DUNE BLOG

Friday, December 21, 2007

Brainstorming -- Paul of Dune and Beyond

I recently flew up to Washington State where I spent several days with Brian and his wife Jan. Since I was delivering the third draft of PAUL OF DUNE to Brian for his next edit, this was a good chance for us to talk about some of the changes and cuts we wanted to do on the manuscript. By deleting some extraneous scenes and trimming a few plotlines, we focused on the core story and now have a manuscript that's approximately the length of CHILDREN OF DUNE.

Brian and I also spent time together developing the overall story arcs for the other two books set in this time period, JESSICA OF DUNE and IRULAN OF DUNE. Because they tie so closely with the first three Frank Herbert DUNE books, we're having to figure out how to deal with slight inconsistencies between the original novels (for instance, DUNE gives the date of Shaddam IV's death as 10,202, before the beginning of DUNE MESSIAH, and yet he is still alive and performing exercises with his Sardaukar in MESSIAH). However, there are a great many important events to explore, and we have exciting possibilities for the novels.

The bulk of our time, however, was devoted to brainstorming an original science fiction series of our own, similar in scope and theme to our DUNE novels, but a new creation. From this point on, Brian and I expect to write a DUNE novel only every other year, and alternate with new books of our own.

On the first day, Brian's daughter Kim drove us both around the greater Seattle area to stop at many local bookstores to sign copies of their stock. Many of these autographed books are still on the shelves. If you live in the Seattle area and would like to pick up a signed copy, Kim typed up the list of bookstores, which is posted at the left. (Even if you live outside the area, you may be able to order and have the books shipped to you.)

Happy holidays and happy reading,

-- KJA