God Emperor of Dune by Frank Herbert. (1981) "I know the evil of my ancestors because I am those people." Leto II, from the Stolen Journals.

Three and a half millennia have passed since Leto II first donned the sandtrout as a makeshift stillsuit. During that time, he has ruled the Empire as it's sole authority. The Landsraad, like the noble houses of Europe, have watched their real power fade until all they are left with are scraps and titles. The Bene Gesseritt and the Spacing Guild still exist, held in firm control by Leto's absolute monopoly on the Spice, Melange. The Bene Tleilaxu is also curtailed, perhaps more by the Fish Speaker Army, women fanatically devoted to their God Emperor.

This despotic stranglehold has forced the entire universe into a long slow stagnation. The blood and fire of the Jihad has been extinguished. But the changes to Leto II are the most extreme. The sandtrout are the larval stage of the giant Sandworms of Dune, Shai Halud. They surround water, poisonous to their parents, and isolate it. A human body is mostly water. But over the millennia the sandtrout have penetrated and merged with Leto, changing him. He is becoming a miniature worm, with a human face and arms, but his legs have atrophied, and he moves as a worm, gigantic and monstrous. Further, his brain has merged with the worm system, expanding throughout his body in hundreds of nodules. He produces his own Melange, and thus is awash in the mind expanding drugs. His vision is dominated by The Golden Path; the prophecy that events will converge to produce a human whose actions can not be seen by precognition. If this event comes to pass, then humanity will be free of the tyranny of people like him who can see the future, and thereby, lock it into a specific shape.

The other characters living in his very long shadow are the ubiquitous ghola of Duncan Idaho, Moneo Atreides, his major domo, and descendant of his twin sister, Ghanima, and Moneo's daughter, Siona.

Siona resents the stagnation the God Emperor has imposed upon the universe, and is working to foil it. Her body guard, Nayla is a spy for Leto II, ordered to obey Siona in all things. It is hard to keep a plot from a precog, but relatively simple to succeed when that is what he wants. Leto II is provided a distraction in the form of Hwi Noree, an Ixian ambassador, and a trap. She was cloned inside a no-globe, and therefore can not be seen by precognition. Leto and Duncan both fall in love with her. She loves the God Emperor. And though there can be no relationship between them, he takes her as his wife. And these events, the pain and anguish, cause those around him to betray him, and thus destroy him, and in so doing, set humanity firmly on the Golden Path.

This novel is one of the most intriguing of the Dune novels. It quotes Leto extensively. This is partly due to the fact that the first draft was written in first person from his point of view.

Ultimately, it is about sacrifice. Maud'Dib was a prophet, like unto Mohammed or Moses. He led his people to a new way of life, but he shunned the role he saw would ultimately have to be filled. Leto II, with the longer view of having full ancestral memory in the womb, took up the mantle of Messiah that his father ultimately refused. When he stuck his hand into the sand, and let the first sandtrout cover it, it is analogous to the first nail upon Jesus' wrist.

Leto II knew that for humanity to survive itself, it had to scatter its newly revitalized seed, rejuvenated in the Jihad, far beyond the reach of central control. His oppression gave humanity the motivation. Then, he knew he had to break the grip of prophecy, because the future, once seen, is set, and carries a terrible inertia. Thus Leto set about creating his own "Kwisatz Hadarach", one invisible to prophecy.

And last, he had to ensure the continuation of the Worms, beyond even Arrakis. As the terraforming turns Dune into a paradise, Shai Halud is marginalized. Yet they live on in the thousands of sand trout that make up his monstrous body. And he did, though it meant becoming a monster, and inflicting himself on a universe he loved.

The Dune books are very philosophical, but few are as rife with obvious religious parallels as God Emperor of Dune. The specialization of the sequels has come to a head, and the book hits with the force of a meteor strike, allowing change free reign once more. The book is brilliantly written, far more epistolary than any of the others, but it does not stand well upon its own, so much of the concepts being drawn from what has gone before. All that aside, it is brilliant and thought provoking, and would be on my "Required Reading" list. I highly recommend it.