Frank Herbert: biography, all books by the author

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The American science fiction writer Franklin Patrick Herbert became world-famous for his novel "Dune" followed by five sequels. The cycle of narratives about the desert planet embodies complex and important ideas about human survival, ecological balance, evolutionary change, political and religious power. The first Dune saga is the best-selling science fiction novel of the 20th century, and the series of novels are considered classics.

However, Frank Herbert's bibliography is not limited to the Dune chronicles and includes many stories and novels, including non-fiction ones. In addition, the writer has worked as a journalist, photographer, book reviewer, environmental consultant and lecturer.

Early years

Frank Herbert was born in 1920, October 8, in the northwestern United States in the city of Tacoma. At the age of 18, due to the unfavorable situation in the family, he left home and moved to his uncle and aunt in Salem (Oregon). There he graduated from high school and in 1939 got his first job at the Glendale newspaper. Star (Arizona). A year later, he returned to Salem, where he worked in various positions, including a photographer, at an Oregon newspaper publisher.

During the war years, Herbert served as a photographer for the US Navy for six months, after which he was commissioned for he alth reasons. His first marriage to Flora Parkinson took place in 1940 and ended in divorce five years later. The couple had a daughter, Penny, in 1942.

After the war, Herbert attended the University of Washington, where in 1946 he met his future second wife, Beverly Stewart, a classmate in creative writing. On June 20 of the same year, Herbert and Beverly got married, later they had two sons: Brian Patrick (1947) and Bruce Calvin (1951). Brian Herbert, who later became the successor to the Dune cycle and Frank Herbert's biographer, wrote that his father, wanting to study only what he was interested in, never graduated from the university. Herbert returned to journalism, first with the Seattle Star, then worked as an editor and writer for California Living magazine and the San Francisco Examiner for ten years.

Formation of worldview

Frank had three published works-Survival of Cunning (1945), Jonah and Yap (1946), and Yellow Fire (1947)-when the Herbert family moved to California in 1949 to work in Santa Rosa's Democratic newspaper The Press Democrat. Here the couple befriended psychologists Irina and Ralph Slettery, who introduced Herbert to the work of several thinkers, including Freud, Jung, Jaspers, andHeidegger. The Slettery couple also introduced the writer to the ideology of Zen Buddhism, which, combined with the influence of the works of prominent psychologists and philosophers, was reflected not only in the views and beliefs, but also in the work of Frank Herbert. Raised from childhood according to Catholic principles, the writer later adopted Zen Buddhism as his religion.

First science fiction writings

In 1973, the writer, giving an interview, said that before he decided to write the first science fiction work, he read the literature of this genre for ten years. Among his favorite authors, Herbert singled out G. Wells, Paul Anderson, Robert Heinlein, Jack Vance.

Herbert's first science fiction story - "Looking for something?" - was published by the American popular magazine Amazing Stories in 1952. Three more of his works appeared in 1954 in other American science fiction magazines.

But Frank Herbert's real writing career began with the serial publication of a work in the journal Under Pressure in Astounding in 1955-1956, known as "The Dragon in the Sea", which was then revised and published as a separate book in 1956. The story was about reason and madness in a 21st century submarine environment, predicting world conflicts over the consumption and production of oil. As a rule, the novel is defined as psychological. It was the first writer's, but still non-commercial success. At the same time, Herbert worked as a speechwriter forRepublican Senator Guy Cordon.

Other works of the period:

• "Operating Syndrome" (1954);
• Gone Dogs (1954);
• "Planet Pakrat" (1954);
• Race Race (1955);
• Occupation (1955);
• "Nothing" (1956);
• Cease Fire (1956);
• Old Rambling House (1958);
• Take the Easy Way (1958);
• Trace Matter (1958).

Dune

Herbert has been working on material for this massive piece since 1959. After his wife returned to work as an advertiser, becoming the family's main breadwinner throughout the 1960s, Frank Herbert allowed her to devote her full time to her writing career. As he later admitted, the idea for the novel came about when Frank was preparing a magazine article about the sand dunes of the Oregon desert. Carried away, the writer received much more material than was required for an article that was never written, but conceived the seed that grew into the landmark novel Dune.

It took six years to gather material, research, write and organize the text. This was much longer than what was supposed to work on commercial fiction at the time. Analog magazine published the novel in two parts: in December 1963 - "The World of Dune", and in 1965 - "Prophet of Dune". The printable book in its entirety was rejected by nearly twenty book publishers.

Chilton Book Company editor Sterling Lanier read all of Dune's installments and then offered writer Frank Herbert a $7,500 upfront payment and a future percentage of the hardcover publication of the novel. For this collaboration, Herbert had to rewrite more than half of the text. Dune soon surpassed any anticipated success, earning Herbert the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965 and the Hugo Award in 1966. The work was the first science fiction novel to embrace the large-scale interconnected themes of the possible future of mankind, which became the basis of all subsequent works of Herbert Franklin.

Life after Dune

The novel did not immediately become a bestseller. Frank Herbert had earned $20,000 by 1968, which, however, was a decent amount, far in excess of what science fiction writers of the time could expect. Also, the publication of "Dune" opened up many opportunities for Frank, and he became a Seattle Post-Intelligencer writer (1969-1972), taught at the University of Washington (1970-1972), in Pakistan and Vietnam was a consultant on social and environmental issues (1972), worked director and photographer for the television show The Tillers (1973).

Creative Peak

By the beginning of 1972, Herbert completely retired from work in the newspaper and became exclusively a science fiction writer. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, his writing enjoyed incredible success. The writer literally lived in two houses. One of themwas in Hawaii, the other - on the Olympic Peninsula in the port of Townsend, Washington and was intended for a "visible environmental project." Over the course of two decades, Herbert wrote many stories and continued the story of the planet Dune by writing books:

• Dune Messiah (1969);
• Children of Dune (1976);
• "God Emperor of Dune" (1981).

The most important works were also "The Dosadi Experiment" (1977), "God Makers" (1972), "White Plague" (1982) and collaboration with Bill Ransom: "The Jesus Incident", "The Lazarus Effect" and Ascension, a sequel to Herbert's 1965 novel Destination: The Void.

Frank also assisted budding science fiction writer Terry Brooks in 1977 with a very positive review for his first novel, The Sword of Shannara.

Success and loss

In 1974, Beverly, Herbert's wife, underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. Having lived after that for ten years, at the very beginning of 1984, she died. The year became too eventful, but it brought the writer not only tragic events. At the same time, the book "Heretics of Dune" was published and David Lynch took up its adaptation. The writer acted as a screenwriter. There are many memorable photos of Frank Herbert with the members of the crew while working on the film. But despite its big-budget production and high expectations, the film received mostly negative reviews in the United States, but was commercially successful.success in European countries and Japan.

In 1985, the last two important events in Herbert's life took place: the publication of his final work "Chapter: Dune", which tied together many storylines of the saga, and his marriage to Teresa Shackleford. Frank died at the age of 65 on February 11, 1986, from a massive pulmonary embolism after recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous pancreatic tumor.

This is the end of Frank Herbert's biography, but the saga of the planet Dune was continued by his son, Brian Herbert, with a cycle of trilogies and legends. And yet, it was the first novel about the desert planet that became the most famous and beloved by readers, a cult work of the 20th century.