The God Emperor and antihero of this novel (and its predecessor, Children of Dune), Leto II is born over 3,000 years ago to Paul Muad'Dib Atreides and his Fremen consort Chani. All Atreides back to the ancient Greek House of Atreus reside in Leto's memory. Leto is a sandworm/human symbiote, having taken the fateful step that his father could not take, and has been tyrannically organizing and homogenizing humans to conform to a "Golden Path" that alone can prevent human extinction. Like Paul, Leto uses prescience to peer through the "veils of time."
Leto II begins a journal in the first year of his "stewardship," while still undergoing metamorphosis, feeling new strength, and losing vulnerability. Three millennia later, all he retains of humanity is his face, as sandtrout skin covers the rest of.....
