>>6501030> continuedAnyway. God Emperor takes place thousands of years after the events in the first three books. I've forgotten the exact years involved; it's explained in enough detail in the book it doesn't matter.
God Emperor is interesting in that it is told both from first-person perspective of characters in it, but also through the eyes of archeologists recovering records of the time some thousands of years after the events in God Emperor.
In my mind, this story is also "stand-alone," but only if you know what happened in the original three books. It's hard to read God Emperor only and really grasp most of its essential story.
And, per the discussion back and forth above, it isn't the most exciting of the books ion the series. It's easy to not like or enjoy it much, but I found it wonderful in that it acted as a key historical document, upon which was pinned the conclusion.
It's also necessary to keep in mind that Frank Herbert wrote God Emperor more than a decade after publishing the original three. His style and his evolution & take on his own themes are not the same due to the time involved, and other books he wrote/other projects he was involved with in his life.
And "the conclusion" are the last two books, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune. Again, these two (large!) books are really a single huge book split into two.
To me, even with serious changes in his styles and themes, these books capture again the wonderful excitement and cerebral engagement of the original books (and some of the others I recommended). They are a worthy legacy, since Frank Herbert was taken from us at a very young age. He was only about 52 or so when he died. Just criminal considering what a monumental and creative intellect he was.
There is no justice in this world. Frank Herbert should have lived to be 80 and written out all these other Dune books himself. Instead we are left with his son, Brian. His work is not really worthy, unfortunately.
