I took my first crack at DUNE in 2017 and bailed at around the halfway mark. It was a lot longer, slower, and multi-multi-multi-layered compared to what I liked to read back then.
Now that I’ve got a little more patience, I have re-read the first book and I’m going farther in the series. I’ve gotta say…my interest is again waning. GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE was a slog for most of the book, with endless scheming and pontificating from Leto II and Siona. While the talking and thinking and talking and thinking have been hallmarks of the series since the beginning, they were also broken up with big moments of action as other power players made moves in the story.
GOD EMPEROR one felt significantly more self-contained as Leto II slithered around and babbled about The Golden Path while referring to old incidents in the series, and his vague plans for the future.
Admittedly it comes together in the end and you do get to see what his goal was, I just don’t feel like it was worth the word count to get there. It’s not a bad thing for more of the sequels to be DUNE: MESSIAH length instead of CHILDREN OF DUNE length. But Frank Herbert has been gone for a long time and his books are still selling, including to me, so it must work for enough people.
If I were to distill the essence of the series down to a core element, I’d have to say that the Dune saga is an epic exploration of the nature and purpose of power, and how it has been accumulated and exercised over the millennia. Herbert asks a lot of questions and challenges the reader to answer them because they are philosophical questions.
The longer the series goes on though, the more he starts to tell you the answers. Which is fine—but it’s little bit like a stage magician showing you how the tricks are done. DUNE became a classic because of its philosophical merits, not just because of its setting and worldbuilding. Once that is all that’s left, the exploring stops.
I wonder if this is a book that I’ll come back to later and appreciate more, the way that I did with DUNE in 2021. Time will tell. For now I’m glad it’s over. I will eventually read book 5 in the series.