Herbert, Brian
Entry updated 13 January 2025. Tagged: Author.
(1947- ) US author, son of Frank Herbert, who began publishing sf with his third book and first novel, Sidney's Comet: Being an Account of the Remarkable Events Which Occurred During the Approach of the Great Garbage Comet (1983), a comic Satire which launched the short Garbage Chronicles series; the eponymous Comet, composed of human garbage, threatens Earth in the twenty-seventh century; the sequel, The Garbage Chronicles: Being an Account of the Adventures of Tom Javik and Wizzy Malloy in the Faraway Land of Catapulted Garbage (1985), is also perhaps somewhat desultory. Both feature, inter alia, amusing parodies of his father's stylistic quirks, also visible in Man of Two Worlds (1986) with Frank Herbert, which frolics rather cumbrously with reality games; its presentation of Aliens who dream us up is not always coherent, though the final pages, when humans dream back, are more exhilarating. Sudanna, Sudanna (1985), set on a surreally conceived planetoid, describes the lives of its resident bureaucracy-ridden Aliens in a tone that determinedly shifts from Humour to gravity and back. Prisoners of Arionn (1987) again juxtaposes aliens (conceived with an elaborate though somewhat skittish lightness of touch) and human society (in this case San Francisco) in a plot which uneasily details the former's kidnapping of the latter, while at the same time examining with genuine insight some family relationships. If Herbert was in fact wrestling with genres in an attempt to intermingle them fruitfully, an inadequate control over narrative structure was proving detrimental to the attempt. This sense of virtuous effort and only partial success persists through The Race for God (1990) and Memorymakers (1991) with Marie Landis.
After this point in his career, Herbert changed tack and began to write Sequels by Another Hand to his father's famous Dune sequence, all of them with Kevin J Anderson. Though they do not attempt to replicate or vie with the cognitive drive of the original series, or in any way to continue its complex arguments, they have won admirers. The Space Opera Hellhole sequence, comprising Hellhole (2011) and Hellhole: Awakening (2013), both with Kevin J Anderson, is not connected to Dune. Nor are two later novels, Ocean (2013) with Jan Herbert and The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma (2014), in both of which Ecological extremists disrupt the planet in order to save it, and in The Green Book establish a Dystopia where humans are penned into crammed Keeps, allowing the rest of the world to revert to "nature". In both novels, through a process of "topsy-turvy" Satire, ecological extremism is seen as a mirror reversal of early twenty-first century Climate Change denial. [JC]
see also: Telekinesis; Transportation.
Brian Patrick Herbert
born Seattle, Washington: 29 June 1947
works
series
Dune
Dune: Prelude to Dune
- Prelude to Dune: House Atreides (New York: Bantam Spectra, 1999) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Prelude to Dune: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Prelude to Dune II: House Harkonnen (New York: Bantam Spectra, 2000) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Prelude to Dune: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Dune: Fremen Justice (Fort Wayne, Indiana: Wormhole Books, 2001) with Kevin J Anderson [chap: pre-release excerpt from Prelude to Dune III: House Corrino below: pb/David Martin]
- Prelude to Dune III: House Corrino (New York: Bantam Spectra, 2001) with Kevin J Anderson [vt: much exp version of the above: Dune: Prelude to Dune: hb/Stephen Youll]
Dune: Legends of Dune
- Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (New York: Tor, 2002) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Legends of Dune: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Legends of Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2002) with Kevin J Anderson [vt of the above: Dune: Legends of Dune: hb/Chris Moore]
- Whipping Mek: A Tale of the Butlerian Jihad (New York: Tor, 2003) with Kevin J Anderson [story: chap: Dune: Legends of Dune: pb/Stephen Youll]
- Dune: The Machine Crusade (New York: Tor, 2003) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Legends of Dune: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Legends of Dune 2: The Machine Crusade (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2003) with Kevin J Anderson [vt of the above: Dune: Legends of Dune: hb/Chris Moore]
- Dune: The Battle of Corrin (New York: Tor, 2003) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Legends of Dune: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Legends of Dune: The Battle of Corrin (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2003) with Kevin J Anderson [vt of the above: Dune: Legends of Dune: hb/Chris Moore]
- Hunting Harkonnens (Fort Wayne, Indiana: Wormhole Books, 2004) with Kevin J Anderson [novelette: chap: first appeared October 2002 Aurealis: Dune: Legends of Dune: pb/David Martin]
Dune: Frank Herbert's Original Dune Chronicles
- Hunters of Dune (New York: Tor, 2006) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Frank Herbert's Original Dune Chronicles: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Sandworms of Dune (New York: Tor, 2007) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Frank Herbert's Original Dune Chronicles: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Paul of Dune (New York: Tor, 2008) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Frank Herbert's Original Dune Chronicles: hb/Stephen Youll]
- The Winds of Dune (New York: Tor, 2009) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Frank Herbert's Original Dune Chronicles: hb/Steve Stone]
Dune Stories
- Tales of Dune (Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2011) with Kevin J Anderson [coll: ebook: Dune Stories: na/]
- Tales of Dune (Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2017) with Kevin J Anderson [coll: exp of the above: one story added: Dune Stories: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Sands of Dune (New York: Tor, 2022) with Kevin J Anderson [coll: Dune Stories: hb/]
Dune: Origins Trilogy
- Sisterhood of Dune (New York: Tor, 2012) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Origins Trilogy: hb/Steve Stone]
- Mentats of Dune (New York: Tor, 2014) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Origins Trilogy: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Navigators of Dune (New York: Tor, 2016) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Origins Trilogy: hb/Stephen Youll]
Dune: Caladan Trilogy
- The Duke of Caladan (New York: Tor, 2020) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Caladan Trilogy: hb/]
- The Lady of Caladan (New York: Tor, 2021) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Caladan Trilogy: hb/]
- The Heir of Caladan (New York: Tor, 2023) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: Caladan Trilogy: hb/]
Dune Prequels
- Princess of Dune (New York: Tor, 2023) with Kevin J Anderson [Dune: hb/]
other series
Garbage Chronicles
- Sidney's Comet: Being an Account of the Remarkable Events Which Occurred During the Approach of the Great Garbage Comet (New York: Berkley Books, 1983) [Garbage Chronicles: pb/]
- The Garbage Chronicles: Being an Account of the Adventures of Tom Javik and Wizzy Malloy in the Faraway Land of Catapulted Garbage (New York: Berkley Books, 1985) [Garbage Chronicles: pb/John Berkey]
Timeweb Chronicles
- Timeweb (Waterville, Maine: Five Star, 2006) [Timeweb Chronicles: hb/Alan M Clark]
- The Web and the Stars (Waterville, Maine: Five Star, 2007) [Timeweb Chronicles: hb/Alan M Clark]
- Webdancers (Waterville, Maine: Five Star, 2008) [Timeweb Chronicles: hb/Alan M Clark]
Hellhole Trilogy
- Hellhole (New York: Tor, 2011) with Kevin J Anderson [Hellhole: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Hellhole: Awakening (New York: Tor, 2013) with Kevin J Anderson [Hellhole: hb/Stephen Youll]
- Hellhole Inferno (New York: Tor, 2014) with Kevin J Anderson [Hellhole: hb/Stephen Youll]
individual titles
- Sudanna, Sudanna (New York: Arbor House, 1985) [hb/Ron Walotsky]
- Man of Two Worlds (New York: Putnam, 1986) with Frank Herbert [hb/John Schoenherr]
- Prisoners of Arionn (New York: Arbor House, 1987) [hb/Ron Walotsky]
- The Race for God (New York: Ace Books, 1990) [pb/Joe Burleson]
- Memorymakers (New York: Penguin/Roc, 1991) with Marie Landis [pb/]
- The World of Darkness: Vampire: Blood on the Sun (New York: HarperPrism, 1997) with Marie Landis [tie to the role-playing game: pb/Joshua Gabriel Timbrook]
- Ocean (Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2013) with Jan Herbert [pb/]
- Stormworld (Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2013) with Bruce Taylor [novella: chap: pb/]
- The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma (New York: Tor, 2014) [hb/Stephen Youll]
- The Assassination of Billy Jeeling (Golden, Colorado: ReAnimus Press, 2018) [pb/Clay Hagebusch]
collections and stories
- The Omega Egg (Part 5 of 17): The Egg and the Dragon (place not given: Fictionwise, 2005) [ebook: chapter of multi-author Round-Robin novel: na/]
- Dangerous Worlds: The Short Fiction of Brian Herbert (Monument, Colorado: WordFire Press, 2016) [coll: pb/]
nonfiction
- Dreamer of Dune: The Biography of Frank Herbert (New York: Tor, 2003) [nonfiction: hb/Gregory Manchess]
works as editor
- The Notebooks of Frank Herbert's Dune (New York: Putnam Perigee, 1988) [collection of excerpts from Dune (fixup 1965) by Frank Herbert: pb/Raquel Jaramillo]
- Songs of Muad'Dib: The Poetry of Frank Herbert (New York: Ace Books, 1992) [poetry: coll: poetry by Frank Herbert: pb/Fredric Marvin]
links
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