Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Timeweb by Brian Herbert, 553 pages, hardcover, 2006

The Timeweb series begins with the relationship between Saito Watanabe and his children Noah and Francella, who attacks her father with mercenaries disguised as Noah's own soldiers preventing Noah and Saito from meeting after years of estrangement.

Chapter One, page 7 (actually the first page, second paragraph).

"He had been estranged from his father, Prince Saito Watanabe, for so long that he had never expected to hear from the old tycoon again."

Brian's own relationship with his father.

Chapter One, page 7 (actually the first page, third paragraph).

"Noah considered the unexpected offer of a meeting between them. His initial thought had been to send a scathing response, or to simply ignore his father altogether. But other possibilities occurred to him."

Brian's own feelings.

Chapter Twenty-Three, page 168.

"Noah's fraternal twin <Francella> waved a hand across a pale yellow identity beam..."

Frank had two sons, Brian and Bruce, but the author symbolically the twin, too.

"After a momentary pause, a heavy alloy door slip open with a smooth click, revealing her father's study-a place he called "the inner sanctum." This room had always been off-limits to Francella and her brother when they were growing up, so it gave her special pleasure to be here now."

This is directly from Brian's own description in Dreamer of Dune.

"What he'd <father> failed to notice, though, was her <Francella> dissatisfaction over the way she had been treated in comparison with Noah, and how her resentment had built up over the years into a deep-seated anger. Francella now had an intense and all-consuming need for money, power, and prestige, and wanted to enjoy it all before she grew too old to appreciate such things."

Brian's own feeling and again taken directly from Dreamer of Dune a comment from one of Frank's friends.

Chapter Twenty-Three, page 169.

"Unfortunately, her father still clung to life like an injured spider on a web...It could go on for years, the nervous doctor said...the patient's mind, even in its damaged condition, was making desicisions about whether to live or die. Somewhere in Prince Saito's subconscious he fought on, perhaps out of a powerful desire to be wit his courtesan harlot again..."

Frank's own battle with cancer.
Brian's own feelings regarding Theresa.

"He even had an ultra-high-security treasure room in the villa, where he kept priceless jewels, manuscripts, and artworks. Undoubtedly part of his mind wanted to go in there again, and wallow in his wealth. The way he had it piled up in there..."

Manuscripts or priceless jewels.

"One day the treasure room, like everything else, would belong to her, so she ignored it for the moment. There were easier riches to take."

"Her father had done exceedingly well as a merchant prince; few had ever done better. Francella only had one regret: she wished she could bottle him up and let him continue making business decisions for her-perhaps as a sentient robot that was completely under her control and had her father's mind. Or a disembodied brain that did what she told it to do and just kept making more and more money for her. Yes, that would be perfect."

The Legends of Dune series.

Chapter Twenty-Seven, page 197-198.

"I...I just wanted to offer my condolences for your loss."
Unaffected by the deep sadness on the face of the blonde woman, Francella shouted at her, " You were his whore, but I am his heir. Now get out."

The blonde woman is Theresa.
Francella is of course Brian.

at this point it's pretty obvious it's more than a theory
good work!

"Write what you know"

and there's that "ultra"-word again...

His own words condemn him.

What a sick fuck.

Chapter Twenty-Seven, page 197-198.

"I...I just wanted to offer my condolences for your loss."
Unaffected by the deep sadness on the face of the blonde woman, Francella shouted at her, " You were his whore, but I am his heir. Now get out."

The blonde woman is Theresa.
Francella is of course Brian.

Hey Teg, as you ass posts could you also please amend the first post? That way new surfers only have to look at one post for all of this.

Thanks. Good work btw. I like this kind of analysis where its assumed that real life has met fiction.

Omphalos wrote:Hey Teg, as you ass posts could you also please amend the first post? That way new surfers only have to look at one post for all of this.

Thanks. Good work btw. I like this kind of analysis where its assumed that real life has met fiction.

Sure, no problem.
(The text eerily supports Chig's recent theory about Brian's intentions.)

Also, I'm glad its you reading it and not me.

No kidding.

Beyond the twisted psychological landscape, the actual writing is appalling. Tell-tell-tell, blah-blah-blah. I'm convinced more than ever than Bobo was only ever published due to his last name. He's living proof that writing talent isn't necessarily hereditary.

I love writer's psychological analysis by their own works. It's so interesting how they put their internal problems subtly inside written situations or characters.

Did we ever determine whether this Timewub series is being put out by a REAL publisher, or a vanity press?

From what little I looked at before passing it off to Teg, I'm convinced he had to pay to have that shit published.

Without looking, I thought that books 1 and 2 were put out (at least here in the colonies) by someone I'd heard of, but that book 3 had been strictly a vanity thing. In fact, wasn't there something funny about it? The website didn't work or something? I'm not remembering ...

SandChigger wrote:Did we ever determine whether this Timewub series is being put out by a REAL publisher, or a vanity press?

From what little I looked at before passing it off to Teg, I'm convinced he had to pay to have that shit published.

Two companies are listed.

Thomson Gale
http://www.thomson.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Five Stars
http://www.gale.com/fivestar" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Apparently, Five Stars is the publisher.
"The primary focus of Five Star is the library market..."

If you search the web, Chig and I have written more about this book than the actual publisher.


"In 2002, Five Star added a Science Fiction and Fantasy line. This series consists of hard science fiction, epic fantasy, and horror, featuring original novels from both established masters and the most promising emerging authors.

The primary focus of Five Star is the library market, with more than half of our books sold on standing order."

SandChigger wrote:Did we ever determine whether this Timewub series is being put out by a REAL publisher, or a vanity press?

I looked into it some time ago. It's published by a company called Five Star, which is part of the Gale/Cengage Learning Company. They have traditional channels for fiction. The odd thing is that Cengage now owns the Chilton badge, so essentially the same company that published Dune is publishing Timeweb. The ironic thing is that Chilton published Dune because nobody else would, thinking it would flop. Thereafter Herbert had no problems finding a publisher. BH; his issues are a liiiiiiitle different, aren't they?

It goes like this (probably): Thompson (huge company) owns, Gage. Gage (big literary company that focuses a lot on non-fiction works about fiction) owns Cengage. Cengage (formerly a company that did marketing presentation and sold software for that, but for the last ten years has published books too) owns Five Star. Five Star (a new company that sells very little in the ordinary distribution channels, it seems) is the publisher of - as far as I can tell - all three books.

EDIT: Oh, you know what? This might just be a vanity publisher. Look here

EDIT 2x: Just sent the vanity publisher an e-mail asking "if they had any more Brian Herbert books for sale." We'll see what they say.

EDIT 3x: Shit! this is on the Cengage site. They published it.

That's right, I remember you posting that now. Ah, memory so fickle!

(That last edit link doesn't get me any joy. What was it supposed to be? )

Are they the actual publisher or distributor?

SandChigger wrote:That's right, I remember you posting that now. Ah, memory so fickle!

(That last edit link doesn't get me any joy. What was it supposed to be? )

Go to the Cengage catalog and enter Herbert into the author search. Its a page of his books. Just a link to show what I was asserting.

No, I meant the page doesn't display anything for me: it's totally blank, nothing/nada/zilch in the source view, even.

I'll go do their search then...

Brian Herbert, the son of Frank Herbert, has won several literary honors and has been nominated for the highest awards in science fiction. In 2003, he published Dreamer of Dune, the Hugo Award-nominated biography of his father.

Um, what "literary honors" has this hack actually won again?

The Norman Oklahoma Public Library James Hardwood Memorial Prize?

"Several"?

Name two.

I'm wondering if this is a common thing with all authors, if it's more common with SF/F hacks, or if it's pretty much isolated to proven liars such as TheKJA? Whatever the case, it's just embarrassing. It takes less than 45 seconds of research to determine exactly how many awards an author has been nominated for and/or won.

Omphalos wrote:Also, I'm glad its you reading it and not me.

Painful reading but worth the quotes.
I'm really thinking those passages are pretty close to the mark.

Hit me that Bruce passed away in 1999 the same year that HA was released in October of that year. Interesting isn't it? I will have to go back through DoD but come to think about it I don't recall Brian saying he had a great relationship with his brother either? The text in Timeweb does suggest a sibling rivalry of sorts.

I hesitate to go this route, but after what I have read and still reading, makes me wonder if Bruce held a large percentage of the literary estate as number 2 son until he passed away. Of course, I could be wrong. For all I know Bruce was one of the folks pushing Brian to work with Kevin, but if so, that vibe isn't really present in DoD.

In that podcast interview back a few months ago by that suck-up fanboy over on Facebook, Brian laughs about tormenting Bruce (they were 8 and 4 at the time) about the things that had been in the back of the hearse that Frank Herbert bought and drove them to Mexico in. Tormented to the point of making Bruce cry:

Matthew Peterson: Let me ask you just one bonus question and I think this might be a good question for you. What is a fun experience that you had with your father? An experience you’d like to share with everybody.

Brian Herbert: Yeah. I talked a little bit about the last novel that we wrote together, which was incredible for me to be sitting there and not expecting that to happen. But also, when he and I didn’t really get along very much, he was very impulsive, and so one day he showed up at our house in Tacoma, and we had a little shack down on these tied flats. He showed up at the house in a car that he’d purchased. It was used car. It was a 1941 Cadillac Lasalle Hearse, and it had chapel doors on it that were painted bright yellow and this and that, and that was 1955. He said, “Brian, we’re going to Mexico. You and your brother are going to get shots. We’re going to live down there.”

Matthew Peterson: [laughs]

Brian Herbert: So we got in this hearse and it had rollers in the back, and it smelled like formaldehyde in there and all these creepy things. So I used to tease my little four year old brother, and I was 8 . . . I would tease Bruce back there and tell him about all the horrible things that had been in that hearse. And he would be crying and so Bruce, then, thereafter, every time we rode in that hearse, Bruce usually got to ride in the front, where I didn’t get to ride. I had to stay in the back by myself. [laughs]

Matthew Peterson: Oh. [laughs]

"Oh." is just about right. What else do you say to someone who has just revealed they're a pretty sick fuck?

As I've said before, class act all the way.

http://theauthorhour.com/brian-herbert/extras.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I'm getting more and more convinced that Brian is the one responsible for all those scenes with excessive descriptions of blood and gore. Maybe he wants to make his readers cry too.... Well, he succeeded. Sort of.

dunaddict wrote:I'm getting more and more convinced that Brian is the one responsible for all those scenes with excessive descriptions of blood and gore. Maybe he wants to make his readers cry too.... Well, he succeeded. Sort of.

And most be all Frank's fault according to Brian

SandChigger wrote:In that podcast interview back a few months ago by that suck-up fanboy over on Facebook, Brian laughs about tormenting Bruce (they were 8 and 4 at the time) about the things that had been in the back of the hearse that Frank Herbert bought and drove them to Mexico in. Tormented to the point of making Bruce cry:

Matthew Peterson: Let me ask you just one bonus question and I think this might be a good question for you. What is a fun experience that you had with your father? An experience you’d like to share with everybody.

Brian Herbert: Yeah. I talked a little bit about the last novel that we wrote together, which was incredible for me to be sitting there and not expecting that to happen. But also, when he and I didn’t really get along very much, he was very impulsive, and so one day he showed up at our house in Tacoma, and we had a little shack down on these tied flats. He showed up at the house in a car that he’d purchased. It was used car. It was a 1941 Cadillac Lasalle Hearse, and it had chapel doors on it that were painted bright yellow and this and that, and that was 1955. He said, “Brian, we’re going to Mexico. You and your brother are going to get shots. We’re going to live down there.”

Matthew Peterson: [laughs]

Brian Herbert: So we got in this hearse and it had rollers in the back, and it smelled like formaldehyde in there and all these creepy things. So I used to tease my little four year old brother, and I was 8 . . . I would tease Bruce back there and tell him about all the horrible things that had been in that hearse. And he would be crying and so Bruce, then, thereafter, every time we rode in that hearse, Bruce usually got to ride in the front, where I didn’t get to ride. I had to stay in the back by myself. [laughs]

Matthew Peterson: Oh. [laughs]

"Oh." is just about right. What else do you say to someone who has just revealed they're a pretty sick fuck?

Q: A fun experience with your father...?
Penny's answer, "Oh, going to the beach or learning Spanish love poems.
Brian's answer, "Oh, fucking with my brother."

Timeweb, Chapter Forty-Nine, page 312.

"As a Zultan of the Mutati Kingdom, Abal Meshdi possessed everything a shapeshifter could desire, including a harem of the most stunning and sensual Mutati women in all of creation, each of them rounded heaps of rolling fat."

Mutati=Guess who?