc22
2008025629
To Peggy Rowntree
with love and admiration
and deep appreciation
with love and admiration
and deep appreciation
INTRODUCTION
by Brian Herbert
In the summer of 1980, I was visiting my mother and father at their home in Port Townsend, Washington. On a small table beside my mother’s favorite chair, I noticed a draft of
God Emperor of Dune
. She had the manuscript open to page 516, near the conclusion of the novel. When I asked Dad how it was going, he said it was a totally new kind of love story, unlike anything ever written before. When I finally got the opportunity to read the story, I found it was that, and a great deal more.
To understand this complex novel, it is important to realize that
Dune
,
Dune Messiah
, and
Children of Dune
form a trilogy. The fourth entry in the series,
God Emperor of Dune
, is a bridging work leading to a new trilogy. Before Frank Herbert died in 1986, he wrote the first two books in that trilogy,
Heretics of Dune
and
Chapterhouse: Dune
, and made notes for the third volume, to which he gave the working title
Dune 7
. (In collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson, I later wrote
Dune 7
as two novels:
Hunters of Dune
and
Sandworms of Dune
.)
Dune
,
Dune Messiah
, and
Children of Dune
form a trilogy. The fourth entry in the series,
God Emperor of Dune
, is a bridging work leading to a new trilogy. Before Frank Herbert died in 1986, he wrote the first two books in that trilogy,
Heretics of Dune
and
Chapterhouse: Dune
, and made notes for the third volume, to which he gave the working title
Dune 7
. (In collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson, I later wrote
Dune 7
as two novels:
Hunters of Dune
and
Sandworms of Dune
.)
God Emperor of Dune
also marks a change in writing style for the series. The first three novels are filled with action and layers of important messages about politics, philosophy, religion, ecology, women’s issues, history, and the very nature of humanity. While
God Emperor
begins with action, and ends with it, there are many pages of dialogue in between. In those pages, there is a great deal of conversation about important, interesting subjects—much of it spewing from the God Emperor, Leto Atreides II. The thoughts are so brilliant, springing as they do from the mind of Frank Herbert, that I scarcely notice the difference in writing style when I’m reading. I like the book very much, and it was my mother’s favorite in the series. But it is different, and it marks a change in style that the author carried forward to the next two books in the series,
Heretics of Dune
and
Chapterhouse: Dune
.
also marks a change in writing style for the series. The first three novels are filled with action and layers of important messages about politics, philosophy, religion, ecology, women’s issues, history, and the very nature of humanity. While
God Emperor
begins with action, and ends with it, there are many pages of dialogue in between. In those pages, there is a great deal of conversation about important, interesting subjects—much of it spewing from the God Emperor, Leto Atreides II. The thoughts are so brilliant, springing as they do from the mind of Frank Herbert, that I scarcely notice the difference in writing style when I’m reading. I like the book very much, and it was my mother’s favorite in the series. But it is different, and it marks a change in style that the author carried forward to the next two books in the series,
Heretics of Dune
and
Chapterhouse: Dune
.
Think of the style of
Dune
, with its adventure story following the classical hero’s journey of Paul Atreides, and so many important messages layered beneath. The presentation is accomplished so expertly on the pages, so seamlessly, that when you get to the end, you hardly realize you’ve just learned a great deal about ecology and things that matter to this planet and to all of humankind. You only know that you want to read the book again, spending even more time with Paul Atreides, Duncan Idaho, the Lady Jessica, and the other characters in the incredible Dune universe. Bits and pieces of the story cling to you afterward, luring you back into it. So you return again to page one and continue on. This time you might focus on other aspects, other layers, things you didn’t notice before.
Dune
, with its adventure story following the classical hero’s journey of Paul Atreides, and so many important messages layered beneath. The presentation is accomplished so expertly on the pages, so seamlessly, that when you get to the end, you hardly realize you’ve just learned a great deal about ecology and things that matter to this planet and to all of humankind. You only know that you want to read the book again, spending even more time with Paul Atreides, Duncan Idaho, the Lady Jessica, and the other characters in the incredible Dune universe. Bits and pieces of the story cling to you afterward, luring you back into it. So you return again to page one and continue on. This time you might focus on other aspects, other layers, things you didn’t notice before.
God Emperor of Dune
is different. When you finish it, you realize that you’ve just absorbed a large amount of data from a great mind, so much that you need to go back and study the material to see what the author intended. Realize, though, that in this novel Frank Herbert was exploring some of the layers of
Dune
,
Dune Messiah
, and
Children of Dune
that he had already established, taking the dangers of government and organized religion to new levels, merging them, and extrapolating to an extreme, providing a scenario of what it might be like if a holy tyrant led humanity and if that despot could not die. The stakes could not be any higher. And what a fantastic concept, combining human flesh with supernatural elements of nature to create a godhead. A frightening notion—and even more terrifying than the dangers of following a charismatic leader that Frank Herbert wrote about so eloquently in the second and third books of the series.
is different. When you finish it, you realize that you’ve just absorbed a large amount of data from a great mind, so much that you need to go back and study the material to see what the author intended. Realize, though, that in this novel Frank Herbert was exploring some of the layers of
Dune
,
Dune Messiah
, and
Children of Dune
that he had already established, taking the dangers of government and organized religion to new levels, merging them, and extrapolating to an extreme, providing a scenario of what it might be like if a holy tyrant led humanity and if that despot could not die. The stakes could not be any higher. And what a fantastic concept, combining human flesh with supernatural elements of nature to create a godhead. A frightening notion—and even more terrifying than the dangers of following a charismatic leader that Frank Herbert wrote about so eloquently in the second and third books of the series.
It is also interesting to note that Frank Herbert often wrote about beings with godlike powers, entities that took on differing forms. In
Destination: Void
and
The Jesus Incident
(cowritten with Bill Ransom), the entity is a supercomputer. In
Whipping Star
, it is a celestial body, a star. In
The Godmakers
and
Dune
, the gods are in human form. In
God Emperor of Dune
, the entity is part mysterious sandworm, part human, a creature that contains a vast storehouse of knowledge.
Destination: Void
and
The Jesus Incident
(cowritten with Bill Ransom), the entity is a supercomputer. In
Whipping Star
, it is a celestial body, a star. In
The Godmakers
and
Dune
, the gods are in human form. In
God Emperor of Dune
, the entity is part mysterious sandworm, part human, a creature that contains a vast storehouse of knowledge.
The God Emperor, Leto Atreides II, is one of the most unusual characters in the annals of science fiction. He has lived for more than 3,500 years and possesses a wisdom that spans time and space. He seems capable of living forever, of leading humankind into the eternal future. For millennia after the events in the novel
Dune
, Leto has enforced a peace—a “Golden Path”—under which he has ensured the continued existence of the human species. As Leto puts it, “The Golden Path … is the survival of humankind, nothing more nor less.”
Dune
, Leto has enforced a peace—a “Golden Path”—under which he has ensured the continued existence of the human species. As Leto puts it, “The Golden Path … is the survival of humankind, nothing more nor less.”
But Frank Herbert, who saw the dark side of the hero, also saw the dark side of the perfect civilization. He called this way of thinking “myth-busting” or seeing the “dystopia in the utopia.” As a newspaper reporter for many years, he often turned over stones to see what would scurry out. At the University of Washington in Seattle, he taught a political science class about shattering the myth structures under which we live. A modern-day Socrates, he tore into what he called “unexamined linguistic and cultural assumptions.”
My father knew how to do his research. Back in the 1950s, he was a speechwriter for a U.S. senator and worked in Washington, D.C. With C-9 security clearance, Frank Herbert had special access to the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress, through which he could use virtually any document or book in the vast library. He just got on the telephone, ordered what he wanted, and presently it arrived in a cart, with blue book-marks designating the pages that were of interest to him. Notes were included on material available at other government facilities, including the National Archives and the Army Corps of Engineers. If he wanted any of the additional materials, he simply ordered them through the Library of Congress and soon they were in front of him.
A man of boundless energy and enthusiasm, Frank Herbert possessed a mind that went in fifty directions at once. He was always thinking, always reading at every opportunity, always researching something. For each novel he wrote, he first pored over as many books as he could get his hands on about particular subjects, then spoke with scientists, doctors, and other experts. Time was critical to him, and he didn’t like to waste a moment of it. Physically and mentally, he went from point A to point B quickly. Sometimes he learned what he needed with a phone call. To see how easy it might be for an unbalanced, dangerous person to obtain the ingredients and materials necessary for recombinant DNA research (for the novel
The White Plague
), Dad acted as if he were a doctor and telephoned medical suppliers.
The White Plague
), Dad acted as if he were a doctor and telephoned medical suppliers.
Frank Herbert was a man full of intriguing ideas, the most interesting person in any room. His personality, like the characters he created in his stories, was larger than life. He had a full, fantastic beard, and with his twinkling eyes, you never quite knew what he would say next. A reviewer for the
New York Times
once quipped that Frank Herbert’s head was so overloaded with ideas that it was likely to fall off. In
God Emperor of Dune
, my father described Leto II, who, through genetic processes, had acquired all human information. In “Pack Rat Planet” and
Direct Descent
, he wrote of a vast Galactic Library, a storehouse containing the written wisdom of humankind. Frank Herbert, like Leto II and the Galactic Library, was a repository of incredible, wondrous information. His words captivated millions of people all over the world.
New York Times
once quipped that Frank Herbert’s head was so overloaded with ideas that it was likely to fall off. In
God Emperor of Dune
, my father described Leto II, who, through genetic processes, had acquired all human information. In “Pack Rat Planet” and
Direct Descent
, he wrote of a vast Galactic Library, a storehouse containing the written wisdom of humankind. Frank Herbert, like Leto II and the Galactic Library, was a repository of incredible, wondrous information. His words captivated millions of people all over the world.
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