Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps the single best Si-Fi book of all time.
Review: A text whose depth of religious, historical, philosophical and emotional insights touch at the very essence of what humanity is. As someone who has read the 6-books of the Dune series more than 7-times each, I find God Emperor to be a gifted presentation set within the perspective of a truly unique point-of-view. As with the entire Dune series, Herbert forces us to focus within ourselves to answer the deeper questions and issues raised so masterfully in his book. The relationship and dialogues between the God Emperor Leto, and Moneo, his Majordomo has to be some of the most insightful, honest theater in Si-Fi history. From the silent obeyance of the massive Nayla, or the fostered rebellious attitudes of Siona, the shimmering 'Golden Path' that will finally and forever perpetuate humankind in the Universe has been set into place personally by Paul Atreides' son Leto. With Leto's selfless sacrifice of an unimaginable 3,500-years, his metamorphosis of worm and man; man and God, legend and religion with his logical-brilliance of the all-female "Women of the Imperial Guard", the Fish Speaker Army that holds an iron-grip on the human universe- Herbert creates the single most enjoyable, readable, profound, and meaningful book in his timeless collection. This book also ties the Paul Atreides side of the Dune series to the Bene Gesserit-led books in a singular, keystone fashion. The development of the Ixians, and the Tleilaxu; the downgrading of the Guild, and the Bene Gesserit and the extermination of CHOAM and the Great Houses add a great deal to both the overall and continuing plot lines of the Dune series. More so than the rest of the series, this book forces a closer examination of religious, social and interpersonal beliefs, and in a truly long-term thinking frame. This book also stands unique among the Dune-sequels as being the only one that can be easily read, understood and enjoyed without having read the other books. It would be interesting to have originally read this book first, then Dune second. I will never bore of Leto's character or his integrity. Please read this book, and when you finish it, read it again. -Scott Craig "Religious institutions perpetuate a mortal master-servant relationship, they create an arena which attracts the prideful human power-seekers with all of their nearsighted prejudices! Ultimately, we must realize that we are all servants unto God, not servants unto servants." -Frank Herbert 1981
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but confusing
Review: This book is better than Children Of Dune, and yet still lacks a highly dynamic plot. In fact, the whole thing is set within the space of a few days, detailing the life of Leto II (technically Leto III - but only Siona seems bothered about that) 3,500 years after the events described in the first Dune trilogy.Leto II has become a human-sandworm creature, ruling over his angry and frustrated empire with his vast legions of Fish Speaker soldiers, enforcing peace for dozens of generations to teach the universe a lesson, while also waiting for the right time to turn Dune back into a desert planet. While it is obvious allthroughout that Leto has a deep, vision-motivated reason behind his lesson to humanity, the actual reasoning only became even slightly apparent at the end. And some of the talk of politics made whole chapters almost unitelligible to me. And yet, again, Herbert's strong talent meant that this book never became a punishing read. The tale contains enough action to keep your heart beating, and once more this book has an ending that is heart-stoppingly shocking, but at the same time brilliant. This is a great transition from the old Dune that we knew into the knew trilogy, but in my opinion the rest of the second trilogy is better. Read on.
Rating:
Summary: BEST OF ALL DUNE BOOKS
Review: God Emperor of DUNE is by far the best of all the DUNE books. The Plot, the character development and the sheer scope of Herbert's imagination. I found myself hating Leto all through the book until the end when he finally explains everything. At that point I understood why he did the things he did. All other DUNE books fails to compare.
Rating: 
Summary: Review of UNABRIDGED audio book version
Review: STORY: Leto II, the son of Dune's savior, is still alive but far from human. He has become a human-sandworm creature, ruling over his angry and frustrated empire with his vast legions of Fish Speaker soldiers, enforcing peace for dozens of generations to teach the universe a lesson, while also waiting for the right time to turn Dune back into a desert planet. The fate of all humanity hangs on Leto's awesome sacrifice. MY FEEDBACK:
1) SETTING: Like its predecessors, this book thrives within the vivid, living Dune universe. 3,000 or more years have passed since Leto's reign and Herbert is attentive to some technology now obsolete, advances in new technology, and how some things in the universe remain consistent. The setting is not on par with the first Dune book but just as functional and enjoyable as Children of Dune. 2) CHARACTERS: After three thousand or more years we are graced with a new set of characters. Some of which are part of Leto's own breeding program. Like Children of Dune there is a large cast and many secret alliances. The main characters are functional and borderline stereotypical to the Dune universe. Feeling a little tired of things by book four. 3) STORY: I honestly could not finish this book for the following reasons:
a) Seemed like one scene after the next was some sort of ecological or sociological commentary. Granted each topic is touched on very briefly and efficiently, unlike Robert Heinlein who goes on for pages and pages on one topic, unwilling to get off his soapbox. It almost seemed like Herbert had too many things he wanted to comment on and tried to cram it all into one volume.
b) As mentioned, the characters are starting to seem like cardboard by the 4th book. Their motivations and their decisions made it hard to distinguish one character from the next.
c) A large amount of exposition that overshadowed any dialogue, action or personal relationships.
d) The original trilogy stands on its own and Herbert made it feel like he was trying to force a whole new story where one didn't exist or need to exist. The writing didn't seem to flow quite as nice as the earlier works. 4) CONTENT:
a) The story like his others is what I would rate as PG. Mild violence and very little if any language and/or sexual situations.
b) Also, the reader of the audio book, Connor O'Brien, does a wonderful job of giving different voices to different characters and acting them out in a believable manner. OVERALL: The original three books will always stay in my mind as a fantastic story and that is where the story stops for me. You could take this story or leave it...I chose to leave it and I don't regret the decision not to finish this book or the rest of the series.
Rating: 
Summary: Suffocating Under the Weight of Pretension
Review: This work tries to pass off muddle for sophistication. Like the academic who uses big words to intimidate the unwashed masses, Herbert cannot resist indulging in obscurity, in the hope that deficient thought and calculated confusion will be taken for deep philosophizing. This is dishonest and insulting to our intelligence. Worse, it makes for a lousy read. This is not to say that one shouldn't have to sweat to grasp difficult or elusive concepts. Philosophers through the ages have expanded our minds by requiring us to think hard to understand complexity. But complexity is not obscurity. Mental effort should be called upon to reach a higher understanding, not to penetrate opaque muck that a writer exploits simply to appear clever. The main theme that Herbert tries to explore is actually relatively simple: Life can only have meaning if contrasted with death and can only have value if we fear its loss. Therefore, to live fully, we cannot live securely. This is life's big and seeming contradiction; that although we hanker for the comfort of safety and order, such things lead not to vitality, but to stagnation and extinction. The rest of the book is about a benevolent dictator's attempt to revitalize humanity by introducing a measured dose of disorder into the universe. Various interests oppose him because they believe that he is either evil or wrong. Stated this plainly, we have the germ of an interesting and successful story. But Herbert lades this theme with so much convoluted symbolism and metaphorical baggage that it suffocates under the weight of its own pretension. As readers, we must wade through a swamp of contrived bombast and Zen-like gobbledegook to arrive at an understanding that could have been better conveyed if the writer had simply phrased it cleanly. Other writers also obscure their themes for ulterior purposes. They may wish to create dramatic tension, or to pique our curiosity. Some few do so because they genuinely believe that such an exercise brings out hidden textures within their themes that a straightforward exposition will not uncover. But such artifice must never be overused or the reader will feel manipulated. In this sequel, we feel not only manipulated, but positively browbeaten. Herbert's theme has been done before and done better by others. For an exquisite example of how such a theme can be explored both honestly and gracefully, try Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy. Here, Herbert tries to be so tangential, so mystical and so clever, that he misses the target entirely. No sequel of Herbert's ever came close to the brilliance of Dune. Readers should bypass all of them and stick to the original. Allow the unanswered questions of that masterpiece to stand on their own and the quality of your own imaginations to supply the answers. The result will be far superior to the contrived, pretentious and meandering bombast contained in the sequels.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Of all the Dune books so far, this one reads the slowest. You can easily skim past paragraphs and not miss much except for descriptions gone on too long and philosophical babble, especially the blurbs written as Leto's journals at the beginning of each chapter. There's nothing wrong with intelligent or detailed writing, but often it goes to unnecessary lengths and hinders the story instead of progressing the plot. It would have been better if Herbert just stayed devoted to writing a good story instead of slowing it down with all these extras. There are some good parts to the story, and the ending is interesting. The characters of Siona and Hwi seem a bit empty but had such potential, and I wish there had been more exploration into Moneo. Most of all, I was disappointed to find the pace of the first three books was missing in this one, along with a fascinating set of characters. I'll have to agree with other reviewers who say that none of the sequels appear to come close to being anywhere as good as Dune.
Rating:
Summary: The Joys and Pains of Leto II
Review: I personally think Herbert could have ended his series here, as he manages to accomplish, with Leto Atreides II, all of the things he didn't manage with Paul. I'm going to reveal a ton of plot here, so bear with me. [Reading a review about what happens and reading the book are two different experiences, anyway, so you won't lose anything by reading what I type here.] At the end of Children of Dune, Paul's son Leto II had merged with the "sandtrout" (larval form of the Dune sandworms) to become a super-human monster who was very close to invincible. It is speculated at the end of that book that he could live for 4,000 years. As God Emperor of Dune opens, it is 3,508 years after the events of Children, and Leto's sandtrout have transformed him into a human-sandworm hybrid, the only such animal in existence. Arrakis is now totally terraformed, and Leto has a tyrant's grip on the empire's dwindling supplies of the spice, melange. Leto is a more powerful telepath than his father, and has the memories of all his ancestors--male and female--upon which to draw. He has become sensitive to moisture, and mostly lives in a citadel near the desert portion of Arrakis. Around him, the Bene Gesserit, the technologists of Ix, and the genetic manipulators of Bene Tleilax continue to weave their schemes in an effort to find his "secret stash" of spice. The God Emperor has transformed society on an unprecedented level. Every world reflects the same pattern of life, and has been frozen by a ban on space travel. Only Leto's "Fish Speakers," an army composed entirely of women, are allowed free travel, and they perform the roles of conquerers and "civilizers." The clever part of forcing humanity into this pattern (which I didn't catch until I had read the book later) is that all of humanity gets to experience what age after age of peace is like. That was a big part of Herbert's story, after all: to show what life would be like for a person dependent upon prescience. And the verdict of that life is boredom. Thrown into this mixture, of course, is a rebel Atreides, Siona, and the continually-reborn Duncan Idaho. They are considered crucial to Leto's breeding program for humanity. There is also a new, female ambassador from Ix, who allows Leto to recall his human side. All in all, there's a lot happening here, but Herbert manages to tell his story briskly. The usual quotes at the beginning of each chapter are usually excerpts from Leto's Journal, and provide (as usual) interesting comments about society and politics. I really enjoyed this book. To get a better, simpler look at Frank Herbert's universe, this serves as a triumphant example.
Rating:
Summary: This is a fine piece of literature
Review: Everyone should have a chance to read the dune books. Sci-fi fan or not it coalesce's religion,ecology,politics,philosophy and even moral guidelines into one long stretch of epic fiction. Anyone with a chance to read this or any of the other books should well do so.
Rating:
Summary: WOW
Review: This is quite possibly my favorite book of all time. I have never read a book with a larger scope. The series encompasses thousands of years and thousands of light years and this book makes up the largest part of the story. With such a grand scope it would be easy to become lax in detail, but that isn't the case at all. The only way this book could be better is if it were written to be a stand-alone novel, but that would cheapen the series.
Rating:
Summary: One of the pinnacles of human creativity!
Review: This is the fourth of the magnificent dune chronicles.It is amazing that the first three were masterpieces ,but this borders on something even greater,a book of nearly divine wisdom and beauty.No human has created a better work of art in recorded history (save the sistine chapel).This book encompasses all that is important in life ,and shows it to you through the vastly visionary eye,of Leto atredies ,the God of the universe.
This book will give you sympathy for the roll of God,which we so often despise for petty reasons,not even realising the lonliness and sacrifice required ,to be the ruler of all existence.
Should be required reading in all highschools and colleges,along with the other 5 books.
If frank herbert was not divinely inspired,then he is the greatest single writer,in the history of the world.
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