I just finished reading God Emperor of Dune, after perusing the recent thread on the value of the Dune series &/or movies (sorry, I am miserable at linking, but it was just a week ago that that thread was active in this Forum). Several folks advised reading it in that thread, and some said it was the best of the Frank Herbert-written books, even better than Dune itself. I had read the first 3 many years ago, and even got my son excited about the series when he was about 12 or 13, but neither of us had picked up that 4th book.
I did enjoy it. Not convinced I thought it beat out the original, but still, was better than #2 and #3, and I am only embarrassed it took me so long to devour it. But I do have a couple questions, which I will spoiler-ize, for you Dune Wizards:
What was it that Leto II did to Siona to enable her to “walk among the ancestors” in her mind, after she’d done the spice essence drug trip, whilst being invisible to them, thus avoiding the internal clamor the other Atriedes had to tolerate?
and
When the sandtrout abandoned the worm’s body at the end, did they survive? How will Dune cycle itself again, (I got the impression from the name changes that the planet subsequently went thru that it DID recycle itself again) or were the narrators at the end suggesting that the synthetic melange became an alternative?
and
What was the nature of the machine that the Ixians created that was able to be hidden from Leto’s vision?
Also, loved the bit about
Nayla becoming the religious equivalent of Judas in the religion that went forward after Leto’s death. Very cool reexamination of the Judas myth.
Perhaps I need to re-read some of the first book again, or some of this book again as well, to get a clearer understanding, but these things just weren’t as clear to me as they could have been. Thanks for any answers you can provide!