Frank Herbert & John W Campbell in Great Sand Dunes National Park

One moment you drive through scenic Colorado. The next, sand dunes transform the land. 

It's a curious thing, to gaze upon these dunes, and realize that in full sun the temperature can rise to 130 degrees. It calls to mind the devastation that can creep so readily into our world through neglect, or a misappropriation of our resources. For Science Fiction fans, it calls to mind the world of Arrakis, a desert planet at the heart of Frank Herbert's novel Dune.

Dune took Frank Herbert years to write. Inspiration came from an area of expanding sand dunes that a community in Oregon had fought to control. Ideas and guidance also came from editors and fellow writers in the Science Fiction community. Kevin J. Anderson, and Frank Herbert's son Brian, while preserving and expanding the Dune universe, published a short novel called Duneworld, based on Frank Herbert's original story outline. It is a vastly different story, lacking many of the elements that made Dune extraordinary, such as the entire Bene Gesserit order, and the depth of the evil Harkonnen family. This is the story that Frank Herbert might have written, if not for the assistance of his fellow writers, and the guidance of editor John W. Campbell.
 

It was interesting to sit and sketch here, while contemplating this awesome expanse of desert, as well as Frank Herbert's monumental novel. Kevin J. Anderson, a guardian of Frank Herbert's legacy, has hiked here. As an author who dictates his first draft based on an outline while he hikes, he found inspiration and beauty here. While my drawing did service to the sand dunes, my wife's watercolor truly captured the beauty and diversity of the national park.

In Dune, the spice mined on Arrakis helped humanity progress. So every aspect of human community and endeavor must constantly refine itself, and find new ways to meet the demands of a changing world. Sadly, the Science Fiction community has recently chosen to move into the future by attacking the legacy of patriarchs like John W. Campbell because his opinions and beliefs no longer equivocate with theirs. Because a man who died fifty years ago, and whose paradigm of life was formed a century ago, thought and saw the world differently than they currently do, the Science Fiction community has stripped his name from a prestigious award, as well as an annual conference.

So much for honoring a lifetime of contributions to the field, and the countless novels he elevated, like Dune, into extraordinary works of art.

It is easy to destroy, and hard to build. The dunes at Great Sand Dunes National Park teach us that. After two hours sketching in the sun, I found myself wiped out, even though I had sheltered  from the sun, and thought I had drunk enough water. The experience taught me respect for this awesome place, as I have always respected Frank Herbert's novel Dune, and the literary achievements of Kevin J. Anderson. After reading Duneworld in Kevin and Brian's book The Road To Dune, I also respect the magnitude of John W. Campbell contributions to the field, even if the strongest voices in contemporary Science Fiction do not.

Dragon Dave

Kevin J Anderson's Jihad

The author exploring Red Rock Canyon State Park

Author Kevin J Anderson is mad about hiking. In fact, he hikes everyday. Why? Because he writes everyday. And yes, he writes while he's hiking.

Everyday he leaves home with his notes, heads out on a trail into the wilderness, dictates his chapters into recorder, and later transcribes his notes into the computer for editing. This is one sign of his brilliance: he's found a way to fuse two activities he loves to maximize his time.

Many years ago Kevin J. Anderson was hiking through Death Valley, and the desolate surroundings reminded him of Dune by Frank Herbert. Like me, Kevin loved the novel and its sequels, and as Frank Herbert had died, he wondered if Herbert's son Brian might be writing any more in the series. As Kevin had published several novels by this point, he called up Brian, introduced himself, and offered his services as a cowriter. Brian eventually took him up on his offer. So because he was hiking through a desolate place like Death Valley, because he had laid down a foundation of respectability as a writer, and because he had the audacity to call up Brian and make the offer, Kevin J. Anderson became a cowriter of this bestselling series.

My own love affair with Dune began in the early 1980s. One of the first characters Frank Herbert introduced me to was Piter De Vries, a man who takes drugs to aid his fantastic mental abilities. He's been trained as a Mentat, which means his mind has all the associative and computational capabilities of a computer. This makes him a highly skilled man whose services are in great demand. You see, thousands of years in the past, computers gained artificial intelligence that enabled them to think and act for themselves. These computers and their mobile robot counterparts decided that they were better and smarter than humans. So, after many years of subjugation, humanity fought a great war to free themselves from all computers and intelligent robots. This war was called the Butlerian Jihad, and after humanity triumphed, computers and robots were declared illegal. Thus, the necessity of trained people like Piter De Vries to use his computational and associative capabilities to help society keep advancing. 

As the Butlerian Jihad lay in the past, Frank Herbert didn't offer too many details about it. Nevertheless, it was a foundational event in Dune's history, and readers like me who loved Frank Herbert's Dune novels wondered about the Butlerian Jihad, and hungered for more details about it.

In addition to writing novels set after Frank Herbert's six Dune novels, Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson delved into the series'  past  One of their prequels was The Butlerian Jihad. After decades of wondering about this key event, I finally got to read all about it. 

Had Kevin not followed his instincts, called up Brian, and offered his services, The Butlerian Jihad might never have been written. Alternatively, Brian might have written The Butlerian Jihad on his own, or with another author. But because Kevin J. Anderson followed his curiosity, and risked rejection, he got to cowrite a book that I very much wanted to read: The Butlerian Jihad! How cool is that?

I've read books by Kevin J. Anderson before he started writing Dune novels, and I've read many of his other novels set in other universes since. But the ones that thrust him into the forefront of my awareness were his Dune novels. Happy Birthday Kevin J. Anderson. Thanks for cowriting The Butlerian Jihad, and so many other entertaining books. Without your impact on my life, my bookshelves wouldn't be nearly so full. Imagine how terrible that would that be. Talk about a dystopian future!

Dragon Dave

Related Internet Links
A short video in which Kevin discusses his Dune novels
Watch Part 1 of the "Frank Herbert's Dune" TV miniseries

Hungarian Folktales and a Changing Publishing Market

In Folktales of Hungary, Linda Degh demonstrates the importance of Folktales to the Hungarian poor.  Great importance was placed on the overall form of each story.  Individual storytellers were allowed to embroider, but audiences demanded they retain the key elements of any story.  Thus, while researchers might discover hundreds of variations, they could identify which particular story a person was telling.

Folktales preserved a community’s identity.  Legends explained unique aspects of a village or group.  Stories intermixed the religious and secular, as to a certain extent, both were seen as controlling and oppressive.  Parents instilled the culture’s most important stories in their children, so that as they grew older, they would be able to relate the basics of each story.  An essential part of family gatherings involved storytelling.  People gathered in each other’s homes to perform tasks such as spinning wool or making clothing, and sang songs or told stories to keep everyone’s mind off the tedious tasks.

If life took you away from your community, the folk tales you had learned took on even more importance.  After working all day in a new place, what better way to relax in the evening than to listen to a story?  Of course, at some point, you would be expected to contribute.  Tales became a form of currency for the wandering poor, the itinerant student, and discharged soldiers.  If you became a servant in someone’s house, your employer might expect you to lull him or her to sleep with a tale.  And if you joined the military, you had better be ready to tell an interesting story after lights out.  Anyone who could not was forced to shout into a stove, “Oh mother!  Haven’t you brought me up to be a big brute of an ass, who hasn’t even been taught to tell a tale!”

In his blog, author Kevin J. Anderson relates how he and Brian Herbert have been forced to shorten their book tours.

“The very nature of bookselling and promotion is changing dramatically with the closing of the Borders chain, Barnes & Noble announcing the closing of another 100 stores, the rise of eBooks and online bookselling. Another factor: newspapers and local TV news have dropped most of their coverage of book events so it’s nearly impossible to get any sort of media attention for a book signing (especially for the middle book in an original trilogy). Many publishers are dropping their author tours entirely.”

So even bestselling authors have been affected by this societal trend.  Locus Magazine’s February issue is always devoted to the year in review, and this year it highlighted how the number of publishers is increasing.  Traditionally, the major publishers produced certain types, or forms, of fiction.  For example, a Science Fiction or Fantasy reader knew what type of book Baen or Tor published.  With the proliferation of publishers, and the rising ease (and acceptance) of self-publishing, authors will be empowered to write any type of story without adhering to traditional rules.  This may more it difficult for the reader to know what to expect from any particular book, and hence derive satisfaction from the reading experience.

To a certain extent, I think the popularity of ABC TV’s “Once Upon A Time” reflects this evolution in storytelling.  The series follows a soap opera format, with no episode expected to stand on its own.  Hence, a viewer cannot watch a single episode and instantly understand the characters.  Nor does it restrict itself to European fairy tale types.  This season, they’ve introduced Mulan and Doctor Frankenstein as characters.  But does overall story logic matter, provided each episode entertains us, and causes us to tune in next week? 

Folktales in Hungary were always considered passing entertainment rather than art.  With reduced barriers to entry, will overall quality deteriorate?  And with the loss of the gatekeepers, such as the traditional publishers and bookstores, will Fiction still build communities?  Will it uphold genres?  Can Fiction survive the translation to a mostly eBook format?  Or will books become a passing diversion, easily downloaded like any other type of computer file, and no more memorable than this—or any other—blog post?

Dragon Dave

Addicted to a Good Book

I’ll admit that I’m a compulsive reader.  Somehow, I just can’t control myself.  A whim will strike me so powerfully that I cave in.  Perhaps it’s a book I read long ago and, suddenly, I realize I must read it again.  Maybe it’s a book I bought several years ago, but somehow it never got placed in the stack by my bed.  Or perhaps it’s one I’ve just purchased or received as a gift, and it just can’t wait!  In any case, I’ll open this particular book that two minutes ago I didn’t have to read, immerse myself for a chapter or two, and then awaken to the fact that it will now have to compete with all the other great stuff I’m enjoying.  

Take, for example, my current bedside stack.  I’ve loved the Lovejoy TV series for twenty years.  Now I’m digging the Jonathan Gash novels that launched it.  Even though I’m reading out of order, my wife bought me the latest installment, Faces in the Pool, and I had to honor her gift, right?  Then there’s Dune, perhaps my favorite novel of all time.  For nearly thirty years, I’ve been intrigued by aspects of the backstory that Frank Herbert built his novel upon.  Although I bought it several years ago, I’m finally reading The Butlerian Jihad by his son Brian Herbert and cowriter Kevin J. Anderson.  Enough, you say?  Perhaps it should be, but it’s not.  We’re planning our next trip to England, this time to Yorkshire, so I’m working my way through the James Herriot books.  Currently, I’m enjoying All Things Wise and Wonderful.  

Then there are the books I’ve temporarily taken a break from.  Plutarch’s Lives and The Conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar currently head that list.  I recently finished Dinosaur Summer by Greg Bear, and I enjoyed it so much that I had to start in on one of those old Tor Doubles that have sat in my bookshelf for...awhile.  It contains his novella “Hardfought,” as well as a story by Timothy Zahn.  It's good, just too complex for me right now.  After hearing Neil Gaiman’s Guest of Honor interview at World Fantasy last year, I figured I should check out the series of comics that put him on the literary map.  So I read the first part of the compilation The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes.  Last, but certainly not least, there’s The Stars in Shroud by Dr. Gregory Benford.  Although I delved so deeply into the novel last year for this blog, there are still a few aspects of it that I’d like to understand better. 

Every evening, before I pluck one of the above from my stack, I usually read a few pages of something to my wife before we go to sleep.  I think I must have missed my vocation.  With the way my voice seems to make her drift off, I should have become a priest.  Right now, we’re working our way through the Robert Silverberg story “Born with the Dead.”  

As I’ve documented in earlier entries, Steven Brust’s novel Teckla recently shoved its way into my stack, and that’s bad, because his stories tend to make me want to abandon all else until I finish them.  Yet, as I’m primarily using his fiction each morning to spur on my writing efforts, I don’t want to finish that novel too quickly, and end up opening another of his novels, and then another, until I’ve worked my way through the series.  As much as I love his writing, I don’t want to be too heavily influenced by his individual style.  As an author, I want to develop my own writing style (whatever that ends up being), not merely imitate his.  

There’s one, final, practical consideration.  Too much Vlad, or any other Brust novel, will distance me from the other novels in the stack, making them more difficult to read and finish.  My love of reading drew me to writing.  Why then must my reading time be so limited?  Why can’t I read everything I want to read, when I want to read it?  Well?

Okay, okay, okay!  Maybe I’ll read just one more chapter of Teckla today.

Related Dragon Cache entries

Captured by the Talosians  

A Journey into English Fiction Part 2

A Ramble, a Triumph, and a Risky Sacrifice