Frank Herbert was an American author and the creator of the Dune series.
Herbert was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1920. From an early age, he had literary ambitions and worked as a journalist and photographer before pursuing a writing career. His early work consisted of science-fiction short stories.
In 1959 he began research for his Dune novel, which he completed in 1965. Like his earlier works, he extended his science-fiction writing beyond the superficial predictions and plots that were common at the time, favoring complex psychological, social and environmental themes with greater depth and subtlety.
In Dune and its sequels - as with most of his novels - Herbert explored numerous subjects: politics, the power of love, facets of conflict, human survival, lessons from history, the power of genetics, the complexity of human relationships, and family lineage, to name but a few. Perhaps his most pervasive theme in the Dune series was his optimistic view of human potential. In the various schools of Dune's universe - the Bene Gesserit, Suk School, Spacing Guild, the Mentats - each explored an aspect of untapped human potential and took it to its logical, if fantastical, conclusion.
Because of this bold approach, Herbert initially had difficulty finding a willing publisher for Dune. Eventually, the Chilton Book Company picked up his work and released it to critical acclaim. In 1966, Dune won the Nebula Award for Best Novel and shared a Hugo Award with Roger Zelazny's This Immortal.
Despite the relative success of Dune, it took several more years before Frank Herbert was financially secure enough to become a full-time novelist. He went on to write twenty more novels - including five Dune sequels - and witnessed Dune become a major motion picture in 1984. He wrote a screenplay for his book The Santaroga Barrier and begun working on one for Soul Catcher, a film he wished to direct. [1]
Frank Herbert died of pancreatic cancer in Madison, Wisconsin, on February 11, 1986. He was survived by his son Brian Herbert.
Quotes[]
Frank Herbert - Interview on TV
Frank Herbert - NBC Interview
"The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."
"People say 'Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.' My point is that power attracts the corruptible."
“I think that the idea of power corrupting, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, is not on the mark – does not hit it. I think what happens is that power attracts the corruptible.I think this is why great power centers such as the Kremlin, the Pentagon, Quai d’Orsay, Sandhurst, become essentially, cesspools really, because they get so many people there who want power for the sake of power, and, it’s my estimation of it that a high percentage of these people are certifiable, you get real nuts, this is why you get people for example going to Guyana and drinking kool-aid, because the errors of the leader are amplified by the number who follow without question – that was the beginning I wanted to do a messiah story that explored this.”
“I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on their forehead: 'May be dangerous to your health.' One of the most dangerous presidents we had in this century was John Kennedy because people said 'Yes Sir Mr. Charismatic Leader what do we do next?' and we wound up in Vietnam. And I think probably the most valuable president of this century was Richard Nixon. Because he taught us to distrust government and he did it by example.”
“Is it any wonder that I look back on our years together with a happiness transcending anything words can describe? Is it any wonder I do not want or need to forget one moment of it? Most others merely touched her life at the periphery. I shared it in the most intimate ways and everything she did strengthened me. It would not have been possible for me to do what necessity demanded of me during the final ten years of her life, strengthening her in return, had she not given of herself in the preceding years, holding back nothing. I consider that to be my great good fortune and most miraculous privilege.”
"My idea of a good story is to put people in a pressure environment. This happens in reality, but life's dramas tend to lack the organization we require of the novel. I hit on the idea of a desert planet while researching a magazine article about efforts to control sand dunes. This led me into other research avenues too numerous to detail completely here, but involving some time in a desert (Sonora) and a re-examination of Islam.”
"You see, the hard drugs are not the problem. It is the crime to support the hard drugs business that's the problem. So the enormous lies that have been told to this society by an entrenched bureaucracy which is maintaining its own self-justification by increasing lies. [That bureaucracy is] the drug enforcement agencies. They see themselves as a quasi-military police force which is protecting us from the terrible demon at our borders. And they know damn well they can't keep it all out. Every time they take some off the streets and catch it at the border, all they do is raise the price. They put increasing pressure on the addicts to commit greater crimes, to get more money to support their habits. There are some weird things going on in our society and this is one of the weirdest, because we went through this with alcohol in Prohibition. But this hard drug business is really outrageous. We are creating new addicts. Seventy-five percent of the new addicts are being created by the system. And changing that system, taking the profit out of it, wouldn't eliminate the problem. It would merely reduce it to more manageable proportions, where we could begin to handle it as a medical and psychological problem. We can't handle the problem AT ALL given its present dimensions. The unholy alliance between that part of the bureaucracy which is supposed to be protecting us from this and organized crime is THERE.”
Quotes from Dune[]
Awareness
"It is so shocking to find out how many people do not believe that they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult."
"The mind can go either direction under stress - toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training."
Emotions
"Hope clouds observation."
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
Technology
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them."
Leadership
"A world is supported by four things… …the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these things are as nothing… …without a ruler who knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!"
Greatness
"Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man."
Fanaticism
"When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it’s too late."
Gallery[]
See also[]
- Frank Herbert Timeline - Chronology of Herbert's life and work
- Dreamer of Dune - Brian Herbert's biography of his father
External links[]
- Frank Herbert - Wikipedia article
- Frank Herbert by Timothy O'Reilly
- Frank Herbert by William F. Touponce
References[]
- ↑ Frank Herbert: Historian of Dune by Leanne C. Harper, Mile High Futures Vol.3.1 (fanzin) (01/1985)
