Frank Herbert burned with anger about ecology, religion and politics. He was furious at the publishing world for rejecting past stories he thought were good. And he had this troubling feeling that his agent was defending the publishing world too much, when he should have been fighting it for his client.
This impression my father had, as incorrect as it may have been, was blocking him creatively. It was late 1961, and he desperately wanted to begin the new novel. He’d written passages and thrown most of them out. A reason emerged: He couldn’t stand the thought of sending any more stories into a New York system that didn’t respect his efforts. In his troubled mind, Lurton seemed to represent that system.
On Dad’s forty-first birthday, he released Lurton as his agent, attempting to do it as affably as possible. He asked Lurton to continue to handle royalties and future contracts on any works already in the agent’s hands. But for anything written in the future they had no relationship. Lurton did not argue. He bowed out gracefully, wishing his friend every success. Lurton had no idea what Dad wanted to work on, the desert novel.
Afterward, his mind feeling more clear and relieved, Dad wrote a seventeen-syllable poem in the Japanese haiku style, a short poem that spoke to the essence of his new book. That afternoon he expanded the poem into prose, eventually setting the poem aside.
The haiku was selected for a number of reasons. First it was a mood setter, a sparse Zen statement about the direction he wanted to take with the story. Haikus frequently concerned subjects of nature, and this book was to have at its core a strong ecological theme. Subsequently he used other haiku poems for particular sections, or tonkas, or Western forms of poetry, most of which he expanded into prose. In this manner, he was able to create beautiful descriptive passages.
He considered setting the story on Mars but soon discarded this notion. Readers would have too many preconceived ideas about that planet, due to the number of stories that had been written about it. Frank Herbert needed something entirely new, totally of his imagination. He would have to construct a world and ecosystem on paper, set in a distant solar system.
One winter evening, I heard him read my mother a passage about a young man named Paul Atreides who was forced to place his hand into the blackness of a box while an old woman, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, held a poison needle at his neck, the gom jabbar. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, this was the opening chapter of Dune.
Paul’s hand would feel intense pain, the wrinkled crone told him, but if he withdrew it from the box she would kill him with the poison needle. I was transfixed by the drama of the scene and by the strange words…gom jabbar, Muad’Dib, the Padishah Emperor, Kwisatz Haderach, Arrakis, Bene Gesserit, jihad, kull wahad…the throaty, mysterious resonance of words and names as they rolled off Dad’s tongue, in his powerful voice. I was intrigued by the sounds. And by the way the Reverend Mother used “the Voice” on Paul to control him, similar to methods my father often employed against me.
“The language is beautiful,” Mom said, after listening to the chapter. Frequently over the years she spoke of the poetry of his writing, and rarely made suggestions for improvement in that area. Her comments primarily concerned plot when she thought he was getting too convoluted, and characterization, particularly the motivational aspects of female characters.
I heard Dad speak passages aloud in his study as he wrote them, before presenting them to my mother. He understood the psychology of human society, the way stories had been told orally for centuries before anything was ever written down. The way troubadours and jongleurs traveled from castle to castle, telling tales and singing songs. He believed readers subconsciously heard the written text through their ears, receiving them as oral transmissions. As a consequence, he labored long hours to obtain just the right word selection and rhythm. The best writing, he believed, touched the subconscious.
He enjoyed relating his stories to my mother, a process that recalled times as a boy spent around scouting campfires when he captivated the attention of scouts and scoutmasters alike. It brought back as well darkened bedrooms Frank Herbert shared with his cousins, in which they hung on his every word. Mom enjoyed hearing his tales. She was an excellent listener, as she had been in her childhood when her Scottish father told her clever mystery stories about caves and secret panels.
Chapter 14
The Worlds of Dune
THE CREATION of a masterpiece like Dune was, for an author, the literary equivalent of a baseball player hitting the ball on the “sweet spot” of the bat and crunching one of the greatest, most memorable home runs ever hit. It not only soared out of the park, it kept going, and fans never tired of talking about it.
Dune ascended beyond the realm of science fiction, and has been called one of the greatest novels written by any author, and arguably the greatest novel of imagination ever conceived. It was a rare moment in literary history, the creation of a work that would be translated into dozens of languages and would sell tens of millions of copies.
It has been widely rumored that Dune was rejected by more than twenty publishers before one accepted it. This is not quite true, or at least it is not the whole story. Actually, it was accepted for one form of publication almost immediately.
Dad finished the first novel of an expected trilogy early in 1963, and named it Dune World, a segment of approximately eighty-five thousand words. After years of painstaking research, he produced a remarkable science fiction setting—an entire planet that had once been green and fertile but was now covered with sand. This was an obvious extrapolation of conditions on Earth, where sand dunes, if left unchecked, were encroaching upon arable land—inexorably marching over large surfaces of the planet, laying good soil to waste.
Many of my father’s stories placed characters in difficult, challenging situations. The planet Dune, with its vast deserts, lack of water, and giant, dangerous worms, was the most challenging of all. In this harsh, unforgiving environment, special efforts and equipment were required to survive. Inhabitants wore stillsuits to recycle bodily fluids and dew precipitators on the desert set up to save every drop of moisture. Water was more precious there than gold—a basic truth of all life as well. The human body was, by weight and volume, predominantly water. And after all, he asked, what was life without water? He had a special perspective on the importance of the substance, from time spent in the outdoors and the safety precautions necessary in such environments.
Dune World set the stage for a drama that concerned, in large part, problems inherent with finite resources. In The Dragon in the Sea the finite resource was oil. In Dune World it was water and, of even more importance on a galactic scale, a precious natural commodity that was produced only on the planet Dune: the drug melange. In both novels, Frank Herbert wrote futuristic versions of “hydraulic despotism,” an ancient political structure that originated in the Middle East. In that system, a small number of people exerted enormous influence by controlling water that was in short supply.
A work of stunning power and imagery, Dune World was not his first story with a desert setting. In 1961, while still researching his big novel, the science fiction short story “Try to Remember” was published, about an alien spacecraft that set down in a desert region of eastern Oregon and from there issued an ultimatum to the people of Earth that they must find a way to communicate with the aliens or face destruction of all sentient life on the planet.
He also had the unfinished magazine article based on the government research station at Florence, Oregon—a station set up to control the movement of sand dunes through the planting of special grasses. He had firsthand desert experiences as well. On our second Mexican trip, we stopped in an area of unusual geology, of interest to my father. He walked a short distance out on flint sands and scrambled down a steep embankment into a small arroyo. There he noticed that his footsteps on sand were echoing off the sides of the arroyo. Each step he took produced an eery, reverberating sound, which he theorized was caused by chain reactions in th
e crystalline interfaces of the sand. On the way back, we stopped in the same place, and he could not duplicate the phenomenon.
It became a key element in the science of the planet Dune:
“When the worm has gone, one may try to walk out,” Kynes said. “You must walk softly, avoid drum sands, tidal dust basins—head for the nearest rock zone…”
“Drum sand?” Halleck asked.
“A condition of sand compaction,” Kynes said. “The slightest step sets it drumming. Worms always come to that.”
Dad and Lurton Blassingame reestablished relations, and the agent agreed to handle the exciting new project. Along with Dune World (the first portion of what would ultimately be published in novel form as Dune), Dad completed and sent to Lurton an outline of intended sequel material, with some of the key passages that would go into the uncompleted sections. As in The Dragon in the Sea, where the basic science was psychology, the technology in this novel was essentially “soft,” the science of ecology. These books were aimed at a wider audience than the core group of science fiction readers, who got regular fixes on the hard sciences of math, physics and chemistry.
Lurton submitted the material to legendary science fiction editor John W. Campbell at Analog, the successor to Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell, who had earlier serialized Dragon, made a quick offer on Dune World (which was accepted) of three cents a word for English language rights. The section Analog was publishing would run in three installments, between December 1963 and February 1964. For the second and third installments, Dad wrote synopses of prior events. After deducting Lurton’s 10 percent commission, Dad received $2,295.00 from Analog.*
Having seen from an outline and excerpts where my father intended to go with the rest of his story, Campbell said the powers of Paul Atreides were excessive, and should be reduced. This was not merely a comment on characterization. If Paul’s powers weren’t reduced, Campbell insisted, no one could ever hope to oppose him, and there would be no decent plots for additional books in the series. He recommended a major rewrite.
The author disagreed, and fought for the version he wanted. After a number of lengthy discussions, Campbell agreed to proceed with the story, essentially as written. He and my father reached agreement on a number of minor changes not involving the powers of Paul.
In the summer and early fall of 1963, Dad set to work on completing the balance of the “trilogy.” He considered the rather cryptic title of C Oracle for Book II, but wisely settled upon Muad’Dib instead. Book III was entitled The Prophet. In Books II and III, a major plot problem presented itself. Book I contained a strong environmental message, and initially in Books II and III, Dad wrote extensive passages involving Paul Atreides’ involvement in the ecology of Dune—in which Paul and the Fremen natives of the planet attempted to reverse past damage inflicted upon the environment, restoring it to its former natural beauty. Dad also wrote passages in which the Imperial Planetologist, Liet-Kynes, was more central to the story.
Frank Herbert decided this was too much ado about a subtheme. The ecology of the planet, while important, was better suited as a backdrop for the primary story he wanted to tell, about a mythology-based future hero. He moved much of the ecological message to the epigrams preceding chapters, and to the first appendix of the work. In the process, between the second and final drafts, he cut forty thousand words from Books II and III, enabling him to focus more on political and religious events surrounding Paul Atreides—the mystical Muad’Dib.
Ironically, despite the direction in which the author attempted to point his story, ecology became the most famous and remembered theme of the book. The political and religious themes were often misunderstood by editors and readers. The ecological message was much easier to understand.
In the massive piles of books my father read to research Dune, he learned that ecology was the science of understanding consequences. This was not his original concept, but in the tradition of Ezra Pound he “made it new,” and put it in a form that was palatable to millions of people. With a world view similar to that of an American Indian, Dad saw Western man inflicting himself on the environment, not living in harmony with it.
Doubleday, who published The Dragon in the Sea in book form, had the first option to look at Dune World, Frank Herbert’s second novel. Based upon a difficult-to-read carbon copy, they expressed an initial interest in publishing it in hardcover, saying they might make an offer if it could be cut to seventy-five or eighty thousand words. Dad thought he could accomplish what they wanted. They indicated that the opening seemed too slow, with the philosophical content too high. A couple of months later, they changed their minds and declined the work.
Lurton liked the story very much, and never flagged in his enthusiasm for it. It reminded him in many ways of a personal favorite, The Once and Future King by T. H. White. He said Dune World would, at the very least, sell in pocket book form, and was likely to be snapped up by foreign publishers and filmmakers as well. Lurton was a “hands on” agent, part writing counselor and part salesman. He offered advice freely on story points and made suggestions for improvement—some of which my father followed.
With a gut feeling that his saga would be tremendously successful, Dad plowed ahead. Shortly before President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, he completed books II and III of the “trilogy”—Muad’Dib and The Prophet—an additional 125,000 words.
When Lurton finished reading the material, he said that Dune World, Muad’Dib and The Prophet should not be published as separate books. True, he said, there were enough words for three novels, but to him it constituted a single story with no satisfactory points of division, carrying one character through events that occurred in a very short period of time.
Book publishers arrived at Lurton’s opinion on their own. This was one story, they said, not three. But they felt it was far too long at 215,000 words and would require immense printing costs and a very high hardcover price for the time, in excess of five dollars. No science fiction novel had ever commanded a retail price that high. Years later, movie producers would express similar concerns about managing the incredible volume of material and producing it in a cost-effective manner that would leave room for profit.*
Book publishers also felt the story would confuse readers. It was too slow-moving and complex, filled with strange, difficult words. Rejections poured in. One editor said he was probably making the mistake of his lifetime in not publishing the work, but declined it anyway. Another said it could attract a cult following, but he didn’t want it either.
Most editors couldn’t get past the first hundred pages. But by design, the book started out slowly, with gentle internal rhythms that evolved through pace and crescendo to a grand climax. Dad said the rhythms were coital…sexual…starting slowly and gradually increasing pace. Calculated to touch something deep in the human psyche. An experiment in pacing, Dad called it, an experiment he knew was risky since publishers were rarely risk-takers. He said they preferred instead to purchase stories that were similar to previously published, successful works.
Twenty-three book publishers rejected Books I, II and III. They would not publish the material in any form, separate or combined.
Analog did snap up the serialization on the entire three-part work, but again Campbell had a number of suggestions about plotting, characterization, math and science. Dad’s original version of Books I, II and III of Dune included a scene in which Alia was killed, and Campbell convinced him to revise this, letting her survive. She had an interesting talent, Campbell said (the power to see into the past), and he wanted to see a sequel that focused on her, as well as another story about the Spacing Guild.
Despite the closeness with which they worked, Frank Herbert and John Campbell never met one another in person. They had many long telephone conversations and exchanged letters and manuscript pages.
My father once told me to put everything into a writing project. “Never hold anything back,” he said. He put everything into Books I, I
I and III of Dune, so much so that by the time he completed the revisions for Campbell, he was wrung out—physically and mentally. All the years of research and intense writing effort left him so drained that for a week straight he slept twelve to fourteen hours a day.
For the cover of the December 1963 issue of Analog, Campbell selected the extraordinarily talented artist John Schoenherr. The result was spectacular, a haunting alien landscape with a pair of crescent moons on the horizon. The artist captured the essence of the story and the perilous, extreme desolation of the planet. It took him six attempts to arrive at a painting he felt was satisfactory.
Dad had been studying psychology in depth since meeting the Slatterys in Santa Rosa in the early 1950s. These studies had been instrumental in the characterizations in his excellent first novel, The Dragon in the Sea. Now, in Dune, he carried the psychological aspect to new dimensions, far beyond characterization.
With his understanding of subliminal messages, he used color coding in the text of his story. A color, such as yellow, was employed to indicate danger. Thus, when the reader reads yellow, he knows viscerally that danger is imminent. He may not be conscious of the realization, but it is a tugging force that keeps him turning the pages to see what will happen next. Dad also described the subtle body motions of characters—such as hand movements—to indicate more than their dialog or even their thoughts.
The women of the Sisterhood, the Bene Gesserit, are able to control people by Voice—the subtle use of intonation and precise word selection. Dad learned much of this in studies of semantics he made for the purpose of writing political speeches. Politicians had to be especially careful about word selection in order to avoid alienating large blocks of voters. And in order to appeal to them.
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