Word: leto
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Leto is still in control, his life extended by a geriatric drug whose supply he has cornered. Throughout the centuries, Leto has been slowly and deliberately metamorphosing into the gigantic sandworm that the planet's original inhabitants worshiped as their god. Furthermore, Leto's private drug stock has given him the racial memories of all his ancestors and the ability to see the future. His utterances are gnomic and awesome: "Oh, the landscapes I have seen! And the people! The far wanderings of the Fremen and all the rest of it... You must remember that I have...
With such power, it is not surprising that Leto plays the eternally dangerous game: manipulating his own race and those of his enemies to assure both the emergence of a successor and the survival of the species...
...uncritical faith in technology. The book also harbors a cynical view of politics. Some musings from the worm who would be god: "Scratch a conservative and you find someone who prefers the past over any future. Scratch a liberal and find a closet aristocrat." Some of Leto's decrees are variations on the Old Testament. Dune's religion, for example, outlaws computers as graven im ages of the mind. Throughout, his observations toll a somber truth: "Government is a shared myth. When the myth dies, the government dies...
...style, God Emperor does not sidestep moral complexity and ethical dilemma. Herbert understands that humanity needs myths and heroes to embody them. But he also knows the danger posed by those who claim to be the sole carriers and interpreters of those myths. Dune folk who subscribe unquestioningly to Leto's self-proclaimed godhood are shown as virtual automata, doomed to perish with him or to be lost without him. In Herbert's dry and gritty world, the future belongs only to those who think for themselves...