Originally serialized in the science fiction magazine Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Children of Dune (1976) is the third book in Frank Herbert’s classic series, The Dune Chronicles. The novel begins nine years after the abdication and self-exile of Paul Atreides, the former emperor and messiah known as Muad’Dib. His sister, Alia, rules as regent of the Imperium. Alia struggles to maintain her power in an arena rife with political intrigue while battling Abomination, an internal enemy in her psyche that threatens to possess and corrupt her. Paul’s twin offspring, Leto II and Ghanima, are also at risk of Abomination and use their extraordinary powers of prescience and ancestral memories to outmaneuver their adversaries, who seek to exploit their vital genetic material or eliminate them altogether. As the twins fight for survival, they must confront the problematic foundations of their family’s empire and decide whether their future will break from the past or reiterate the pitfalls of their family’s regime. The novel delves into the themes of The Ecological Consequences of Human Intervention, Political and Religious Corruption, and The Trappings of the Past and Prescience.

Children of Dune is considered one of the first science fiction novels to become a national bestseller, with its hardcover edition selling over 100,000 copies in the first months of publication and its paperback edition selling nearly 2 million copies in the first six months. In 2003, the Sci-Fi Channel adapted the novels Dune Messiah and Children of Dune into the successful miniseries, Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune. Other works by Herbert include God Emperor of Dune and Heretics of Dune.

This guide refers to the 2008 Ace/Penguin Random House Kindle edition.

Plot Summary

In the nine years since Paul Muad’Dib abdicated the throne and disappeared as a blind man into the desert, his sister Alia Atreides has ruled in his place as regent of the galactic Imperium. Paul’s nine-year-old twin children, Leto II and Ghanima, are under Alia’s custody and the guardianship of the loyal Fremen, Stilgar, a leader of the native desert people of Arrakis. The planet, once known as Dune, is being rapidly terraformed from a desert into a verdant habitat. The altered landscape purports to bring water and progress to the planet, but it has also changed the culture of its Fremen inhabitants and endangered the lives of the giant sandworms, the makers of the planet’s most prized commodity, spice.

Unlike Paul, who rejected his deification, Alia perpetuates the fanatic religion of Muad’Dib to legitimize her rule and condones her own cult following. Even more alarming is the encroaching threat of Abomination, a vulnerability that only Alia, Leto, and Ghanima are subject to due to their condition as “pre-borns.” While in the womb, they were exposed to the spice trance. The ritual endowed them with ancestral ego-memories before they were able to develop their own independent psyches, putting them at risk of having their ancestral personas possess them.

Jessica Atreides, the twins’ grandmother, visits Arrakis from her home planet of Caladan to investigate whether her daughter and grandchildren have become Abominations. The twins warn Jessica that Alia exhibits troubling signs, and Jessica quickly confirms that Alia is possessed. Alia resents Jessica for abandoning her to rule the Imperium alone. She fears that Jessica has returned to Arrakis to depose her and take control over the twins and their vital genetic material on behalf of the Bene Gesserit, a clandestine sisterhood with political influence. In addition to Jessica’s suspicious return, the Atreides twins face two other threats: Princess Wensicia of House Corrino has devised a plan to assassinate the Atreides twins and put her son, Farad’n, on the throne, and a mysterious figure known as The Preacher has been blaspheming the religion of Muad’Dib in the city’s plaza. The old man is blind like Paul, sparking rumors that he may in fact be Muad’Dib himself.

Leto and Ghanima summon the ego-memories of their parents to seek counsel. The twins foresee the assassination attempt on their lives, the Bene Gesserit’s plan to have the siblings breed, and Alia’s plan to murder Jessica. They strategize on how to outmaneuver their adversaries and agree to follow the Golden Path, a precarious and obscure vision that may prevent them from falling into Abomination and potentially save humanity from future extinction. Anticipating their assassination, Leto and Ghanima lure the Laza tigers sent to kill them into a chasm and kill the animals. Ghanima hypnotizes herself into believing that Leto has truly died, and only the utterance of secret words that Leto knows can break her trance. Ghanima reports her brother’s death, allowing Leto to secretly travel to the mythic dwelling of Jacarutu in search of The Preacher, who may be his father.

Meanwhile, Alia succumbs to ancestral possession by the Atreideses’ arch enemy, the Baron Vladmir Harkonnen, whom only a few know was Alia’s maternal grandfather. Under his influence, Alia attempts to assassinate Jessica, who escapes with the help of the Fremen and Alia’s husband, Duncan Idaho. Duncan is a ghola, a replicant of the original Idaho who served House Atreides and died saving Paul’s and Jessica’s lives. Ever faithful to the Atreides family, Duncan no longer views Alia as an Atreides and secretly follows the orders of The Preacher. He brings Jessica to the planet Salusa Secundis, where she finds sanctuary with Farad’n Corrino. Farad’n is a learned young man who admires the Atreideses and has no aspirations for the throne. He denounces his mother for the assassination of Leto in exchange for Jessica’s training in the Bene Gesserit arts.

Alia coerces Ghanima into agreeing to marry Farad’n under the guise of uniting the two competing Houses. Alia knows that her niece intends to murder her groom to avenge Leto’s death and expects the scandal will eliminate the last two people who threaten her position on the throne. A civil war breaks out between the Fremen of the desert and the Fremen of the Imperium. Alia sends Ghanima to Sietch Tabr, her Fremen home and a neutral territory, to keep her under Stilgar’s watch and away from harm until the betrothal ceremony. Duncan arrives in Tabr to warn Stilgar of Alia’s treachery, but Stilgar is reluctant to cast suspicions. Duncan goads Stilgar into killing him. Now a wanted fugitive for killing Alia’s husband, Stilgar must take Ghanima and flee into the desert. Alia’s forces capture and imprison them, and Alia agrees to spare Stilgar’s life in exchange for Ghanima’s resumption of the betrothal and conspiracy to murder Farad’n.

Leto is captured by smugglers. Under Jessica’s order, they are to induce the spice trance in the young child and test him for Abomination. Gurney Halleck, former Warmaster for House Atreides, oversees the test, not knowing that one of Alia’s spies has been planted among the smugglers to kill Leto, whether he succumbs to Abomination or not. Leto survives the spice trance and awakens the full force of his ancestral memories and prescient abilities, becoming a Kwisatz Haderach like his father. Leto achieves a heightened awareness of his human and non-human pasts and the molecular memories of the earliest protozoan organisms. He escapes into the desert to fulfill the Golden Path, a course that requires him to undergo the harrowing process of merging his body with sandtrout, the larval stage of the giant sandworms. Leto uses his molecular memories to alter the enzymes in his body and becomes a powerful hybrid of man and worm. He encounters The Preacher in the desert and confirms that the man is his father, Paul. Paul had also seen the Golden Path in his visions but could not go through with the transformation. Leto claims that he has chosen this path and sacrificed his humanity to prevent a future where humans become extinct. In his new body, he plans to rule for 4,000 years and condition humans to acquire new survival instincts. He convinces his father to return to the capital city of Arrakeen with him and confront Alia.

Farad’n and Jessica arrive in Arrakeen for the betrothal ceremony and visit Alia’s chambers to observe The Preacher’s sermon from her balcony. In the city plaza, The Preacher publicly condemns Alia of blasphemy, and one of her priest guards kills him. The death of Muad’Dib stirs the crowds, and Alia’s guards quickly lock the doors to her chambers. Leto breaks down the massive doors and enters with Ghanima. He invokes the words that awaken her from her self-hypnosis, and the twins proceed with their plans. Leto battles Alia, who cries out in a mixture of desperate pleas for her mother’s help and a chorus of ancestral voices vying to control her mind. Defying the Baron’s commands in her head to stop, Alia jumps out her balcony window to her death.

Leto assumes the throne in his new skin as God Emperor. He rules following the pharaonic model and marries his sister Ghanima. He takes over the Bene Gesserit breeding program, and then he instructs Farad’n to live as Ghanima’s consort to secretly father her children and thus continue the Atreides line. Leto explains the final stages of the Golden Path: The sandworms will become extinct in 200 years, granting him full control over the remaining stockpiles of spice. For 4,000 years, he will reign as a tyrant with the intentions of conditioning humanity to resist absolute rule and survive an apocalyptic war at the end of the universe. After his rule, he will metamorphose into a giant sandworm and dive into the sand, ushering in a new era of human survival and the return of the worms.