god emperor is more tonally inconsistent than I expected, which makes the audiobook an even wilder experience. I was not prepared for the level of insta-lust so many female characters had for duncan idaho, like frank, this is a wendy’s.

outdated sexual identity politics aside, herbert clearly had a lot of sympathy for leto ii’s journey following children of dune as leto takes on the role as the tyrant to end all tyrants while giving up his own humanity to save all of humanity in the process. I just wish frank herbert wasn’t so rambley about it. a more insistent editor could have helped him gotten the point across in half the length, but unfortunately what’s left is a lot of pontificating between interesting plot beats that makes this a little underwhelming for me.