God Emperor of Dune

By: Frank Herbert

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 15 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's Summary

More than 3,000 years have passed since the first events recorded in Dune. Only one link survives with those tumultuous times: the grotesque figure of Leto Atreides, son of the prophet Paul Muad'Dib, and now the virtually immortal God Emperor of Dune. He alone understands the future, and he knows with a terrible certainty that the evolution of his race is at an end unless he can breed new qualities into his species.

But to achieve his final victory, Leto Atreides must also bring about his own downfall.

Don't miss other titles in the Dune series.

©1981 Frank Herbert (P)2008 Macmillan Audio

Critic Reviews

"A fourth visit to Arrakis that is every bit as fascinating as the other three - every bit as timely." ( Time)
"Rich fare...Heady stuff." ( Los Angeles Times)

Almost as good as the original

God Emperor of Dune compares well with the original Dune, better than the previous two sequels (Dune Messiah and Children of Dune). It doesn't quite measure up to the standard of the first book, but few books, anywhere, do.

Warning: God Emperor of Dune is the third sequel to Dune. Ignore this book until you are familiar with Dune and the first 2 sequels.

It is 3500 years since Leto II Atreides donned his living sandtrout armor. Leto is now a living deity as well as galactic emperor...prescient, super-intelligent, supremely strong, vengeful...and more sandworm than man. Arrakis is now lush and green; the sandworms (except for Leto) are all but extinct. There is no more spice, excepting centuries-old stockpiles.

This is Leto's Golden Path...the future for humanity that he foresaw and planned 3500 years ago.

Like most of Herbert's Dune books, this book has an operatic feel...it moves slowly and most of the book is taken up with dialogue. The story really is the people, their motives and their schemes. This book revolves almost entirely around the title character (more so than the prior books), but, then, the God Emperor is the dominant story of this time and place.

The narration is very well done; Simon Vance narrates most of the book, with Katherine Kellgren reading the occasional female-dominated chapter and Scott Brick delivering the epigraphs at the start of each chapter. Three excellent readers who did a great job.

34 of 35 people found this review helpful

The art of reading.

There is little need of me further commending the Dune series. My main purpose here is to praise Simon Vance's reading of this extremely long book - as it is perhaps most natural to think of all six of them as one book. He manages to balance an extremely clear enunciation with the right sense of emotion and complex character composition required. I'm eagerly waiting for Audible's publication of "Chapterhouse Dune" , and I certainly expect that Simon Vance will be entrusted with the whole project. He's given new life to a book which is already very alive.

18 of 19 people found this review helpful

Excellent production

Frank Herbert's Dune series are among my all time favorite books. God Emperor is by far my favorite of the series. I have been waiting anxiously for the release of this production. I have not been disappointed. The story is at least as compelling in audio as it is in print. This production does the job excellently.

19 of 21 people found this review helpful

Wonderful continuation of the Dune saga

Im working my way through all of the Dune books. While there is a significant amount of time passed between Children of Dune and this book the plot continues well with out the sense that a significant amount of the story is lost. This book is a little long in the tooth and IMO could have been a few hours shorter and not have lost the overall story. This book defiantly leaves me wanting to listen to the next part of the saga.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Great performance.

After I read God Emperor about five years ago, to me, it was one of the most engrossing book I had ever read.

This audiobook does the novel justice. Each of the voice actors match the mood and atmosphere nicely.

My one dislike I have with the audiobook, in my opinion, would have to be the woman narrator. She was great up until she did the voice of Leto. Having the male narrator do all the voices even the women kind of became stale. So allowing a lady to add a touch of feminism sure kept me listening. That being said, the male should have jumped in. Again that is my opinion.

I would definitely recommend this audio to all the fans of the dune novels for sure. Also, to individuals who may of had a hard time reading the novel.

And of course, to those who enjoy audiobooks in general.

My rating comes from my true opinions which I have just expressed.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

The Golden Path is obvious!

They are doing a great job with the production on these books, The readers are fantastic!
Of course they are the Dune books by Herbert so they are great. This one was as good as the rest.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

The best of Dune...

I'm a big fan of Frank Herbert's original works in this series. After the first book (Dune), this one ranks highest in my opinion, but it's true that you have to appreciate Herbert and the world he created in order to 'get' this book. I suspect most people who are fans of this book identify strongly with Duncan Idaho, who bridges the world of the first three books with God Emperor of Dune. Leto Atreides II is such a fascinating character - love him or hate him. The reading is very well done, especially Simon Vance and Katherine Kellgren. Fortunately Scott Brick only reads the chapter introductions... very much over the top as usual, but you can tune those out.

5 of 6 people found this review helpful

Must be a Dune fan

When asked my favorite book, I answer Dune. I understand that it is not everyone's cup of tea.
Of the series, God Emperor is my favorite and this audiobook brought forth other aspects to consider. I enjoy contemplating Frank Herbert's writings.
If you have interest, please be sure to have checked out the others prior to this in the series: Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune.

9 of 12 people found this review helpful

Only for Frank Herbert devotees

The dyed-in-the-wool Dune fans give God Emperor of Dune very high marks. While I still enjoyed Frank Herbert's writing somewhat in this fourth book in the Dune series, I found the story unwieldy and too pseudo-clever its own good.

Much of the plot seemed implausible or even pointless. The characters felt shallow and impossible to empathise with. The endless philosophising was unconvincing and tiresome. And I was also mystified by the seemingly random switching of narrators. (That said, they were excellent narrators.)

For my part, I'm either done with the Dune series for good or at least taking a loooong hiatus before considering giving it another go.

If you're a hard core Dune fan you will like this book --judging by other reviews-- and probably anything else Frank Herbert wrote. If you're not, I can't recommend this book to you.

8 of 11 people found this review helpful

Less than expected

I have always been a huge fan of Frank Herbert's first three Dune books. This one, though, moved with a snail's pace. Like the other Dune books, there was plenty of internal monologue, which never bothered me when Paul Atreides was the thinker, and there was external action and some real stakes to the story. In this one, though, the stakes are so low for a nearly immortal Emperor Leto and his thoughts so banal for someone who supposedly has access to nearly all human memories and 3000 years of personal experience that the book drags for it's entire length, except for the introductory action. Beyond that, the technology that Leto uses (not even getting into the lack of drama involved in an immortal emperor defying the proscription on thinking machines) has in many cases already been surpassed on Earth in the early 21st century, and all the cool action stuff from the first book - Duncan Idaho as a character with agency, knife fights, etc., are boring.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Love this book.

Mind bending scale of structure, space and thought.

I would advise reading/listening to the previous books in the series first though.

Very well read.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

The saga contrinues

If you loved the three precceding books this serves up another dose of spice for you, while less of a hero story than Dune and chilren of Dune there are certainly enough moments to keep you hooked, oh and it sets up the story for herctics and chapter house nicely. Enjoy

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Close,but no cigar

I liked it but it lacked the pace and enthralling approach of the preceding books.

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Good narration kept me going...

I have read/listened to all of the Dune books and enjoyed them. But I really struggled with this one as it became increasingly obscure and self obsessed. I'll be waiting a while before thinking about the last book I'm sad to say.

Multiple readers positively ruins the immersion.

The multiple voices ruins this book. Using a different reader for the quotes is a good idea, but when a chapter suddenly is in a different voice with different interpretations of the cahracters, the magic is gone.

The story is fantastic.

Good book, no chapters in the recording.

Very much enjoyed the book. Much more philosophical than the other dune books.
This production is really let down by the lack of chapters. It's one long audio file.

Again I find that Simon Vance tells this tale Well

Although biased by enjoyment of this series I still find that Simon Vance, and the cast, portray this novel very well.

I enjoyed the difference of Leto in person vs his tone from the journal excerpts.

really good book, presented very well

really good book, presented very well. I would recommend to fans of the Dune series.

audio keeps skipping first parts of sentences.

impossible to follow because the words a consistently skipped between audio sections... extremely frustrating that a great story is ruined by technical issues

A difficult story preformed well

It's one of the toughest Dune books to read, probably one of the most dialogue heavy books out there - which made it far better to listen to. Very much appreciate what this audio book brings to the series