Dune

At the beginning of Dune, Paul Atreides is fifteen years old, around the same age I was at the time the book was first serialized in Analog. I do not see myself much in the characterization of Paul, but I do see Dad in Paul’s father, the noble Duke Leto Atreides. In one passage, Frank Herbert wrote: “Yet many facts open the way to this Duke: his abiding love for his Bene Gesserit lady; the dreams he held for his son…” Late in his life, Dad responded to interview questions about my own writing career by saying, “The acorn doesn’t fall far from the oak tree.” He often complimented me to others, more than he did to me directly. To most of his friends he seemed like an extrovert, but in family matters he was often quite the opposite, preferring to retire to his study. Frequently, his strongest emotions went on the page, so I often feel him speaking to me as I read his stories.

Once, I asked my father if he thought his magnum opus would endure. He said modestly that he didn’t know and that the only valid literary critic was time. Dune was first published in 1965, and Frank Herbert would be pleased to know that interest in his fantastic novel, and the series it spawned, has never waned. An entire new generation of readers is picking up Dune and enjoying it, just as their parents did before them.

Like our own universe, the universe of Dune continues to expand. Frank Herbert wrote six novels in the series, and I have written a number of others in collaboration with Kevin J. Anderson, including the dramatic final chapter in the Dune series. Frank Herbert was working on that project when he died in 1986, and it would have been the third book in a trilogy that he began with Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. In those novels he set up a great mystery, and now, decades after his death, the solution is the most closely guarded secret in science fiction.

By the time we complete those stories, there will be a wealth of Dune novels, along with the 1984 movie directed by David Lynch and two television miniseries—“Frank Herbert’s Dune” and “Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune”—both produced by Richard Rubinstein. We envision other projects in the future, but all of them must measure up to the lofty standard that my father established with his own novels. When all of the good stories have been told, the series will end. But that will not really be a conclusion, because we can always go back to Dune itself and read it again and again.

Brian Herbert

Seattle, Washington

ACE

Published by Berkley

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Copyright © 1969 by Herbert Properties LLC

“Introduction” by Brian Herbert copyright © 2008 by DreamStar, Inc.

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A shorter version of this book appeared in Galaxy magazine for July–September 1969. Copyright © 1969 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation.

Ebook ISBN: 9781101157879

Berkley edition / September 1975

Ace mass-market edition / June 1987

Ace hardcover edition / February 2008

Ace premium edition / June 2019

Cover design and illustration by Jim Tierney

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction by Brian Herbert

Excerpts from the Death Cell Interview with Bronso of Ix

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

BY BRIAN HERBERT

Dune Messiah is the most misunderstood of Frank Herbert’s novels. The reasons for this are as fascinating and complex as the renowned author himself.