In Dune, Frank Herbert sang of the hero Paul Atreides, savior of a subjugated people, redeemer of a broken world, a man of destiny in the Hegelian mode. In Dune Messiah, Herbert told of that same man, eclipsed by his own legend and harried by rivals who would claim his power for their own. Now, in God Emperor of Dune, the Atreides saga continues in a story at once intimate as an inner voice and expansive as the history of political thought. Frank Herbert imagines the distant future in order to plumb our past, searching for answers to age-old questions: How should we be governed? What role, if any, should religion play in statecraft? Are immoral, even wanton acts ever justified, even when they produce the most well-being for all?

Embodying these questions is Leto Atreides II, the titular god emperor, who for 3500 years has ruled Arrakis as a deathless tyrant. Feared and revered in equal measure, Leto maintains his grip on power by working the levers of need and desire. Messianic fervor is his tool, economic despotism his method. He controls what little remains of the spice melange, plunging humanity into a period of enforced tranquility: safety and prosperity at the price of liberty. But Leto possesses a power that other despots down the annals of history could only claim as charlatans or madmen: the power of prescience. And with foresight comes the terrible knowledge of humanity’s extinction, and of the conditions that must prevail in order to avert catastrophe.

Meanwhile, Leto’s own humanity dwindles, for he is becoming a god like Shai-Hulud of old: sandworm-segmented, huge, and horrible to look upon. With his transformation nearly complete, Leto must appoint a successor to ensure that humanity continues upon the Golden Path that he for three millennia has painstakingly cultivated. But time is running out. Beneath the placid surface of Arrakeen society rebellion boils. Rival powers nurturing ancient resentments plot coups in the open. And members of Leto’s own court have mutiny on their minds.

God Emperor of Dune is a treatise on the deepest questions concerning social and political organization. Written in an inventive structure that juxtaposes third-person narration with excerpts from Leto’s diaries, God Emperor of Dune is a gripping tale of dynastic political intrigue and mirror literature in the tradition of Machiavelli, an apologetics for the exercise of absolute power.