Writer, born in Tacoma, Washington, USA. He studied at the University of Washington (19467), and worked as a journalist. He became a full-time science-fiction writer after the publication of his first novel, Dune (1965). He continued to write many other books while living in Townsend, WA, and is considered a master of the genre.
Frank Herbert|
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| Born: |
October 8, 1920 Tacoma, Washington |
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| Died: |
February 11, 1986 Madison, Wisconsin |
| Occupation(s): | Novelist |
| Nationality: | United States |
| Writing period: | 1945-1986 |
| Genre(s): | Science fiction |
| Literary movement: | New Wave |
| Debut work(s): |
"Survival of the Cunning", Esquire, March 1945 The Dragon in the Sea, 1955 |
Frank Patrick Herbert (October 8, 1920 – February 11, 1986) was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. The Dune saga dealt with themes such as human survival and evolution, ecology, and the intersection of religion, politics, and power, and is widely considered to be one of the classics in the field of science fiction.
Biography
Frank Herbert was born October 8, 1920 in Tacoma, Washington, to Frank Herbert and Eileen McCarthy Herbert. They were the only students in the class who had sold any work for publication — Herbert had sold two pulp adventure stories to magazines- the first to Esquire in 1945, and Stuart had sold a story to Modern Romance magazine. Their first son, Brian Patrick Herbert, was born in Seattle in June 29, 1947. His second son, Bruce Calvin Herbert was born in 26 June 1951, in Santa Rosa, California.
Frank Herbert did not graduate from college, according to Brian, because he wanted to study only what interested him and so did not complete the required courses.
Herbert began reading science fiction in the 1940s, and by the 1950s he began to write it, with short stories appearing in Startling Stories and other magazines.
His career as a novelist began with the publication of The Dragon in the Sea in 1955, where he used the environment of a 21st century submarine as a way to explore sanity and madness.
Herbert began researching Dune in 1959 and was able to devote himself more wholeheartedly to his writing career because his wife returned to work full time as an advertising writer for department stores, becoming the main breadwinner during the 1960s. Herbert later related in an interview with Willis E.
Dune took six years of research and writing to complete. Far longer than commercial science fiction of the time was supposed to be, it was serialized in Analog magazine in two separate parts ("Dune World" and "Prophet of Dune"), in 1963 and 1965. Finally, Chilton, a minor publishing house in Philadelphia, gave Herbert a $7,500 advance, and Dune was soon a critical success. Dune was the first ecological science fiction novel, containing a multitude of sweeping, inter-relating themes and multiple character viewpoints, a method that ran through all Herbert's mature work. By 1968 Herbert had made $20,000 from it, far more than most science fiction novels of the time were generating, but not enough to let him take up full-time writing. In 1973 he was director-photographer of the television show The Tillers.
| Quotation |
| A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. — Frank Herbert |
By 1972, he retired from writing for newspapers and became a full-time writer. During the 1970s and 1980s, Herbert enjoyed considerable commercial success as an author. Other highlights were The Dosadi Experiment, The Godmakers, The White Plague and the books he wrote in partnership with Bill Ransom: The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor.
Herbert's change in fortune was shaded by tragedy. In his afterword to 1985's Chapterhouse Dune, Herbert wrote a moving eulogy for his wife of 38 years. 1984 was a tumultuous year in Herbert's life. After Beverly's death, Herbert married Theresa Shackleford in 1985, the year he published Chapterhouse: Dune, which tied up many of the saga's story threads. This would be Herbert's final single work (the anthology Eye was also published that year, and Man of Two Worlds was published in 1986). A special pin-up page was dedicated to Frank Herbert by Michael Dooney in his 1986 Gizmo (comic book) series.
Continuation of the Dune series
In recent years, Frank Herbert's son Brian and Kevin J. Anderson have begun adding to the Dune universe, using notes left behind by Frank Herbert on both the history of the Dune universe before the events within Dune, as well as the novel he had planned to follow Chapterhouse Dune. They are now preparing the second of two post-Chapterhouse novels (Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune) based on the "Dune 7" outline Frank Herbert left behind at the time of his death.
Ideas and themes
| Quotation |
| I think science fiction does help, and it points in very interesting directions. I don't think that the mere writing of such a book as Brave New World or 1984 prevents those things which are portrayed in those books from happening. — Frank Herbert |
Frank Herbert used his science fiction novels to explore complex ideas involving philosophy, religion, psychology, politics and ecology, which have inspired many of his readers to become interested in these areas. The underlying thrust in Frank Herbert's work was his fascination with the question of human survival and evolution. Frank Herbert has attracted a sometimes fanatical fanbase, many of whom have tried to read everything Frank Herbert has written, fiction or non-fiction, and see Frank Herbert as something of an authority on the subject matters of his books. Indeed such was the devotion of some of his readers that Frank Herbert was at times asked if he was starting a cult (1), something he was very much against.
There are a number of key themes in Herbert's work:
A concern with Leadership. Herbert was probably the first science fiction author to popularize ideas about Ecology and Systems Thinking. Human survival and evolution: Herbert writes of the Fremen, the Sardaukar, and the Dosadi, who are molded by their terrible living conditions into dangerous super-races. Human possibilities and potential: Herbert offered Mentats, the Bene Gesserit and the Bene Tleilax as different visions of human possibilities. Frank Herbert was interested in the work of Thomas Szasz and the anti-psychiatry movement. Often, Herbert questions, "What is sane?", and while there are clearly insane behaviors and psychopathies as evinced by characters (Piter De Vries for instance), it is often suggested that "normal" and "abnormal" are relative terms which humans are sometimes ill-equipped to apply to one another, especially on the basis of statistical regularity. More specifically, Frank Herbert was influenced by Alfred Korzybski's General Semantics.Frank Herbert carefully refrained from offering his readers firm answers to many of the questions he explored. "The ability to swim." — The Dragon in the Sea
Status and impact in science fiction
Dune is the world's best-selling science fiction novel, and the Dune saga is the best-selling science fiction series. Heinlein, Herbert's opus was "powerful, convincing, and most ingenious."
Dune is also considered a landmark novel for a number of reasons:
Like Heinlein's 1961 Stranger in a Strange Land, Herbert's 1963 Dune represented a move toward a more literary approach to the science fiction novel. Herbert deliberately suppressed technology in his Dune universe so he could address the future of humanity, rather than the future of Humanity's technology. Frank Herbert was a great popularizer of scientific ideas; many of his fans credit Frank Herbert for introducing them to philosophy and psychology. Gerald Jonas explains in the New York Times Book Review: "So completely did Mr. Herbert work out the interactions of man and beast and geography and climate that [[Dune]] became the standard for a new sub-genre of 'ecological' science fiction." As popularity of Dune rose, Herbert embarked on a lecture tour of college campuses, explaining how the environmental concerns of Dune's inhabitants were analogous to our own. The Library Journal reports that "Dune is to science fiction what The Lord of the Rings is to fantasy." Frank Herbert imagined every facet of his creation.Herbert wrote more than twenty novels after Dune that are regarded as being of variable quality. Books like The Green Brain, The Santaroga Barrier seemed to hark back to the days before Dune, when a good technological idea was all that was needed to drive a sci-fi novel.
Herbert never again equalled the critical acclaim he received for Dune. Neither his sequels to Dune nor any of his other books won a Hugo or Nebula Award, although almost all of them were New York Times Bestsellers.
Also largely overlooked because of the concentration on "Dune" was Herbert's 1973 novel, Hellstrom's Hive, with its minutely worked-out depiction of a human society modeled on social insects, which could be counted a major utopia/dystopia.
To conclude, Malcolm Edwards in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction wrote:
"Much of Herbert's work makes difficult reading.Film adaptations
A film of the novel, Dune, was directed by David Lynch in 1984. Although panned by many fans and film critics, Frank Herbert was pleased with the movie.
Dune was made into a TV mini-series by the Sci Fi Channel (United States) in 2000. This was commercially successful, and the Sci-Fi Channel continued the Dune saga with a further mini-series in 2003 entitled Children of Dune, which merges parts of the plots of the novels Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
Bibliography
Fiction
Novels
The Dragon in the Sea: Serial publication: Astounding, November 1955 – January 1956. First edition: New York: Doubleday, 1956. Also titled Under Pressure and 21st Century Sub, Dune: Serial publication: Analog, December 1963 – February 1964 (Part I, as "Dune World"), and January – May 1965 (Parts II and III, as "The Prophet of Dune").First edition: Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1965. The Green Brain: Serial publication: Amazing, March 1965, under the title "Greenslaves." First edition: New York: Ace, 1966. Destination: Void: Serial publication: Galaxy, August 1965, as "Do I Wake or Dream?"First edition: New York: Berkeley, 1966 revised in 1978. The Eyes of Heisenberg: Serial publication: Galaxy, June – August 1966, as "Heisenberg's Eyes." First edition: New York: Berkeley, 1966. The Heaven Makers: Serial publication: Amazing, April – June 1967. First edition: New York: Avon, 1968 The Santaroga Barrier: Serial publication: Amazing, October 1967 – February 1968. First edition: New York: Berkeley, 1968 Dune Messiah: Serial publication: Galaxy, July – November 1969. First edition: New York: G.P. First edition: New York: G.P. Soul Catcher, New York: G.P. The Godmakers: Serial publication: Astounding, May 1958, "You Take the High Road," Astounding, May 1959 "Operation Haystack," and Fantastic, February 1960, "The Priests of Psi." First edition: New York: G.P. Hellstrom's Hive: Serial publication: Galaxy, November 1972 – March 1973, "Project 40." First edition: New York: Doubleday, 1973. Children of Dune: Serial publication: Analog, January – April 1976, "Children of Dune". First edition: New York: G.P. The Dosadi Experiment: Serial publication: Galaxy, May – August 1977 "The Dosadi Experiment". First edition: New York: G.P. The Jesus Incident (with Bill Ransom): Serial publication: Analog, February 1979. First edition: New York: Ace Books, 1980. God Emperor of Dune, New York: G.P. The White Plague, New York: G.P. The Lazarus Effect (with Bill Ransom), New York: G.P. Heretics of Dune, New York: G.P. Chapterhouse: Dune, New York: G.P. Man of Two Worlds (with Brian Herbert), New York: G.P. The Ascension Factor (with Bill Ransom), New York: G.P.Short fiction collections
The Worlds of Frank Herbert, New York: Ace, 1971. The Book of Frank Herbert, New York: DAW Books, 1973 (paper). The Best of Frank Herbert, London: Sidgwick & also published as: The Best of Frank Herbert 1952 – 1964, London: Sphere, 1976 (paper), and The Best of Frank Herbert 1965 – 1970, London: Sphere, 1976 (paper) Contains: "Looking for something?," "Nightmare Blues," "Dragon in the Sea (extract)," "Cease Fire," ""Egg and Ashes," "Marie Celeste Move." Eye, (Jim Burns, illustrator), New York: Berkeley, 1985. Dikty's Best Science Fiction Stories and Novels, 1955 series "The Gone Dogs", Amazing, November 1954. Harry Harrison, New York: Berkeley, 1968. "Murder Will In", The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1970. also in Five Fates, New York: Doubleday, 1970. "Encounter in a Lonely Place", The Book of Frank Herbert, New York: DAW Books, 1973. "Gambling Device", The Book of Frank Herbert New York, DAW Books, 1973. "Passage for Piano", The Book of Frank Herbert New York, DAW Books, 1973. Trident Press: New York, 1973. "The Road to Dune", Eye, New York: Berkeley 1985. "Frogs and Scientists, Eye, New York: Berkeley 1985.Nonfiction
Nonfiction Books
New World or No World (editor), New York: Ace Books, 1970 (paper). Threshold: The Blue Angels Experience, New York: Ballantine, 1973 (paper). Without Me, You're Nothing (with Max Barnard), New York: Pocket Books, 1981 (hardcover). New York: Doubleday, 1973. Reissued by Bantam Books as The Wounded Planet. New York: Macmillan, 1973. Heitz, Herbert, Joor McGee. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973. New York: Harper and Row, 1974. "Men on Other Planets", The Craft of Science Fiction, ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1976. (slightly different article appeared in The San Francisco Examiner "Overview" column, July 4, 1976.) "The ConSentiency and How it Got That Way", Galaxy, May 1977 (may be considered as a fiction story and therefore in the "Original Single Story" section) "Dune Genesis", Omni, July 1980. (Refers to some of Herbert's childhood experiences in the Northwest)Other publications
Poetry
"Carthage: Reflections of a Martian", Mars, We Love You, ed. New York: Doubleday, 1971.Audio recordings
Dune: The Banquet Scene, New York: Caedmon Records, 1977. Sandworms of Dune, New York: Caedmon Records, 1978.Interviews
Interviews with Frank Herbert, 1973, 1977. The Plowboy interview Frank Herbert, The Mother Earth News, May 1981. The Willis E. McNelly Interview with Frank Herbert, February 1969.Limited bibliography by universe
Dune universe:
ConSentiency universe:
The Tactful Saboteur Whipping Star The Dosadi ExperimentDestination: Void universe:
Destination: Void The Jesus Incident The Lazarus Effect The Ascension Factor
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