Franklin Patrick Herbert

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Here in 2020, I'm looking back at the science fiction of Isaac Asimov and Frank Herbert, both of whom were born in 1920. I was dismayed when Asimov died at the age of 72, but Herbert only lasted 66 years (on average, a 10-year-old in 1930 lived another 55 years).

My path to reading Dune began with Herbert's 1968 novel, The Santaroga Barrier, which I read in the mid-1970s, and which is not much of a Sci Fi tale. However, The Santaroga Barrier was interesting in a low-tech kind of way, so I was willing to read another Herbert novel. I read Herbert's novel Dune sometime around 1980, in book format, with a cover by Vincent Di Fate. As a Sci Fi fan, I was not favorably impressed by the political machinations that dominate Dune, so it was only after an additional 40 years had passed before I tried reading another story by Herbert: his 1966 story called "Heisenberg's Eyes". That also did not go well.

comment by Spider Robinson

Dune was first published in book format right at the end of 1965. There is an amusing review of Dune by Algis Budrys in the April 1966 issue of Galaxy. Budrys had complaints about Dune, but none of them have anything to do with Dune as a science fiction story. Budrys seemed particularly distraught that a young child died; how dare you, Herbert?

Dune Trilogy

Ten years later, Spider Robinson reviewed the entire Dune Trilogy (Dune, Dune Massiah, Children of Dune) in the September 1976 issue of Galaxy magazine. I might excuse a unicorn for having five legs if I expected to find a unicorn inside a science fiction novel. I don't. Here is how Spider sums it all up: after a quarter of a million words, the Dune Trilogy doesn't really get anywhere. And Spider correctly predicted that the Dune saga would have to be continued and extended past the Trilogy. I'm a fan of sprawling multi-novel Sci Fi sagas, but I've never been able to escape the feeling that the Dune saga is fantasy with silly fire-breathing dragons transformed into sillier electrical sandworms.

December 1963

Here in this blog post, I'll comment on the original 1963 version of Dune that was published in Analog magazine as "Dune World".

It is always a depressing experience when there are printing errors in a story (including those in "Dune World" as printed in Analog). Maybe "Dune World" was rushed into print at the end of 1963? I suppose that by 1963, in the middle of the Space Race, many science fiction fans were more interested in real world spaceships than fantasy spaceships. Many Sci Fi magazines perished just as real rocket ships were being built and captivating young science nerds like myself in the same way that Sci Fi spaceships had once entertained an earlier pre-space age generation.

1963. Interior art for "Dune World" by John Schoenherr

Also, Sci Fi fans were increasingly reading novels in book format. Only a few science fiction magazines survived the lean times. Between the rush to publish an issue every month and falling levels of $$$ to pay for workers, I suppose we should be amazed that any science fiction stories continued to be published in magazine format.

When published in Analog, the first part of Dune was called "Dune World", and the "p" word (politics) was right there in chapter 1. Full disclosure: I'm not a fan of political science fiction. Is there anything more mind-numbing that fictional politics?

1981

The answer to that question is "Yes". What is even more annoying than science fiction about a future in which politics never change is a Sci Fi future in which religion persists like a cancer on society. My tastes lean towards the futuristic fiction of Jack Vance in which he mocks the silly aspects of religion.

Reality Chains (source)

I prefer a science fiction literature with stories that are set in modern times, after people realize that science trumps religious mysticism. Dune is anachronistic, with a silly invented mysticism crammed edge-wise into an era of space travel.

Dune 2020

I never read any of the sequels to Dune. I once tried to watch one of the video versions of Dune, but found it unwatchable. So, why re-read Dune now? Here is my thinking: maybe after 40 years I will be able to appreciate the story better than I did in my youth.

The Bible

Welcome to the Future
The first bit of future technology to appear in Dune is a torture device that is used to inflict pain on the 15-year-old Paul. Paul's mother obediently stands by while Paul is tortured. It is the "reverend" Gaius Helen who tortures Paul and then in her next breath she almost quotes the Bible: "Don't make a machine to counterfeit a human mind". And yet, strangely, the "test" that she administers to Paul seems designed to prove that he can ignore pain, like some sort of robot. First Commandment: destroy all the evil robots, but let's make men who act like robots!       WTF?

Patrick's Punishment

The torture session depicted by Herbert is not merely a scene in which some perverted religious authority figure abuses a child, with no fear of repercussions. Herbert's imagination goes racing beyond casual child abuse at light-speed. Paul will be murdered by good ol' Helen if he fails her "test". Yes, Herbert sure knew how to start out a tale with sickening abruptness. Authors write what they know, and apparently Herbert's family life as a boy was so horrible that he ran away from home. That's sad, but it does not mean that I want to read a Sci Fi adventure about a boy whose mother lets him be physically abused. Of course, Herbert was not the only writer to start a Sci Fi story with a sickening torture scene (another: Emphyrio).

Foundation trilogy

From my perspective, reading Dune is a version of Paul's "test". Can the reader endure the pain of reading the story? In my case, the main challenge here in 2020 is to see if I can keep reading until reaching the point where I stopped reading the story 40 years ago. After only a few painful pages into the story, I now recall that back in the late 1970s, I was not able to actually read this book in its entirety. With all of the Dukes, barons, feuds, castles, concubines, assassins and reverend mothers, a Sci Fi fan like me will, after just a few pages, doubt that Dune is a science fiction story.

Shai-Hulud

What kept me reading Dune 40 years ago was the feeling that I was reading Herbert's version of the Foundation saga. Herbert has the Spacing Guild (with its mathematics) and the mystical Bene Gesserit, squaring off like the First and Second Foundations. The Bene Gesserit are waiting around for a magical Kwisatz Haderach. At the end of Chapter One, does anyone doubt that Paul is this mystical figure? All that remains to be revealed is why any Sci Fi fan who is still reading after the first chapter should care about this imaginary messiah.

1966

In the same issue of Analog with Part II of "Dune World" (January 1964), there is a brief commentary by Peter Miller about Asimov's Foundation trilogy. Doubleday had recently published Asimov's trilogy and in 1963 he also won his first Hugo Award for "adding science to science fiction". Three years later, Asimov would be given a special Hugo for the Foundation saga as the "Best All-Time Series".

Asimov used the Roman Empire for inspiration in constructing his imaginary Galactic Empire. To craft his Foundation saga as a science fiction story, Asimov included a silly imaginary science, Psychohistory. The assumed existence of a pseudoscience "collective consciousness" was Herbert's imagined foil for his evil future Interstellar Empire. George Lucas gave made the world pay big $$$ for the Force.

Shai-Hulud, The Maker by Christopher Balaskas

Sadly, I don't feel that either Asimov or Herbert was able to realistically depict a vast interstellar empire. Asimov was enthralled by his planetary city of Trantor and Herbert was captivated by his planetary desert, Arrakis. However, as a trained scientist, Asimov could craft Sci Fi stories that meet the expectations of a science nerd like me. Based on the three novels by Herbert that I have read, he never had an adequate background in science to be able to write a science fiction story that I would be able to feel comfortable with.

Second Foundation

I do feel some guilt at never having read past the first novel in Herbert's saga, Dune. Eventually there were six novels in the Dune series and seven Foundation novels. I feel that Asimov's Foundation stories got better with time. The same may be true for the Dune saga, however, I've never felt tempted to read any of the Dune sequels.

Ecological Science Fiction

March 1965

Rather than simply scheme to exploit the riches of Arrakas (as the evil and repulsive Harkonnens do), Paul must learn to work with the local Freemen. However, I find the whole idea of a rag-tag band of rebels storing up a planet's water in underground caves, without anyone else noticing, to be absurd. After 40 years of trying, I still can't buy into the basic story line of Herbert's imaginary "desert world" ecosystem.

The Breeding Project
In addition to being reminded of Asimov's Galactic Empire, Dune reminds me of "Doc" Smith's Arisians and their great breeding project for humans. In the December 1963 issue of Analog, there is a long essay about the genetic code. What is Herbert's vision of how to breed humans for telepathy? Herbert gave us a type of telepathy that allows for people to see the past/future by linking into some sort of "genetic memory". I like the idea of a source of information beyond normal space and time, but does Herbert ever provide a scientific backstory or is this magical fantasy?

January 1965

Anti-Singularity
I've long been intrigued by the methods used by Isaac Asimov and Jack Vance to create fictional future universes where the technology available to people of the future is little different from what we here on Earth now have. In Herbert's future, Humanity has passed through a phase when there were machines with artificial intelligence and then those machines were abandoned. We are told that humans could not live with their artificial intelligences without becoming slaves to them.

"an advanced future without technology" (source)

From the perspective of 2020, Herbert's vision of the future seems unlikely. In 1963, computers were often viewed as "giant brains" that could not match the efficiency of human brains. Since 1963, the world has gone through a revolution of computer miniaturization. Herbert does allow his future Dukes and Barons the use of ebooks and even what seems to be some form of brain stimulation protocol to enhance learning, but the emphasis is on using trained humans to do tasks rather than robotic assistants. In an era when computerized planes fly us around the globe, it is hard to accept fantasy futures without robots.

Jan. 1965 interior worm art by John Schoenherr

I'm sorry, but in a future where people effortlessly move between the stars, I don't have much patience with hand-wringing dialog about water riots. It all sounds like a story from an author who wants to write about the Roman Empire, but to sell their lame book during the Space Race of the 1960s they gussy it up with spaceships.

Fictional Economics
The economy of the galaxy is based on morphine cocaine melange. For thousands of years, the trans-galactic Empire has no chemists, so nobody can make synthetic melange. The entire galaxy depends on Arrakis for the precious supply of melange.

From near the end of the first published part of "Dune World"

Fictional Chemistry
Isaac Asimov was trained as a chemist, so he could usually have fun with fictional chemistry and not upset fellow nerds who know something about molecules. Herbert knew nothing about chemistry, yet he based his Dune saga on the fictional chemistry of melange.

In order to rescue melange from chemical nonsense, you could say that melange is not composed of conventional matter. For the Exode Saga, I imagine that there are hierions and sedrons, physical substances not yet known to Earthly science. However, if this is science fiction, then our physical substances should not change their physical properties depending on the day of the week. Who knows what Herbert was trying to suggest by "protein digestive balance"? As usual, this is just Herbert stringing together some technical terms with no effort made to provide any sensible semantic content. This same kind of anti-science jargon-patter is found in "Heisenberg's Eyes".

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The whole "magic spice" plot element of Dune reminds me of the drug "thionite" in First Lensman by E. E. Smith. Thionite is the perfect drug that when used provides "the ultimately passionate satisfaction of every desire", but it can only be obtained from the leaves of plants that only grow on one inhospitable planet, Trenco. It was a silly idea when Smith used it in 1950 to advance his plot. I would not be surprised if Herbert read First Lensman and adopted the same silly plot idea. I have no problem with people re-using good plot ideas in their new stories, but it gets tiresome when bad ideas are recycled.

Biophysics and Worm Sex
Gigantic sandworms plowing through desert sands, generating energy by friction? Yes, that is a perpetual motion machine, and I've never understood how it could work. Herbert was no scientist, so it is a waste of time to hope that the imaginary technologies and life forms in one of his stories might make sense. Eventually, Herbert went as far as saying that a human could merge with a sandworm.

Part 2 (January 1964)

interior art by John Schoenherr

One of the great things about the age in which novels were published as serial installments is that magazine editors had to write summaries of the action that had already been published in previous issues.

If you start reading Part 2 of "Dune World" in the January 1964 issue of Analog, then you can read the one page summary of Part 1 and save yourself the task of actually reading the first installment.

In Part 2, readers learn that although the entire galactic economy is built around "spice" from Arrakis, the harvesting of this valuable resource is extremely inefficient.

spice harvester

Shields up, Scotty!
Giant spice harvesting machines are used, but they cannot be protected by Hi Tek™ "shields" because that would attract sandworms. The sandworms are so gigantic that they can demolish the harvesters. The deepest desert is not even mined for spice because the even gigantickester worms who live there can swallow a harvester whole.

Floating on top of Herbert's implausible science and technology of the future is his imaginary politics. Is feudalism really the future for Humanity as it spreads between the stars? If so, I don't want to know about it.

in the February 1964 issue of Analog

Part 3 (February 1964)

rising popularity of a concept

I've never understood the fascination that some people have for royalty. Part 3 of "Dune World" continues with the Palace Intrigue theme that dominated Part 2. Everyone is waiting for the Duke to die so that the story can progress.

And, after the entire elaborate "trap" has been set up by the Evil Emperor and the trap sprung, there must be the Miraculous Escape™. Fans of Star Wars will not be surprised by the Jedi mind trick that allows Paul to live past the assassination of his father, the Duke.

Race Consciousness

Race Consciousness

Paul can see the future and he knows that he is an unexpected twist of the centuries old Bene Gesserit plan for breeding a human who can "see" into some sort of extra-dimensional universe. This is all reminiscent of Jack Vance's 1958 story "Parapsyche".

The thrilling conclusion!

Analog editor John Campbell was a sucker for this sort of "psi powers" story. During the 1950s, the idea of a Jungian "collective unconscious" was gaining in popularity. I suppose we can't fault Herbert for including some sort of shared steam of consciousness in his "science" fiction.

"Bene Gesserit" by Dani Fonseca

Biology. I find it of interest that by the end of The Prophet of Dune, Herbert reached a very similar place as Asimov had with his "Spacers", lamenting the evolutionary dangers arising from small, inbred populations. I'll award 1 science point for Herbert's coverage of inbreeding.

Fun

in the mirror universe

Science fiction should never take itself too seriously. My preference is for fiction that is playful and fun, so it will surprise nobody that I found Dune to be impossible to finish 40 years ago and it was hard labor for me to slog through "Dune World" here in 2020.

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