Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Dune Messiah is the second novel of Frank's excellent Dune series. A superb novel! It takes place some years after Paul has conquered the Empire though his Jihad. The Bene Gesserit, Bene Xalact, the Guild and the former Emperor Shalam plot to retake the throne. The plot is mostly dialog, which would make for an excellent movie. If HBO ever did a show based on Dune it would be bad ass!

Spoiler Alert!

The ending has absolutely no closure and left me longing and shocked. Which I absolutely thought was brilliant! So this is my gist of it, the golum, Dunkan Idaho, was programmed to kill Paul. This was a plot but not the main one. In the attempt to resist his programming, the golum would actually become Idaho, at which point, Paul would totally be mesmerized and see it as a way to resurrect his lover and wife, Chani. Paul having prescience could see his wife die due to complications of childbirth and order a golum of his wife. Then at some future time, the wife golum, would kill Paul and probably his children as well. Thus restoring the throne back to the former emperor. All the while, Dune being transformed from a desert planet to a green thriving world, which this will cause many problems later.

As a side note, It is interesting and ironic that the whole Fremen religion of restoring Dune to a paradise would actually lead to their demise. Apparently, the planetologist Kynes saw this but still worked the Fremen folklore to unite the Fremen.

Back to the task at hand, You see this gave Paul some very serious hard choices. First off, I guess Paul could not kill the golum because I take it, the golum would actually become Duncan Idaho, Paul's most dear friend and his sister's lover. In order to retain the empire through his children though, Paul had to allow his wife to die, if he saved her from her death, which was childbirth, then the children wouldn't be born. I guess a c-section was against the Fremen religion. If he did that he would lose the empire by Fremen revolt. If he chose to resurrect her by ordering a golum be made, then she would have been programmed to assassinate him and probably his children.

So, Paul was forced to allow his lover and wife Chani to die, so that he would have an heir and a safe heir at that through time. Paul at this time, who was bereft everything, and who had lost his eyes in an assassination attempt earlier in the book, decided to honor the Fremen treatment of the blind by being led out into the desert to 'die'. One hell of an ending! One hell of a book! If you feel I have missed interpreted the ending feel free to add your input.