Frank Herbert Lives by Byron Merritt
Posted: 20 May 2010 11:22
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Here we go
Unless... no he can't have meant what now means
almost felt empathy there, but...
Kaaching'!!
The rest is history!
Here we go
My first clear memory of my grandpa was when he lived in Port Townsend on Ivy Drive near a wooded cove surrounded by pines and water. It was June of 1972 and I was seven years old.
No wonder he can't understand Dune if at 7 he read like a 4 year old"Do you know what those big white letters on the cover say?" he asked.
I scanned the book's surface and saw the letters he was referring to. "Fffrrrannnk Herrrbbberrt," I said, then looked up in astonishment. "That's your name!"
I believe it is "until then"My memory spun back to the meeting in Grandpa's study when I was seven. "I write." I had no idea what that truly meant... until now.
Unless... no he can't have meant what now means
again poor understanding of how art works in general, it is not some form of spontaneous creation, talent needs research and work to create a masterpiece(otherwise you're just a hack with delusions of grandeur)I spent several summers with Grandpa after that and learned a lot from him. I took him stories I'd written and watched as he meticulously went over them. He would give me pointers on plot structure, the use of adjectives, and many other things that helped me weave tales. But I could never create a world as complex as his no matter how hard I tried. It seemed an impossible feat to create, as my Uncle Brian Herbert said of the original Dune novel in his Afterword to Dune: House Atreides - "a magnum opus that stands as one of the most complex, multilayered novels ever written." How did Grandpa do it? What grain of sand wafted into that brain of his, creating such an incredibly textured universe?
wow...After Grandpa's death, I still hadn't realised how important he was. I missed him terribly, an emptiness that one feels when a family loses someone close to them. What I hadn't realised was how it would affect others
almost felt empathy there, but...
he last Dune novel Grandpa wrote, Chapterhouse Dune, ended on a cliffhanger, promising something greater and more profound in the final book. [...] Besides, [Brian] didn't know exactly where his dad was going with the Dune series before he died.
After more haranguing by agents and publishers, Brian was contacted by an editor who introduced Brian to [...] best-selling author Kevin J. Anderson, and they began throwing ideas around. After months of painstaking research and deliberation, they decided to start setting the groundwork for three prequels to the original Dune (Dune: House Atreides, Dune: House Harkonnen, and Dune: House Corrino), but still had no clear idea how the final book should end. What did Frank Herbert have in mind for 'Dune 7'?
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did the housemaid in him advise Frank to clean up his notes?"Just keep a backup copy of everything you write off premises," Brian told me he had said to his father on several occasions. "It was the insurance agent in me talking," he recalled later. "Fire, flood, or any number of disasters could have ruined his work if he wasn't careful. Little did I know he would take my advice to the extreme." Brian's advice would bear fruit he couldn't have imagined.
and you know what that means dontcha?In the middle of June 1997, my own mother (Penny Merritt) called me. There was an air of excitement in her voice. We went through the usual 'how are you' and 'I'm fine how are you' type conversation, then I finally had to ask:
"What's going on?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, trying to sound calm and collected, but failing miserably.
"Mom. What's going on?"
"Oh honey, it's just wonderful," she said in a quavering voice.
"What is?"
"We've found notes for a seventh Dune book. They were discovered in a safety deposit box in Seattle after all these years."
Kaaching'!!
The rest is history!
