God Emperor of Dune

TL;DR

I did not enjoy this book as much as the others, I felt like nothing happened at all. We are so far ahead into the future and for some reason we are focused on this boring stale timeperiod of all that happened between Children of Dune and now. Many people say this is their favorite Dune book so I came pretty excited into it, unfortunately it was such a big dissapointment.

My Scoring System

I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:

X - Main Story: Extremely boring, nothing happens it's just philosophy talk galore, every conversation is about a philosophical topic. It's just so boring.

X - Side Stories (if it applies): I don't even remember if there were side stories all I know is that this book is boring.

X - Characters: All my favorite characters are gone, literally the only ones left are my least favorite ones from previous books, Leto II and Duncan Idaho. This to me is not Dune, you can be on Arrakis and have spice and all that but this is not Dune. Also Fremen are a joke who wear fake stilsuits and fake weapons, pathetic. The new characters are garbage too, none of them hold a candle to any one of the characters from the previous entries.

X - Setting/Ambiance: Garbage planet, we went from one of the most interesting ones, a desert planet with sandworms to a paradise with trees and grass. Basically just like any other boring habitable planet out there, great...

X - Ending: Terrible ending, all I can say. Didn't like it.

Extensive Review

So we keep hearing stories about what happened before we time jumped, about fights and conquests and such. So I would assume we would get more information on this, sadly this was not the case.

How about seeing how Leto II created his Fish Speakers (female soldiers completely devoted to him) and started conquering all the worlds along these three thousand and five hundred years, soldiers must have fought back when they heard they were being relagated to farmers and wouldn't be able to fight anymore before eventually submitting to him?

No.

Oh okay.

How about the part where Leto II during all these years managed to turn the Fremen, pround desert warriors who always fought back against their oppressors go from that to husks who wear plastic replicas of their weapons, fake stillsuits and pretty much forgot their ways?

No.

Oh...

How about the Landsraad and all the other houses, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit fighting againsts Leto II once they saw he was becoming a tyrant? Sure he controlled the spice, but some of them must have faught back and tried before giving up hope and submitting to him, no?

No.

...

Instead we are at a point where he controls everything and everyone, sure a few skirmishes happen here and there, some rebels but this is nothing. I felt like as a reader I've arrived too late in the story, everyone is beat into submission and has no hope to even try to go against Leto II.

Okay so the story is a letdown. No worries we've got the characters to pick it up...right?

I don't think I've liked a single character is this book, except the Bene Gesserit sisters. No matter when they appear or what they're doing I always really liked them because they're always scheeming and probing, it's their nature. You have to really do a terrible job to put in a Bene Gesserit sister and for me to not like her as a character.

But I wasn't interested in the rest and I hate that because how many good characters we had from the previous books? oh, so many memorable ones but that's the problem with jumping three thousand and five hundred years in the future. I'm not kidding when I say that some of the least important characters in previous books like say Harah is a better character than any one present here except for Leto II and Hwi. And once you start to talk about big names like Jessica, Alia, Ghanima, The Baron, Stilgar... it's not even a fair competition. You might say that it's because those characters had time to develop over the course of three books but just pick a single book, say Dune Messiah. Duncan as a ghola mentat arguably a new character, Alia not a child anymore so a new character, Irulan. Who even comes close to these in this book?

Duncan in this book, this guy just won't die, just let the poor man die for the love of Shai-Hulud. Killed while taking down 17 sardaukar helping Jessica and Paul escape?, amazing! Then he gets revived and I was like "uhhh I don't know...", but he's a mentat now so that was a cool new addition. Then he dies again and now he's just Duncan, getting manipulated by everyone because he's just so loyal to the Atreides. As long as you talk in Paul's voice and say something he said to him he will do anything you want. "Duncan, hello?" Just because Leto II has all the memories of Paul and can recite them at will doesn't mean he's Paul. I don't get why that's such a hard concept to understand even though Leto II constantly tries to convince us by saying he's the entire Atreides family as one. No, if you let Paul take over you and become an abomination then yes, he's Paul. Using his voice and talking of past experiences is like me having some recording of my grandfather, playing it and saying I'm him because I posses that.

I don't get this admiration every one inside the story has with Duncan, he's a good soldier who's good with the ladies. Gourney has some problems but I liked him way more than Duncan, even Duncan himself said that Gourney would beat him six out of ten times. Leto II doesn't have that strong connection with Duncan as Paul did. Even if I buy the "Leto II is Paul" thing, by that logic he could literally have used any other character from the previous books to keep reviving. I'm sure he could procure the body of whoever he wanted and give it to the Tleilaxu. There is a scene where Duncan visits a village and he sees some one who looks exactly like some one who was very important to him in his past life, I don't think that was a coincidence, so my point is that we could have had anyone better than Duncan as a recuring character from previous books, let this man die, please.

Another thing I got disappointed by Duncan is in a scene where fifty face dancers attack Leto II and his Fish Speakers, as they fight the face dancers all change into Duncan. At this moment I was like "yeah!, here we go. They killed the original one and one of them switched with him, brilliant. Finally things will get interesting, how will he manage to evade Leto II and blend in correctly." Then I kept reading and reading and reading... "Okay he's waiting for the perfect moment, he only has one shot he's got to make it count. Or maybe he's secretly sending info to the Tleilaxu about Leto II?, oh the possibilities." Then I reached the ending of the book and no, all that skirmish was for nothing and Duncan was the real one all along, "great..."

Moneo is a yes man who fears Leto II because he knows when he gets in a bad mood he could kill you involuntarily. Just barks orders around and I guess he's strong because he evaded an attack from Duncan with ease but we never see him do anything else. His conversations with Leto II are, "Yes, Lord", "No, Lord", "I'm sorry, Lord"...

Siona is boring and doesn't bring anything to the table. Any female character from past books is more interesting than her.

The Fish Speakers were cool, an army of devoted fanatic females is a nice idea, I liked that. Unfortunately we don't get to see them very much. They're just there awaiting orders and obeying. We don't get to see them in their free time. Or the relationships they have between them or any of that.

Sad to say but I did not enjoy reading this book.