Frank Herbert's notes


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DuckAtreides
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Frank Herbert's notes

Post by DuckAtreides »

I'm wondering, having worked my way through Christopher Tolkien's series of publications on his Dad's works, the History of Middle Earth, if there is any chance we might get some academic sort to do the same for us with Frank Herbert's notes?
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

Post by Freakzilla »

DuckAtreides wrote:I'm wondering, having worked my way through Christopher Tolkien's series of publications on his Dad's works, the History of Middle Earth, if there is any chance we might get some academic sort to do the same for us with Frank Herbert's notes?
Well they would have to exist and an academic sort would need to be allowed access to them. I'm sure there's willing people out there
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

Post by WolfgangMercury »

There definitely are notes in some form or another. Personally though, I think it's just a few pages of outline, and not enough to write two fully fleshed out novels the way Brian and Kevin claim.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

I am also convinced that they exist. There are interviews with Frank Herbert where he mentions them. There is third-party confirmation that he placed them in a safety deposit box when he was planning to climb the Himalayas.

Maybe back in the day there was some reason to be skeptical, but the evidence at this point is overwhelming. The attempts to prove that they don't exist are, to my mind, embarrassing. A prime example of motivated reasoning, of letting emotion overwhelm rationality.

And if we accept that the notes exist, I would argue that it's of course possible to write two fully fleshed out novels based on them no matter how brief or fragmentary they are—it just means you have to add a lot more. That's fine in principle: you work with what you have.

The problem isn't the premise or the method, it's the result, which is due to the people doing it. Give incompetent hacks with a track record of contradicting Frank Herbert's books an outline for an unwritten Dune sequel, and you're not going to get a book that feels like a faithful conclusion to the series.

I'm convinced the notes will surface, one day. It might be after Brian Herbert is gone, or once the property is no longer as valuable as it remains currently. (By current copyright law, the books will start to enter the public domain in 2056.)
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

Post by WolfgangMercury »

It would be incredible to actually see the real outline for Dune 7. Sadly, if it were ever actually released, the Dynamic Duo wouldn't be able to milk it anymore, so we probably won't see it until Dune becomes public domain.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

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There may be an outline, but I doubt it has anything to do with what we got in Hunters and Sadworms. For one thing, Erasmus and Omnious were admittedly Pinky and the Brian's own creations. The "notes" were supposedly in a box Brian "found" in his attic. Sure... What I want to see more than the "character sketches" is FH's highlighted copy of CH:D.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

Freakzilla wrote:There may be an outline, but I doubt it has anything to do with what we got in Hunters and Sadworms. For one thing, Erasmus and Omnious were admittedly Pinky and the Brian's own creations.
There can be material based on Frank Herbert's notes in the books even if a lot of it is their own invention. As Brian Herbert has said: "We've added a lot to it. I mean, it was more of an inspiration for us in kind of a general concept than a detailed scene-by-scene outline."

By their own account, they initially brainstormed story ideas for the finale before Brian discovered the DUNE 7 notes, and it would not at all surprise me if what they did was to fit whatever they could of FH's outline into the structure they had already established. I've previously identified an example of what it looks like when they've taken a detail from an early Dune outline and adapted it into a subplot in House Harkonnen, and I think it demonstrates that their adaptation process can turn "authentic" material into something you'd never believe came from Frank Herbert.

I find that a more plausible theory than to think that they have an outline (which cannot be credibly denied) but decided not to use it at all.
The "notes" were supposedly in a box Brian "found" in his attic. Sure...
I'm pretty sure all the DUNE 7 stuff they have cited was from the safety deposit box. The notes found in the attic/garage were other Dune-related papers. And it does seem pretty clear that they do have some unseen papers, since their Spice Planet novella draws on both material from Fullerton (e.g. the name "Valdemar Hoskanner") as well as material not known from Fullerton (e.g. "Ulla Bauers," "Dorothy Mapes").

FH mentioned in interviews that he would create character folders for his characters (in some cases, complete with photo clippings to help visualize them), and it's plausible that he held on to those when he donated many of his other papers to Fullerton, in case he was going to write about them in future installments. So again, I can easily believe that Brian and Kevin have (some of?) those, though I doubt they add much to what's in the books. (I can pretty much tell you what it says about Jessica, for example, since her description is repeated almost verbatim numerous times in the books.)

Here as well, Brian Herbert has openly admitted that most of those papers aren't particularly useful for writing additional Dune stories. Let's say it includes, for example, a copy of the second draft of God Emperor of Dune. What are they gonna do with that?

I think they (in particular KJA) are guilty of playing up "we have Frank Herbert's notes" as a way of bolstering the legitimacy of their books, but the speculation that they're actually lying about their existence doesn't fit the known facts very well.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

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From what I remember the box Brian found in his attic was character sketches. Whether or not the notes/outline are real and how extensive they were is not really an issue to me. I just wish someone who understood Dune and wasn't the most prolific hack in science fiction would have had the chance to make sense of them. Or let us see them for ourselves. This is why we won't see them, because it'll show how far off the mark they really were.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

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the Dynamic Duo won't release the outline & notes, because that would reveal that their fanfiction barely followed them, if at all. I believe they exist, and if I get my hands on them, this forum will find out first (I still have a working USB floppy drive, so I'm prepared).

the Silmarillion was heavy at times with all the exposition, but really paid off.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

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xcalibur wrote:the Dynamic Duo won't release the outline & notes, because that would reveal that their fanfiction barely followed them, if at all. I believe they exist, and if I get my hands on them, this forum will find out first (I still have a working USB floppy drive, so I'm prepared).

the Silmarillion was heavy at times with all the exposition, but really paid off.
If only FH had a son like Chris Tolkein :(
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

Post by xcalibur »

Freakzilla wrote:
xcalibur wrote:the Dynamic Duo won't release the outline & notes, because that would reveal that their fanfiction barely followed them, if at all. I believe they exist, and if I get my hands on them, this forum will find out first (I still have a working USB floppy drive, so I'm prepared).

the Silmarillion was heavy at times with all the exposition, but really paid off.
If only FH had a son like Chris Tolkein :(
indeed. I've seen randos online criticize him, but without merit IMO. granted, his father may have paved the way for him, but he was still a very valuable contributor to Middle Earth. he did justice to the Silmarillion and got it out in a timely way, along with his many other publications from JRRs vast notes. he respected the legacy, rather than milking it with hackjobs. that's one problem with bloodlines and inheritance, there's no guarantee the child will live up to their role.

btw, Christopher Tolkien passed recently, RIP.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

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Cpt. Aramsham wrote: 23 Aug 2020 03:47 I am also convinced that they exist. There are interviews with Frank Herbert where he mentions them. There is third-party confirmation that he placed them in a safety deposit box when he was planning to climb the Himalayas.

Maybe back in the day there was some reason to be skeptical, but the evidence at this point is overwhelming. The attempts to prove that they don't exist are, to my mind, embarrassing. A prime example of motivated reasoning, of letting emotion overwhelm rationality.

And if we accept that the notes exist, I would argue that it's of course possible to write two fully fleshed out novels based on them no matter how brief or fragmentary they are—it just means you have to add a lot more. That's fine in principle: you work with what you have.

The problem isn't the premise or the method, it's the result, which is due to the people doing it. Give incompetent hacks with a track record of contradicting Frank Herbert's books an outline for an unwritten Dune sequel, and you're not going to get a book that feels like a faithful conclusion to the series.

I'm convinced the notes will surface, one day. It might be after Brian Herbert is gone, or once the property is no longer as valuable as it remains currently. (By current copyright law, the books will start to enter the public domain in 2056.)
Did Brian ever say he was working on Dune 7 with his father?
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

Post by Cpt. Aramsham »

No. In Dreamer of Dune he is pretty clear that he didn't, and that Frank didn't discuss the plot with him. He does say that they talked loosely about working on a Dune prequel together during one of his hospitalizations (January 5–19, 1986) shortly before he died:
Dad spoke of how well the first round of treatments had gone in Wisconsin, and of how much he looked forward to returning to work on “Dune 7.” The new book was barely under way when he had to leave it. He said we might work on a Dune book together one day—perhaps a Dune “prequel” idea I had suggested to him, set in the mythical time of the Butlerian Jihad. He said my writing had come a long way.
In the biography, Brian describes Frank talking about plans to write Dune 7 in January and February 1985 (after completing several other projects, including Man of Two Worlds and some screenplays he was working on), but only starting to work on it "seriously" on November 11 of that year (when his health was already failing):
To begin, this involved carefully reviewing the other six books in the series for the threads he wanted to continue in the new work. He used a yellow highlighter pen, with which he marked key passages in the books. […] I went to visit Dad at 1:30 that afternoon [December 4]. When I entered his study at the rear of the house, he smiled at me and closed a paperback copy of Chapterhouse: Dune that he had been highlighting in yellow.
However, that work was soon interrupted. Frank had been diagnosed with cancer on November 22, and began treatment on December 16, which took up his time and sapped his energy.

I seem to remember Brian saying (though it's not in Dreamer) that after Frank's death, they tried but failed to locate the highlighted books. According to him, when the safety deposit box of notes was discovered, it "was a tremendous surprise to all of us, since we didn’t know that my father had made any notes at all."

In Dreamer, he appears to have been under the impression that the notes must have been made at the very end of Frank's life, some time between November 1985 and February 1986. (Frank died on February 11, from a blood clot while recovering from cancer surgery.) However, the evidence that has since come to light tends to show that they must have been made about a year earlier, when Frank claimed in several interviews that he was working on another Dune book. The interview where J.M. Stine says Frank happened to mention that he had placed them in a safety deposit box was published on January 10, 1985.

By Brian Herbert's account, after Bev's death, Frank was unable to initiate and complete new writing projects, jumping from idea to idea only to abandon them. But he also had a contract with his publisher to deliver Dune 7. So starting work on Dune 7 in late 1984, putting it aside, then starting over a year later seems quite in character.
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

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By Brian Herbert's account, after Bev's death, Frank was unable to initiate and complete new writing projects, jumping from idea to idea only to abandon them. But he also had a contract with his publisher to deliver Dune 7. So starting work on Dune 7 in late 1984, putting it aside, then starting over a year later seems quite in character.
Your post deserves a longer reply but sometimes it's like untangling a hella long piece of rope...

The third party updated quote about the Himalayas and the safety deposit box is questionable (but not really important in the end). My friend from college, a third party, was a sales rep for TOR and had regular meetings with Doherty. In fact, he gifted me with an advance reader copy of the Road to Dune. When I asked him about the notes and outline, he had no idea what I was talking about and I had to explain the whole shebang to him. His reply was that the HLP was looking for a way to revive the franchise and Kevin J Anderson was recommended to them, which isn't as inspiring as the official narrative.

However, I agree at this point there's no doubt he was working on the sequel to CH Dune or Dune 7. The reason I wrote that the third party quote is not really important in the end is because of what is written in the two other sources you cited (btw, someone updated and reposted that thread on alt.dune).

First, Frank Herbert is quoted as saying the publishers already had a copy of the outline (so why the need for the safety deposit box?).
Btw: 2014Trevoke asked Brian Herbert:
Will you release your father's raw notes on Dune?
Brian Herbert Perhaps, but not soon. There are several forms this could take, including his notes for the original novel DUNE, and his subsequent notes about the series. It’s amazing that Frank Herbert kept so many complex details straight without using a computer—more than 1,000,000 words in Frank Herbert’s 6 Dune-series novels.
Second,Frank Herbert is quoted as saying the Dune 7 ending was suppose to be about democracy and governments not what we got in HoD and SoD.
HERBERT: [Laughs] I'm willing to gamble. Now I'll tell you something interesting in MY reading of history: Every time we have pulled the lid off the human desire to govern our, own affairs, to be free of government - we've had a renaissance of some kind. We've had a social -renaissance, we've had a political renaissance, an artistic renaissance. Every time in history we've unleashed this, we've gone forward by leaps and bounds. So I'm saying, "All right, this is what history says to me. So why don't we do it again?" That's what I'm playing with in. the seventh Dune book, moving toward showing the kind of governments that finally evolve out of the situation I have created.]
If we accept these sources as proof of the outline, we have to accept what the intended ending was suppose to be about in his own words.
I find that a more plausible theory than to think that they have an outline (which cannot be credibly denied) but decided not to use it at all.
I absolutely agree and this is where the waters get muddied...

NYT Feb 13, 1986
Mr. Herbert had been working with his son Brian on the seventh novel in his ''Dune'' series and several other projects at the time of his death, according to Kirby McCauley, Mr. Herbert's literary agent in New York.
Philadelphia Daily News, 10. December 1984
At 64, he could give up writing and live comfortably in retirement. No way. "The sixth book, 'Chapter-House Dune,' will be out in March '85, and I'm plotting the seventh book now."
UCLA speech, March 1985,Brian Herbert has also claimed that his father talked about collaborating with him on a book about the Butlerian Jihad. And in a Q&A session after a talk at UCLA on April 17, 1985, we have this exchange (at 50:45):
Q: Concerning the seventh Dune book you're planning. Do you plan to have it like go back in the history of the saga, to you know kind of explore the rise of the Guild… ?
FH: To do a prequel, you mean?
Q: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
FH: Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to do a short story or novelette on this in the next year.
During the same time, McNelly has stated that he had numerous conversations with Frank Herbert about writing a prequel to Dune together centering around the material in the DE (baseline), and he had sent Frank Herbert an outline, extensive notes, and several sample chapters.

Both Brian Herbert and Willis McNelly claim that they were going to collaborate on a prequel with Frank Herbert.
Before Frank's death Brian Herbert said the DE was a masterpiece.
After Frank's death Brian Herbert refused all contact with McNelly and refused to reprint the DE (backed by lawyer's).
After agreeing to collaborate with KJA, Brian stated at a book signing that Ai Perdito by L Ron Hubbard and Kevin is great literature.
Brian and Kevin have often said the Dune 7 notes will never be published.
The HLP has often stated that the DE will never be reprinted.

Kevin and Brian have been open about how much has been retconed and the rationale behind this is best explained by KJA himself.
You’re obviously a dedicated Dune fan, and so am I. We’ve both read the original chronicles very closely and enjoyed their mastery. One thing you must keep in mind, though, is that *a lot* of people gave up on the Dune books. GOD EMPEROR, HERETICS, and CHAPTERHOUSE are very difficult novels for many readers, and Frank retained only about 10% of his audience through to the end. Rather than writing our new Dune novels to please the small group of the elite, we have instead recaptured and revived interest among that 90% who loved the first DUNE and not the others. ]
The original outline is for the 10% but they are not writing for that 10% but the other 90%.
They retconed the hell out it to appeal to those 90%.

They didn't need the original outline.
Maybe some of McNelly's.


Sorry I am also jumping around. :oops:
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Re: Frank Herbert's notes

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Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19 The third party updated quote about the Himalayas and the safety deposit box is questionable (but not really important in the end).
It depends on what the argument is about. There have been a lot of people claiming that Brian's story about the Dune 7 notes is a lie, and that such notes do not exist and/or he doesn't have them. The third-party quote is pretty compelling circumstantial evidence that it is in fact true.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19 First, Frank Herbert is quoted as saying the publishers already had a copy of the outline (so why the need for the safety deposit box?).
To me, the two things don't seem related. The publishers had their copy, Frank had his. He placed his copy (or one of his copies) in a safety deposit box, apparently "in case something happened with him." But it might also just be because he was moving around a lot in these months, between Port Townsend, LA, Hawaii, Seattle, and on various publicity tours. Or there might have been some other reason we don't know about.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19My friend from college, a third party, was a sales rep for TOR and had regular meetings with Doherty. In fact, he gifted me with an advance reader copy of the Road to Dune. When I asked him about the notes and outline, he had no idea what I was talking about and I had to explain the whole shebang to him. His reply was that the HLP was looking for a way to revive the franchise and Kevin J Anderson was recommended to them, which isn't as inspiring as the official narrative.
I don't really see the relevance of this, and I also don't think it really conflicts with the "official narrative" in any significant way. Here's Brian's telling:
Brian Herbert, House Atreides afterword wrote:The trouble was, a fellow named Ed Kramer kept after me. An accomplished editor and sponsor of science fiction/fantasy conventions, he wanted to put together an anthology of short stories set in the Dune universe—stories by different, well-known authors. He convinced me that it would be an interesting, significant project, and we talked about coediting it. All the details weren’t finalized, since the project had a number of complexities, both legal and artistic. In the midst of this, Ed told me he had received a letter from best-selling author Kevin J. Anderson, who had been invited to contribute to the proposed anthology. He suggested what he called a “shot in the dark,” asking about the possibility of working at novel length, preferably on a sequel to CHAPTERHOUSE: DUNE.
So he's saying that they were working on plans to revive the franchise, with the initial idea being an anthology, and then Kevin J. Anderson was recommended. It's also clear that he's glossing over some elements, since he mentions unspecified "legal complexities." So isn't this essentially the same as what your friend told you, just told from a different point of view?
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19(btw, someone updated and reposted that thread on alt.dune).
Not sure what you mean by this.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19
Btw: 2014Trevoke asked Brian Herbert:
Will you release your father's raw notes on Dune?
Brian Herbert Perhaps, but not soon. There are several forms this could take, including his notes for the original novel DUNE, and his subsequent notes about the series. It’s amazing that Frank Herbert kept so many complex details straight without using a computer—more than 1,000,000 words in Frank Herbert’s 6 Dune-series novels.
I don't know what Brian meant by that. Maybe he was talking about making a reference database, like the "Dune Concordance" he created for himself. Or maybe he was talking about all the work he did without a computer (either by hand or typewriter). Basically, he seems to be saying that Frank didn't have all the notes for Dune computerized, which is certainly true. Again, I don't see why it matters. We know Frank Herbert did use a computer for some of his writing: he wrote a book where he talks about it.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19Second,Frank Herbert is quoted as saying the Dune 7 ending was suppose to be about democracy and governments not what we got in HoD and SoD.

If we accept these sources as proof of the outline, we have to accept what the intended ending was suppose to be about in his own words.
Sure. But it doesn't necessarily mean that those ideas were expressed in the outline in any definite way.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19
I find that a more plausible theory than to think that they have an outline (which cannot be credibly denied) but decided not to use it at all.
I absolutely agree and this is where the waters get muddied...
Muddied how? You have a whole lot of quotes, but you don't say what argument they are meant to support.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19NYT Feb 13, 1986
Mr. Herbert had been working with his son Brian on the seventh novel in his ''Dune'' series and several other projects at the time of his death, according to Kirby McCauley, Mr. Herbert's literary agent in New York.
It seems clear that McCauley or the NYT journalist got this wrong. They must have conflated Dune 7 with the book the two were working on together, Man of Two Worlds. (Or perhaps with the conversations they had had about collaborating on a Dune prequel at some point, though I think that's much less likely.)
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19
UCLA speech, March 1985,Brian Herbert has also claimed that his father talked about collaborating with him on a book about the Butlerian Jihad. And in a Q&A session after a talk at UCLA on April 17, 1985, we have this exchange (at 50:45):
Q: Concerning the seventh Dune book you're planning. Do you plan to have it like go back in the history of the saga, to you know kind of explore the rise of the Guild… ?
FH: To do a prequel, you mean?
Q: Yeah, yeah, that's it.
FH: Yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to do a short story or novelette on this in the next year.
Dune 7 and the Dune prequel novella were two separate things. It's presumably the same one mentioned in Dreamer of Dune:
Brian Herbert, Dreamer of Dune wrote:[At his death] He also left undone a new collection of science fiction stories, which was to include a 20,000-word novella set in the Dune universe.*

*The new short story collection was a contractual obligation to G. P. Putnam’s Sons, as part of a package deal that included the “Dune 7” novel.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19During the same time, McNelly has stated that he had numerous conversations with Frank Herbert about writing a prequel to Dune together centering around the material in the DE (baseline), and he had sent Frank Herbert an outline, extensive notes, and several sample chapters.
Just to be precise, I believe McNelly said he had one lengthy phone conversation with Frank, and the material he sent was an outline, notes, and just one sample chapter.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19Both Brian Herbert and Willis McNelly claim that they were going to collaborate on a prequel with Frank Herbert.
Before Frank's death Brian Herbert said the DE was a masterpiece.
After Frank's death Brian Herbert refused all contact with McNelly and refused to reprint the DE (backed by lawyer's).
After agreeing to collaborate with KJA, Brian stated at a book signing that Ai Perdito by L Ron Hubbard and Kevin is great literature.
Brian and Kevin have often said the Dune 7 notes will never be published.
The HLP has often stated that the DE will never be reprinted.
A couple of corrections here. Brian Herbert supposedly called the DE a masterpiece in a 1990 letter, so not before Frank's death, which also shows that there was contact between them after Frank's death.

Look, I agree that the HLP's treatment of McNelly was rather shabby (particularly in that statement they forced him to sign onto), but I also think McNelly brought some of it upon himself:

- First by putting himself forward to continue the Dune series (as author or co-author). Brian and the estate/HLP clearly were not open to this, for several good reasons, including no doubt the copyright complications and pitfalls involved with basing the work on the DE and thus on contributions by a bunch of different people who might make difficulties. (Other considerations might include McNelly's unproven status as an author, his age, and the fact that the bare bones of the story he was proposing had already been told in the DE.) Perhaps they should have responded to his approach out of courtesy, but there may have been legal considerations that would make such a response unwise.
- Having made that decision, republishing the DE was not an attractive proposition to them, since it would tend to open that door, or at least make it harder for them to go in a different direction.
- McNelly communicated with fans on alt.fan.dune and Frank Herbert mailing lists in ways that tended to rile them up against the HLP once they started trying to revive the franchise.
- Spurred on by some of these hardcore fans, he made legal threats against the HLP. I would call this extremely foolish: I don't think he had a legal case, and even if he did he had no chance of prevailing. And it was totally counterproductive to any faint hope of getting the DE republished.

As for Brian's comment about one of Kevin's books with L. Ron Hubbard (!) being great literature, I don't see the relevance, though I'm curious how that collaboration worked. KJA completing some unfinished Hubbard outline or draft? From what I can tell, the book is a comedic spy adventure, so it's possible the comment was tongue-in-cheek, but I can also see how it would appeal to Brian, who started out writing humor.

If that anecdote proves anything, isn't it only to devalue the… err, value of literary praise by Brian Herbert, and hence the significance of his calling the DE a masterpiece?
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19Kevin and Brian have been open about how much has been retconed and the rationale behind this is best explained by KJA himself.
You’re obviously a dedicated Dune fan, and so am I. We’ve both read the original chronicles very closely and enjoyed their mastery. One thing you must keep in mind, though, is that *a lot* of people gave up on the Dune books. GOD EMPEROR, HERETICS, and CHAPTERHOUSE are very difficult novels for many readers, and Frank retained only about 10% of his audience through to the end. Rather than writing our new Dune novels to please the small group of the elite, we have instead recaptured and revived interest among that 90% who loved the first DUNE and not the others. ]
The original outline is for the 10% but they are not writing for that 10% but the other 90%.
They retconed the hell out it to appeal to those 90%.
It is self-evident that the Brian and Kevin books are written to be less challenging than Frank's books, but I think you're making some unwarranted leaps of logic here. First, Kevin does not say anything about retcons. Second, when was this quote from? Because it seems obvious that the audience for Hunters and Sandworms are mainly the readers who did get through all of the original series.

Ultimately, we cannot know how much of the original outline they ignored/changed without seeing the outline. If the outline was very sketchy, they may not have needed to omit or change much of it at all, just add their own stuff to it.
Mr. Teg wrote: 06 Aug 2023 00:19They didn't need the original outline.
Maybe some of McNelly's.
Wait, what? McNelly never did any work on a post-Chapterhouse sequel, and I've never heard anyone argue that Hunters/Sandworms are derivative of DE material.

If anything, the books that would draw on McNelly's outline would be the Butlerian Jihad prequels.
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