Interview of Brian Herbert on thetrades.com (15/08/2009)

[Leto]

Is Brian a threat to his father's work ?
Of course!! said the Fedaykin.
"Leave Brian alone" answered the DN's Legions ( ).

The last show of daddy's boy will comfort a side. Guess which one ?
Take a look

"trade" : what an appropriate word to introduce what Brian is doing...

[Sandwurm88]

I must say this is more interesting than the seemingly dozens of Kevin interviews on the Web.

[Tleilax Master B]

"and these are all major novels that follow Frank Herbert's outline that he laid out for this 23,000 year epic. But I don't want to branch off the main river -- at least with major novels."

AND

" Kevin and I have a six hundred page Dune concordance that I've prepared, that took about a year, so I know all the page numbers where Frank Herbert described everything. So I'm not sure how another writer would get into all that and figure out all the details."


BULLSHIT

[lotek]

Are there any future plans for anthologies of short stories by other authors, done inside the Dune setting?

To do that, it would require a huge amount of fact-checking, so it would be easier for Kevin and I to just write short stories ourselves, as we have.

or...

you don't want someone else trying because...

... you're dead scared that someone might do a better job, and let's face it, give a thousand monkeys a thousand typewriters and they will do that in a week

"a huge amount of fact checking" yeah right
MORE BULLSHIT

[TheDukester]

Yeah, that's just the biggest load of crap I've heard in a long time. And if I was Bri-Bri, I think I'd stop mentioning that concordance: it can't be worth much, since the McDune series continues to be riddled with errors.

I'll (grudgingly) give Fuzzy credit for this, though:

" ... We have two more under contract, which would get us up to 18 or 19, and after that -- I think there might be three more and that would be it."

Not good news, huh, Kevin?

Not that I think for a minute that 62-year-old Brian Herbert is going to be involved in another five McDune books, especially if he and TheKeith switch to an every-other-year cycle. But it's still heartening to hear someone in the HLP admit that the string is played out and there's no worthwhile stories left to tell.

Overall, I'll give the old zombie a few props — that interview was more interesting than any 10 interviews that TheKJA gives. Plus, he's always good for some real wingnut thoughts, such as this one:

"But I'm heartened by what I'm hearing that there are cars out there that may get 230 to 340 miles to the gallon."

Actually, Brian, I hear there's carburetors out there that can run on water! And the gub'mint knows all abouts 'em!

+++++

Anyone else thinking the Dune movie is not looking good? Or at least not for 2010? I can't remember the last interview I saw where anyone mentioned that the damn thing was moving forward.

[lotek]

even better(in a worse way)

There's a small but loud contingent of hardcore Dune fans who seem to react to any addition to the Dune legacy as one might expect fundamentalist religions would react to someone trying to expand the Pentateuch. Was that a surprise, and how did you come to cope with that kind of criticism?

There was a group on the Internet before House Atreides was published -- that was our first novel that came out in 1999 -- and there was a hue and cry before that book was published asserting that we should not write a new novel in the series. Later, after they read the first novel, many of them actually apologized to us in writing. So we appreciate that. And I understand the fans that feel... I guess "an interest" in the series. They don't have a legal interest in it, but they have a stake in it of sorts, in that they love the stories, they love the universe, they love what my dad set up. But I try to write for the most demanding of fans. Kevin does too. I spent a year before writing a word with Kevin doing a concordance of all six novels that Frank Herbert wrote in the Dune series, so I know the whole history of the Mentats, the Swordmasters, the Bene-Gesserit; I know the eye colors of the main characters, I know their family histories. It's all in a 600-page, single-spaced concordance. The only better thing would be if Frank Herbert were to write these stories, but Kevin and I have immersed ourselves in this universe, and we really have done our homework.

Frank Herbert died in 1986, and when he died he was intending to write another novel. He was using a yellow highlighter on books five and six in series -- Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune -- and it turned out that there were thirty pages of notes in which he had an outline of the unwritten book, and he died before he could finish it. Somebody had to write that novel, because it's an important story, it's an important chronological grand conclusion to the series. So Kevin and I have written that novel as two novels. In the series, we've tried to maintain the quality. We do not intend to write a hundred Dune books -- at least the major novels, here. I'm seeing that the series should conclude at a certain point.

So that's my thoughts on the most difficult of fans, and I do understand. I'm a fan myself, so I want the quality to be maintained.

[TheDukester]

I'll give him further credit for not being incredibly condescending and defensiveness in that answer. I think it's pretty clear that the "Talifan" bullshit and the confrontational attitude come straight from Kevin J. Dickhead.

[lotek]

I hadn't thought of it that way...

As for the Dune movie, what are the news on that?
Should I start crying or not?

[Sev]

If he made a 600 page concordance in which he now knows everything, including family histories - then why have they spent the last decade re-writing those same fucking family histories

we really have done our homework

BOLLOCKS

[Freakzilla]

Mentats and Swordmasters come from Great Schools now?

She nodded. "We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene
Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure
mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function."

[Freakzilla]

To do that, it would require a huge amount of fact-checking, so it would be easier for Kevin and I to just write short stories ourselves, as we have. That way we don't have to check facts and can write anything we want.

[SandChigger]

Meh. Again, there's nothing really new there, is there? He's just regurgitating the official stories. Granted, in that Philly Library podcast it seemed that he did it with more polish than before, but that could just mean they've trained him better in the interim.

Re the movie:

Are you providing any input on the script?

I met with the script writer and the director, Peter Berg. Kevin and I met with them, and gave them a lot of detailed advice about the Dune universe, and they listened very carefully. We're sure that it's going to be a good screenplay. Right now it's going through the writing process, and we're looking forward to seeing it go further.

Fuck.

But it's a good thing, if it leads to a MASSIVE FAIL!!!

[Ampoliros]

Yeah, you have to keep Brian away from Kevin if you want to get any useful information out of him. If he had written the Dune books on his own, they very likely still would have been crap, but they might at least have been honest crap.

[DuneFishUK]

Some more words from Fuzzy.

Winds of Dune Author Brian Herbert on Flipping the Myth of Jihad

Q: Are you optimistic about Peter Berg’s upcoming adaptation?
A: Kevin and I are technical advisors on it. We sat in with them for a meeting about the script, and we gave them a lot of information and our feelings about the need for authenticity. They want to do a classic interpretation of the novel, and it would follow the plot more carefully. But it’s such a huge canvas. And so we’re in the script-writing phase right now, and we’re hopeful it gets the green-light beyond that. And if the movie does well, then there will be additional Dune movies and perhaps some TV specials and that kind of thing.

"They want to do a classic interpretation of the novel, and it would follow the plot more carefully."

"We gave them a lot of information and our feelings about the need for authenticity."

[Omphalos]

Meh. Again, there's nothing really new there, is there?

Actually that language that Freak quoted pretty much makes Kevin a liar, who has said in the past that they have a whole team of proofers, fact checkers, experts and "Dune PhDs," doesn't it?

[Freakzilla]

I made up the last line of the quote.

However, It's nice to see that the Dune 7 outline has grown again to 30 pages.

[Omphalos]

Oh well. quick swoop through during work. You guys gets whats I can gives.

[Freakzilla]

Oh well. quick swoop through during work. You guys gets whats I can gives.

I think the fact that you didn't doubt it for an instant just goes to show you...

[Hunchback Jack]

Not a bad interview, but Brian has changed his answers over the years to make it sound like the new Dune books are basically all Frank's idea.

But beyond [the great houses trilogy], I'm feeling like it would be too many books, and these are all major novels that follow Frank Herbert's outline that he laid out for this 23,000 year epic.

But the two novels that we did, Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune, that were Dad's Dune 7 basically, we had his plot, we had his notes, so we knew exactly where he was going with it, and we wove the old events -- Erasmus and Omnius -- we wove that all in, knowing where Dad wanted to go with the series.

He was using a yellow highlighter on books five and six in series -- Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune -- and it turned out that there were thirty pages of notes in which he had an outline of the unwritten book, and he died before he could finish it.

(Interesting that he doesn't say the *outline* was thirty pages, just that it was in "thirty pages of notes". But anyone but a careful reader would infer the former).

(BTW, Brian's answer to the Winds of Dune question really reflected the contents of *Paul of Dune*. Hasn't he read WoD?)

HBJ

[TheDukester]

Hasn't he read WoD?

Maybe ... maybe not. It depends on if Keith let him have a copy or not. He probably gave Fuzzy one to read during their tour, but he'll want it back when it's all over.

[Ampoliros]

He'll let him keep it, but he wants a pic of Brian in line to get it signed first.

[Freakzilla]

Now we have a deal with Paramount Pictures. Kevin and I had pitched various movie studios Dune: House Atreides, which was our first novel. We thought that would be a good movie. Paramount ultimately has decided to do a classic interpretation of the novel Dune. It's in the script writing phase right now, and we're very hopeful that it will go to the next stage. They're putting a lot of time and effort into this project right now.

I could actually hear the Paramount executives laughing in their faces when I read that.

[Slugger]

How much influence do "technical advisors" actually yield? It's not like they're producers (didn't KJA claim that at one point?), so maybe the production team will forgo these advisor's inputs when matters seem to contradict Dune.

[TheDukester]

There are producers, sadly.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1160419/fullcredits" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not that it really matters much. They are listed only due to the terms of the contract, I'm sure; neither one knows the first thing about how a movie gets made. Beyond a certain level of politeness, anything that Idiot 1 or Idiot 2 says on the set will be universally ignored.

(Actually, I don't think Fuzzy will even be on the set beyond a photo-op or two. He would get eaten alive by Hollywood — they do things like fly on planes and use the internet there).

[Freakzilla]

I keep hearing the crew say, "and who are you again? Get the fuck out of here!"