Dune - House Atreides

by Brian Herbert

  We hit it off immediately, both on a personal and professional level. Aside from the fact that I genuinely liked him, I felt an energy between us, a remarkable flow of ideas that would benefit the series. After obtaining the concurrence of my family, Kevin and I decided to write a prequel -- but not one set in the ancient times, long before DUNE. Instead we would go to events only thirty or forty years before the beginning of DUNE, to the love story of Paul's parents, to the Planetologist Pardot Kynes being dispatched to Arrakis, to the reasons for the terrible, destructive enmity between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, and much more.

  Before writing a detailed outline, we set to work rereading all six Dune books my father had written, and I took it upon myself to begin assembling a massive DUNE CONCORDANCE -- an encyclopedia of all the characters, places, and wonders of the Dune universe. Of primary concern to us, we needed to determine where Dad had been heading with the conclusion of the series. It was clear that he was building up to something momentous in DUNE 7, and without intending to do so he had left us with a mystery. There were no known notes or other clues, only my memory that Dad had been using a yellow highlighter on paperback copies of HERETICS OF DUNE and CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE shortly before his death -- books that no one could locate after he was gone.

  In early May 1997, when I finally met Kevin J. Anderson and his wife, the author Rebecca Moesta, new story ideas fairly exploded from our minds. In a frenzy the three of us either scribbled them down or recorded them on tape. From these notes, scenes began to unfold, but still we wondered and debated where Dad had been going with the series.

  In the last two books, HERETICS OF DUNE and CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE, he had introduced a new threat -- the reviled Honored Matres -- who proceeded to lay waste to much of the galaxy. By the end of CHAPTERHOUSE, the characters had been driven into a corner, utterly beaten . . . and then the reader learned that the Honored Matres themselves were running from an even greater mysterious threat . . . a peril that was drawing close to the protagonists of the story, most of whom were Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers.

  A scant two weeks after our meeting, I received a telephone call from an estate lawyer who had handled matters involving my mother and father. He informed me that two safety-deposit boxes belonging to Frank Herbert had turned up in a suburb of Seattle, boxes that none of us knew existed. I made an appointment to meet with the bank authorities, and in an increasing air of excitement the safety-deposit boxes were opened. Inside were papers and old-style floppy computer disks that included comprehensive notes from an unpublished DUNE 7 -- the long-awaited sequel to CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE! Now Kevin and I knew for certain where Frank Herbert had been headed, and we could weave the events of our prequel into a future grand finale for the series.

  We turned with new enthusiasm to the task of putting together a book proposal that could be shown to publishers. That summer I had a trip to Europe scheduled, an anniversary celebration that my wife Jan and I had been planning for a long time. I took along a new laptop computer and a featherweight printer, and Kevin and I exchanged FedEx packages all summer long. By the time I returned at the end of the summer, we had a massive 141-page trilogy proposal -- the largest that either of us had ever seen. My allied DUNE CONCORDANCE project, the encyclopedia of all the marvelous treasures of the Dune universe, was a little over half-completed, with months of intensive work remaining before it would be finished.

  As we waited to see if a publisher would be interested, I remembered the many writing sessions I had enjoyed with my father, and my early novels in the 1980s that had received his loving, attentive suggestions for improvement. Everything I had learned from him -- and more -- would be needed for this huge prequel project.

  -Brian Herbert

  I never met Frank Herbert, but I knew him well through the words he wrote. I read DUNE when I was ten years old, and reread it several times over the years; then I read and enjoyed all of the sequels. GOD EMPEROR OF DUNE, hot off the presses, was the very first hardcover novel I ever purchased (I was a freshman in college). Then I worked my way through every single one of his other novels, diligently checking off the titles on the "Other Books By" page in each new novel. THE GREEN BRAIN, HELLSTROM'S HIVE, THE SANTAROGA BARRIER, THE EYES OF HEISENBERG, DESTINATION: VOID, THE JESUS INCIDENT, and more and more and more.

  To me, Frank Herbert was the pinnacle of what science fiction could be -- thought-provoking, ambitious, epic in scope, well-researched, and entertaining -- all in the same book. Other science fiction novels succeed in one or more of these areas, but DUNE did it all. By the time I was five years old, I had decided I wanted to be a writer. By the time I was twelve, I knew I wanted to write books like the ones Frank Herbert wrote.

  Throughout college, I published a handful of short stories, then began to write my first novel, RESURRECTION, INC., a complex tale set in a future world where the dead are reanimated to serve the living. The novel was full of social commentary, religious threads, a large cast of characters, and (yes) a wheels-within-wheels plot. By this time, I had enough writing credits to join the Science Fiction Writers of America . . . and one of the main benefits was the Membership Directory. There, before my eyes, was the home address of Frank Herbert. I promised myself that I would send him the very first signed copy. The novel sold almost immediately to Signet Books . . . but before its publication date, Frank Herbert died.

  I had avidly read the last two Dune books, HERETICS and CHAPTERHOUSE, in which Herbert had launched a vast new saga that built to a fever pitch, literally destroyed all life on the planet Arrakis, and left the human race on the brink of extinction -- that's where Frank Herbert left the story upon his death. I knew that his son Brian was also a professional writer with several science fiction novels under his belt. I waited, and hoped, that Brian would complete a draft manuscript, or at least flesh out an outline his father had left behind. Someday soon, I hoped, faithful DUNE readers would have a resolution to this cliffhanger.

  Meanwhile, my own writing career flourished. I was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and the Nebula Award; two of my thrillers were bought or optioned by major studios in Hollywood. While I continued to write original novels, I also found a great deal of success in dipping my toes into established universes, such as Star Wars and X-Files (both of which I love). I learned how to study the rules and the characters, wrap my imagination around them, and tell my own stories within the boundaries and expectations of the readers.

  Then in the spring of 1996 I spent a week in Death Valley, California, which has always been one of my favorite places to write. I went hiking for an afternoon in an isolated and distant canyon, wrapped up in my plotting and dictating. After an hour or so I discovered that I had wandered off on the wrong trail and had several extra miles to hike back to my car. During that unexpectedly long walk, out in the stark and beautiful desert scenery, my thoughts rambled over to DUNE.

  It had been ten years since Frank Herbert's death, and by now I had pretty much decided that DUNE was always going to end on a cliffhanger. I still very much wanted to know how the story wrapped up . . . even if I had to make it up myself.

  I had never met Brian Herbert before, had no reason to expect he would even consider my suggestion. But DUNE was my favorite science fiction novel of all time, and I could think of nothing I would rather work on. I decided it would do no harm to ask . . . .

  We hope you have enjoyed revisiting the Dune universe through our eyes. It has been an immense honor to sift through thousands of pages of Frank Herbert's original notes, so that we might re-create some of the vivid realms that sprang from his research, his imagination, and his life. I still find DUNE as exciting and thought-provoking as I did when I first encountered it many years ago.

  -Kevin J. Anderson

  A requirement of creativity is that it contributes to change. Creativity keeps the creator alive.

  -FRANK HERBERT, unpublished notes