Heretics of Dune

An essential reference in Heretics of Dune is an understanding of who Leto II is and the concept of the Golden Path. Leto is the son of the Fremen Chani Kynes and Paul Atreides, the hero who rises and falls in the first three novels. Like his father, Leto possesses extraordinary skills of prescience and ancestral memories. However, Leto does what his father couldn’t do: set in motion the Golden Path he sees in his visions. The Golden Path is a millennia-long course of genetic breeding and social conditioning to create a resilient humanity that can survive the battle at the end of the universe. Heretics of Dune, which takes place 1,500 years after Leto’s death, is the first inkling into whether the Golden Path worked. 

The Golden Path required two necessary outcomes that Heretics of Dune frequently references: the Siona gene and the Scattering. To fight human extinction, Leto devised a breeding program to produce a gene that would prevent predatory prescient forces from detecting humans. Siona Atreides is the first person to have this trait, and by Heretics of Dune, many people carry the Siona gene. The Scattering is the necessary exodus after Leto’s death to spread humans across the universe, making them difficult to find and allowing the Siona gene to reach diverse populations. To propel humans to explore the far reaches of the universe, Leto ruled with tyranny and stagnation to instill the desire for freedom and exploration in the human condition. A period of destitution called the Famine Times followed Leto’s death, followed by the Scattering. At the start of Heretics of Dune, populations from the Scattering are returning to the Old Imperium for the first time. Little is known about what changes and developments have occurred in those 1,500 years in Scattering space. 

The fourth novel, God Emperor of Dune, focuses entirely on Leto II and his rationale for becoming a monstrous man-worm hybrid and ruling as a tyrant for over 3,500 years. For Siona Atreides, Leto’s ends don’t justify the means. His cruelty and the suffering he inflicts are inexcusable. For Hwi Noree, Leto’s bride, Leto is a noble ruler who made the ultimate sacrifice of giving up his humanity to become a symbiote and save all of humankind. Darwi Odrade’s “heretical” questioning of Bene Gesserit’s manipulations and whether survival alone is a worthy cause mirror Leto II’s moral ambiguity. 

In the introduction to Heretics of Dune, Brian Herbert, the son of author Frank Herbert, explained that the first three books in the series were considered a trilogy, and his father had planned to write a second trilogy after the fourth novel. Herbert completed Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985) before he died in 1986. Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson would later write Hunters of Dune (2007) and Sandriders of Dune (2007) based on Herbert’s notes to complete the saga. 

Although Heretics of Dune introduces a new cast of characters, except for the Duncan Idaho ghola, many of the protagonists in the novel are echoes of the figures in the previous novels. Most notable are the two main protagonists, Darwi Odrade and Miles Teg, who are direct descendants of the Atreides. Both characters embody the strengths of love and loyalty that have typified the ideals of House Atreides. Themes from the previous novels, such as the machinations of political and religious rivalry and a reverence for nature and the environment are also evident in Heretics of Dune. Spice and sandworms are no longer the central commodities in this universe. Instead, Herbert introduces sex and biotechnology as comparable prized “weapons” to amass power and extinguish enemies. This brings forth new depictions of female sexuality and gender dynamics throughout the novel, allowing an increased ability to interpret various plot points from a feminist perspective.

The events in Heretics of Dune are immediately followed by Herbert’s sixth and last novel before his death, Chapterhouse: Dune. In Chapterhouse, Odrade continues her efforts to save the Bene Gesserit from the Honored Matres’ path of destruction.