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INTRODUCTION by Brian Herbert

In the su ton On a small table beside my mother's favorite chair, I noticed a draft of God Ee 516, near the conclusion of the novel When I asked Dad hoas going, he said it was a totally new kind of love story, unlike anything ever written before When I finally got the opportunity to read the story, I found it was that, and a great deal more

To understand this complex novel, it is important to realize that Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune fory The fourth entry in the series, God Ey Before Frank Herbert died in 1986, he wrote the first two books in that trilogy, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, andtitle Dune 7 (In collaboration with Kevin J Anderson, I later wrote Dune 7 as two novels: Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune)

God E style for the series The first three novels are filled with action and layers of iy, women's issues, history, and the very nature of huins with action, and ends with it, there are es, there is a great deal of conversation about i frohts are so brilliant, springing as they do from the mind of Frank Herbert, that I scarcely notice the difference in writing style when I' I like the book very much, and it was my mother's favorite in the series But it is different, and it e in style that the author carried forward to the next two books in the series, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune

Think of the style of Dune, with its adventure story following the classical hero's journey of Paul Atreides, and so es layered beneath The presentation is accoes, so seaet to the end, you hardly realize you've just learned a great deal about ecology and things that matter to this planet and to all of huain, spending even more time with Paul Atreides, Duncan Idaho, the Lady Jessica, and the other characters in the incredible Dune universe Bits and pieces of the story cling to you afterward, luring you back into it So you return again to page one and continue on This tis you didn't notice before

God Emperor of Dune is different When you finish it, you realize that you've just absorbed a large ao back and study the h, that in this novel Frank Herbert was exploring some of the layers of Dune, Dune Messiah, and Children of Dune that he had already established, taking the dangers of govern the a scenario of what it ht be like if a holy tyrant led humanity and if that despot could not die The stakes could not be any higher And what a fantastic concept, co huodhead A frightening notion--and evena charismatic leader that Frank Herbert wrote about so eloquently in the second and third books of the series

It is also interesting to note that Frank Herbert often wrote about beings with godlike powers, entities that took on differing forms In Destination: Void and The Jesus Incident (cowritten with Bill Ranso Star, it is a celestial body, a star In The Godods are in human form In God Emperor of Dune, the entity is part myster

ious sandworm, part hue

The God Emperor, Leto Atreides II, is one of the most unusual characters in the annals of science fiction He has lived for more than 3,500 years and possesses a wisdo forever, of leading humankind into the eternal future For millennia after the events in the novel Dune, Leto has enforced a peace--a "Golden Path"--under which he has ensured the continued existence of the human species As Leto puts it, "The Golden Pathis the survival of hu more nor less"

But Frank Herbert, who saw the dark side of the hero, also saw the dark side of the perfect civilization He called this way of thinking " the "dystopia in the utopia" As a newspaper reporter for many years, he often turned over stones to see ould scurry out At the University of Washington in Seattle, he taught a political science class about shattering the myth structures under which we live A modern-day Socrates, he tore into what he called "unexauistic and cultural assumptions"

My father kne to do his research Back in the 1950s, he was a speechwriter for a US senator and worked in Washington, DC With C-9 security clearance, Frank Herbert had special access to the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress, through which he could use virtually any docuot on the telephone, ordered what he wanted, and presently it arrived in a cart, with blue book-es that were of interest to hiovern the National Archives and the Arineers If he wanted any of the additional ress and soon they were in front of him

A y and enthusiasm, Frank Herbert possessed a mind that went in fifty directions at once He was always thinking, always reading at every opportunity, always researching so For each novel he wrote, he first pored over as et his hands on about particular subjects, then spoke with scientists, doctors, and other experts Time was critical to him, and he didn't like to waste a moment of it Physically and mentally, he went from point A to point B quickly Sometimes he learned what he needed with a phone call To see how easy it redients and materials necessary for recoue), Dad acted as if he were a doctor and telephoned medical suppliers

Frank Herbert was aperson in any room His personality, like the characters he created in his stories, was larger than life He had a full, fantastic beard, and with his twinkling eyes, you never quite knehat he would say next A reviewer for the New York Times once quipped that Frank Herbert's head was so overloaded with ideas that it was likely to fall off In God Eenetic processes, had acquired all human information In "Pack Rat Planet" and Direct Descent, he wrote of a vast Galactic Library, a storehouse containing the written wisdom of humankind Frank Herbert, like Leto II and the Galactic Library, was a repository of incredible, wondrous information His words captivated millions of people all over the world

My father respected his readers He challenged theht have to look up in the dictionary, and kept the twists and turns of plot and characterization Who could have predicted that he would turn the hero myth of Paul Atreides upside down in the space of the first two novels in the Dune series, and show a dark path that huht find itself on if it followed a charisent social warning that governments and leaders lie

It is just one of es that Frank Herbert layered into his novels beneath the ongoing adventures, causing his readers to think about deep issues But in his hands, the , because he acco theaction of the series He was not pedantic, did not preach to his readers He sought to entertain first, while teaching along the way