Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert

I just finished reading Dreamer of Dune, The Biography of Frank Herbert written by his son Brian Herbert. I first purchased this book years ago, and after many attempts at starting it, after putting it down for another day, I finally read it from the first page through to its final page 576. In the book, it is mentioned that Frank and his wife Beverly loved books, and that they never highlighted or folded back pages of them. I too made no notes or left any marks as I read this tome through, but I wish that I had, because so much was memorable as I followed its pages through to its tragic and humanly moving conclusion. While I was reading it I also read some of Frank Herbert's lesser known stories in two of his short story collections. I also re-read God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune; and the books that follow those, Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune by the junior Herbert, Brian, in collaboration with writer Kevin J. Anderson. Re-reading these five books was like reading each for the first time; and I know I will read them again. From the time I read Dune in the 1970s I have been a Frank Herbert devotee, reading most of what he has written. When studying to be an actor at the Drama Studio in London in 1977/1978 I was even awarded a British Stage Figthing certificate for a sword fight I put together based on a confrontation between Paul Atreides and his sister Alia from the first three Dune books. My name is Frank, although I was born Francis. Why I mention my first name is that in the first half of my 59 years when someone said the name "Brian" I thought they said "Frank." I would often turn to them to respond. I thought it odd, and I asked other Franks if they experienced the same, but not many if any concurred with my strange name experience. Frank Herbert named his son Brian, and I wonder, if he like I, heard the name "Frank" when the name "Brian" was mentioned. This name confusion of mine came to mind while I was reading this book. I have read all the Dune books written by Frank and the ones that Brian Herbert wrote with Kevin J. Anderson; each one was a great pleasure to read for me. In Dreamer of Dune the reader sees how this "passing on process" occurred between father and son. It reminds me of the memory transfers that occur with the Bene Gesserit sisterhood characters throughout the Dune books. One sees how Frank Herbert was often a collaborator before he joined writing forces with his son. Father and son wrote the novel Man of Two Worlds, Frank Herbert's last book. His first collaboration though was with his wife Beverly, Brian's mother, and later with Bill Ransom. The latter collaboration brought forth the novels The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect and The Ascension Factor, great books each one. The former collaboration was subtler, for as this biography makes clear, husband and wife were one person and once wed they "wrote" together. They were life partners in the truest sense. In one of the short story collections I read while reading this book, in its introduction, Frank Herbert mentions that for him all stories are love stories. Dreamer of Dune is a huge love story about this husband and wife team; but it is also a beautiful love story of a father and a son; how their relationship changed over the years, the distance between them getting closer with each year. It was funny and charming to discover that Brian was afraid of flying on planes. So much of his father's writing concerns humans traveling in space, and so much of the family's life was lived in so many different places. In Frank's later years he had homes in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Hawaii, and often Brian's inability to be with his mother and father due to his flying fear was touchingly ironic to read about. Dreamer of Dune is a text book of sorts for the writer in all of us. Brain shares his learning of the craft of writing throughout the book. His father Frank is his teacher and he, and we, are his students. Many writing tricks of the trade are shared throughout, but the following examples stand out for me: Frank Herbert often wrote a poem first when setting out to write his novels. I had never heard of or considered that method of writing before. He also valued the sounds of the words he wrote more than how they appeared on the page. The book has a tedious factor in that it came from the journal writing of Brian as the years went by, but it is not really tedious at all. With all great books my reading of them tends to slow down as I near its last pages. I did not look forward to finishing it. I did not look forward to ending this story about Frank Herbert and his family. The book is about ongoing family struggles and finally fame. But Frank Herbert's fame was unfortunately short lived; but then, that is not really accurate. Just as in Frank's later books, when some of his Dune characters return to life as gholas and clones, the life of Frank Herbert and his amazing writing ideas wish to live beyond his mortal life. He succeeds in that wish with his son Brian and with his millions of readers like me.

This is really two books. One, a biography of Frank Herbert. But the other book, the son's quest for his father, is, by far, the better tale.

The subtitle of Dreamer of Dune is deliberately misleading. This 2003 nonfiction book is not so much a biography of Frank Herbert as it is an autobiography of Brian Herbert. The first half of the book is really quite engaging, and you do learn a lot about Frank Herbert. At times, however, it comes across a bit too much like a memoir that genealogists write about their parents and grandparents for other family members to read, in which every story Dad ever told is taken as the God’s-honest truth, and Daddy could do no wrong in the eyes of his son. The only negative comments Brian has about his super-dad is that Frank was dismissive of his young children and sometimes practiced corporal punishment, as many fathers in the 1950s did. The way Brian speaks about his parents’ marriage is even more sweetly idealized. Mr. and Mrs. Herbert apparently shared the greatest love since Romeo and Juliet, never had a fight, and treated each other like saints. It’s hard to take such one-sided romanticized portraits seriously. To his credit, however, Brian does seem to have done some diligent research into his father’s early writing career.The second half of the book takes a major turn for the worse. Frank Herbert is absent from much of it as Brian concentrates on his mother’s illness, his own writing career, and his own wife and kids. At one point Brian became an obsessive journaler, and it shows, as he feels the need to tell us every bottle of wine the family drank at dinner, what they were wearing, or the fact that on two occasions Brian was eating a banana while talking to his father. The reader sympathizes with Beverly Herbert and her battle with cancer, but Brian thinks you need to know the tedious details of every doctor’s appointment she ever had. On the other hand, he doesn’t even bother to interview his stepmother, who was with Frank for the last year of his life and was present at his death.One thing that surprised me while reading Dreamer of Dune is the remarkable number of similarities between the life of Frank Herbert and that of Jack London (who also wrote science fiction). Both were born to humble beginnings and developed a love for the outdoors and boating. At the age of 9, Herbert was making solo sailing trips around Puget Sound, just as young London was doing in San Francisco Bay a half century earlier. Both lived largely nomadic lifestyles in their young adulthood, sometimes experiencing extreme poverty as they struggled to sell their short stories. Both worked as journalists to supplement their income and hone their craft. Both adventured to Alaska as young men, and both fell in love with Hawaii later in life. Both divorced their first wives before finding their soul mates. After achieving success, both became public intellectuals and traveling lecturers on social issues—London on socialism and Herbert on environmentalism. Both dabbled in experimental farming and spent their authorial earnings on expensive yachts and quixotic construction projects that never reached completion. Despite great financial success, both spent money faster than they earned it.From reading Dreamer of Dune, one gets the impression that it was written for two reasons. The first is Brian Herbert’s natural desire to be a dutiful son to the father he loved. The second reason, however, is less admirable. This book seems to be a calculated attempt by Brian Herbert to justify his inheritance of the Dune franchise, implying that because Frank taught him everything he knew, he has a right to milk the Dune universe for all its worth, and he’s every bit the science fiction writer his father was. If Dreamer of Dune is any indication of Brian’s talents as a writer, however, the acorn has fallen far from the oak. A hundred years from now, when scholars are researching Frank Herbert’s life and literature, this book will be a source that they consult, but it won’t be THE source. That biography has yet to be written.

excellent

Ok

Does he believe eveything he wrote himself? Must have been superman