)+++++
Okay, so one of my gigantic issues with Anderhack is his continual self-promotion. Beyond that, I've always suspected that much of what he says is just flat-out inaccurate at best; at worst, he's a complete liar.
I've already done some research showing that his "numerous awards" are actually something like four awards in total (in a nearly 30-year career), none of which are major and one of which is for children's books. It's also been a breeze to expose Becky Moesta as a sham author — she has no individual credits at all that I can find — and to take the air out of the "Brian Herbert is a respected author" balloon. Those are all easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
I actually had to do a little research for this one. I'm sick of running into Keith's "I've written 10 DUNE Books, and each one has peaked higher than the last on the bestseller lists!" spiel, and I've always suspected it was patently false. Let's check: here's the performance of the last five PreekDune novels on the official New York Times hardcover fiction list:
What you're looking at there is a series that is getting demonstrably less popular, even with a built-in base of mouth-breathing preeks who will buy anything with a big "DUNE" on the cover and SF/F completists who will ... uh ... buy anything with a big "DUNE" on the cover.
The trend here can be summed up in a single word: down. Corrin enjoyed four solid weeks ... Hunters debuted at No. 3 (!!), but then tanked quickly ... Sandworms managed to squeeze out four weeks ... Paul only lasted for one week ... and Winds barely made the list even once before disappearing forever (the NYT lists are 15 deep).
I've said this before, but I'll repeat: without a massive marketing push, there's no way that Leto's Golden Throne or Whatever of DUNE is going to be a NYT best-seller. There does appear to be a threshold for over-saturation, crappy dicta-writing, and shitting all over your fanbase. What's scary is that I think Brian Herbert, of all people, sees this and knows that the good times won't last forever — it was Brian who made all the noise last summer about calling it a day after three more books at most.
Oh, and Kevin? You're a fucking liar. Take that "peaked higher" line out of your cut-and-paste promotional material, Fat Boy, and do it now.
