IGMS Issue 14

by IGMS

  As for our style - Frank Herbert changed his style. As Kevin mentioned, Dune is one style. It has this wonderful poetry and this great adventure, and beneath it are all these messages, but by the time you get to The God Emperor of Dune and on, the characters are talking a lot and politics and big things happen in the background. So he changed his style too, but he was exploring the layers he had set up in the novel Dune. As Our style -- we like to look at Dune as an example Kevin and I never hope to match.

  ANDERSON: When we started out, we discussed this, and we said that we were not going to imitate Frank Herbert's style, because he has a distinctive style, and we were both well established as professional writers before we started writing together or we started writing in the Dune universe. So we didn't want to be imitating the way someone else writes. If someone is going to be writing new Conan novels, you don't want to them imitating sentence by sentence the way Robert E. Howard wrote. But perhaps it comes across just because it's so many years of constant exposure and immersion in the Dune universe. We go back and read the Dune books, and then turn around and read them all again. So it's constantly in our minds what Frank Herbert wrote. So when we were doing The Winds of Dune, we both practically memorized Dune Messiah. Maybe it's just osmosis, but we do try to write something that is respectful, and in that universe.

  HERBERT: And I think that we feel like the characters are really alive. Sometimes I have to remind myself others.

  SCHWEITZER: We've just run out of time. Thank you to you both.

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