The Ottawa Citizen interview...


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Drunken Idaho
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The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Drunken Idaho »

Not that I read the Ottawa Citizen, but I couldn't help but notice mention of an interview with the newspaper on Kevin's blog... here's the article:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/million+wo ... story.html

Here's a small excerpt, which is completely erroneous on multiple levels:
Brian Herbert wrote:"We've written 11 books together. Dad wrote six. So that's 17 novels. We have two more under contract after Winds of Fire, so that's 19. But every one of those is right on the core, right on the spine, of where Frank Herbert was taking his huge stories spanning more than 20,000 years."
Winds of Fire? Was that Brian's mistake or the newspaper's?
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by SandRider »

"We kind of joke that Kevin blows up planets. I build relationships and Kevin blows them up. I do the philosophical stuff and Kevin does the action stuff, but we overlap."
does this explain the lack of philosophical content ?
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TheDukester
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by TheDukester »

My God, there's so many things wrong with that article.

But at least it hits all the classics: the alleged notes, the ridiculous concordance, KJA scheming for a new payday, Fuzzy's complete lack of understanding of Dune, etc.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by lotek »

Drunken Idaho wrote:Not that I read the Ottawa Citizen, but I couldn't help but notice mention of an interview with the newspaper on Kevin's blog... here's the article:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/million+wo ... story.html

Here's a small excerpt, which is completely erroneous on multiple levels:
Brian Herbert wrote:"We've written 11 books together. Dad wrote six. So that's 17 novels. We have two more under contract after Winds of Fire, so that's 19. But every one of those is right on the core, right on the spine, of where Frank Herbert was taking his huge stories spanning more than 20,000 years."
Winds of Fire? Was that Brian's mistake or the newspaper's?
Winds of Fire?
No naked flames please!
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*
"He didn't always bring in money to support the family," Herbert says. "He was always doing something brilliant in the study that wasn't always commercial. Mom supported our family by doing advertising copywriting for big department stores and that kind of thing.

"She sacrificed herself for him so he could write."
And so that YOU could (pretend you) write, no?

He didn't like his dad and resented the space Dune took from him as a child. Fair enough, but maybe nudune is his revenge for all that...
I mean what better way to destroy his father's legacy(while making money)?

"The notes were not plot outlines but they have things that give us ideas. Most of the time we're just inspired by Frank Herbert and we come up with our own ideas."
So the truth finally comes out(what was that saying about truth, children and the simple-minded again?)
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by DuneFishUK »

Fuzzy in this one wrote: But every one of those is right on the core, right on the spine, of where Frank Herbert was taking his huge stories spanning more than 20,000 years."
Fuzzy in the Trades Interview wrote:these are all major novels that follow Frank Herbert's outline that he laid out for this 23,000 year epic.
He really is spinning the line that FH always intended to fill in the 'gaps' for all it's worth, isn't he?
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by SandChigger »

Herbert resented how his mother, Beverly Ann Stuart, herself a writer, had to struggle to pay the bills while his dad was dreaming up a universe filled with Thinking Machines, giant sandworms and the messianic Paul Atreides.
:roll:
Their association began when Anderson wrote to Herbert, suggesting a collaboration. Herbert delayed a month, then called Anderson. Fortunately for Dune lovers, they hit it off.
Frank wept. Jesus dried his tears. :twisted:
We've written 11 books together. Dad wrote six. So that's 17 novels.
He feels no remorse or shame whatsoever, does he? I need me some of them meds! :lol:
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by TheDukester »

DuneFishUK wrote:He really is spinning the line that FH always intended to fill in the 'gaps' for all it's worth, isn't he?
Yeah, that seems to be on this summer's greatest-hits list. And TheKJA has been spinning it, too.

The "cliffhanger," too ... I don't think I've seen an interview where the dreaded Chapterhouse "cliffhanger" hasn't been mentioned.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Sandwurm88 »

I can't believe how they've gotten away with spinning the whole "Dune 7 Notes and Outline" story so many different ways..So now it wasn't an outline, just notes they were "inspired" by...What the hell...Dune 7 is the only thing of there's I was willing to give marginal credibility, ever. Not now... :evil: :evil:
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by lotek »

TheDukester wrote:
DuneFishUK wrote:He really is spinning the line that FH always intended to fill in the 'gaps' for all it's worth, isn't he?
Yeah, that seems to be on this summer's greatest-hits list. And TheKJA has been spinning it, too.

The "cliffhanger," too ... I don't think I've seen an interview where the dreaded Chapterhouse "cliffhanger" hasn't been mentioned.
yeah don't mention the cliffhanger :)
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by rain_maker »

lotek wrote:
"The notes were not plot outlines but they have things that give us ideas. Most of the time we're just inspired by Frank Herbert and we come up with our own ideas."
So the truth finally comes out(what was that saying about truth, children and the simple-minded again?)
Logic dictates that either the above is true, and everying else they've said about the detailed outline in the safe deposit box/basement/garage is untrue or this is a lie and something else is the truth. It is impossible for both to be the case.

Additionally, the fact that this sentence is used in reference to Dune, in any way, proves that these two have not read the source materials:
"We kind of joke that Kevin blows up planets. "
Funny, because everyone else jokes that KJA blows up beloved characters and universes.
I had no idea that there were this many Frank Herbert fans left alive, what with the head exploding horror that is the KJA/BH atrocity.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by lotek »

I believe it's not the first time they contradict themselves, but they seem to be doing it quite a lot lately, probably cracking up a little now...
"We kind of joke that Kevin blows up planets. "
that also goes to show the little respect they have for the duniverse, wtf is that supposed to mean, blowing up planets?

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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by DuneFishUK »

rain_maker wrote:
lotek wrote:
"The notes were not plot outlines but they have things that give us ideas. Most of the time we're just inspired by Frank Herbert and we come up with our own ideas."
So the truth finally comes out(what was that saying about truth, children and the simple-minded again?)
Logic dictates that either the above is true, and everying else they've said about the detailed outline in the safe deposit box/basement/garage is untrue or this is a lie and something else is the truth. It is impossible for both to be the case.
The way I've understood it from day one is:

They have thousands of pages of notes - these are scribbled bits and ideas, pronunciation guides, historical background, character sketches, poetry, chapter epigraphs and un-used chapters. These are "The Notes"

They also have a Dune 7 outline. This is short. One-and-a-half pages IIRC (see: HUoD Audio interview). It is an incomplete, un-fleshed brain-doodle with a chapter ideas in a rough order. This is "The Outline"

It is detailed in so much as it contains a few details.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Hunchback Jack »

Agreed. The Outline just refers to Dune 7. The House, Legends and Heroes series are wholly KJA/BH inventions, "inspired by" the notes. There were no outlines for those books.

Claiming that all the books they've done are "along the spine" of Frank's history is a real stretch though. ts pretty clear they've just made shit up, and whatever information they've used from the notes, it's doubtless been out of context or far different from the way Frank intended to use it - or not to use it.

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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Slugger »

He has a physics degree and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Sure doesn't come through in his stories... :roll:
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by SandChigger »

That is really misleading the way they're phrasing THAT as they push it this time around.

Yeah, he worked at that Laboratory. As a TECHNICAL WRITER. He certainly didn't have the qualifications for anything else. :roll:
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Slugger »

SandChigger wrote:Yeah, he worked at that Laboratory. As a TECHNICAL WRITER. He certainly didn't have the qualifications for anything else. :roll:
Lame. I was hoping janitor.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by SandChigger »

Toilet cleaner!

He is qualified to slop shit around.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Hunchback Jack »

Oh, KJA is making statements in his bio that are *technically* true but which give a false impression that he's smarter or more successful than he really is?

I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

Next thing you know he'll be lying about how detailed the fabled Dune 7 outline was. Oh wait ...

HBJ
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by SandRider »

Slugger wrote:
He has a physics degree and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Sure doesn't come through in his stories... :roll:
I just said that today to some asshat on one of the review or interview sites,
or some shit, I don't remember - asshat was going on about some comment
I'd made previously about the nuDune fan being children & juvenile adults,
he said some shit about being a "college educated professional"

I said some shit about Keith being a "college educated professional", too,
and look how well that's worked for him. And then something about that
with his 'degree' being in physics, you'd think he could get a plotline about
lightspeed right ...

or something, I don't know.

I mighta just dreamed all that, too.

I'm having a 'complicated' day ...
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by lotek »

SandRider wrote:I mighta just dreamed all that, too.

I'm having a 'complicated' day ...
:lol: :lol:

Not that one again!
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Slugger »

SandRider wrote:
Slugger wrote:
He has a physics degree and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Sure doesn't come through in his stories... :roll:
I just said that today to some asshat on one of the review or interview sites,
or some shit, I don't remember - asshat was going on about some comment
I'd made previously about the nuDune fan being children & juvenile adults,
he said some shit about being a "college educated professional"

I said some shit about Keith being a "college educated professional", too,
and look how well that's worked for him. And then something about that
with his 'degree' being in physics, you'd think he could get a plotline about
lightspeed right ...
We covered that whole lightspeed business in about...ohhh...the first 10 minutes of class in PHYS141? Maybe he was like those kids who sat in the back of the classroom; if so, that might explain it. But then again, a "degree in physics" by itself is fairly nebulous. Not the same as a "physics degree (BS)," like I have a "chemistry degree (BS)".

Yeah, he has a degree in BS all right.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Omphalos »

What's his physics degree though? Is it a BS? I think it was, to which I say "so what?" Im pretty sure he worked at Los Alamos as a science writer, not a physicist. I think that was Beason who was the physicist.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by Freakzilla »

Note: They didn't find "the notes" until after House Atreides... or so the story goes.
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by SandRider »

which story ?

which time ?

out of who's mouth ?

Keith ? Brian ? Merritt ?
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Re: The Ottawa Citizen interview...

Post by SandChigger »

Freakzilla wrote:Note: They didn't find "the notes" until after House Atreides... or so the story goes.
After brainstorming House Atreides.

I think all the various versions are in agreement at least on this: they "brainstormed" House Atrocious over a weekend visit to Seattle by KJA & Jabecca, and Brian got the call from the estate lawyer/bank about the deposit boxes a couple of weeks later. THEN they found the boxes and boxes of notes AFTER that. I can't recall seeing anything saying they had started writing yet. (Anyone?)

What I think is important here is that they had basically decided what they were going to do before Frank in Heaven (or was it Beverly?) interceded and sent them the goodies. And what I suspect is that KJA was too arrogant to "kill his darlings"—the shit ideas he had already come up with—and BoBo too weak to force the issue. (Maybe that was the famous ONE argument they've had in 11 years? ;) )
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