DUNE 7 BLOG

Monday, August 21, 2006

Starting the Interviews

The alarm went off at 1:45 AM. I had managed to get to bed at around nine o'clock, but I knew I wouldn't have enough time to sleep. Brian and I had a "TV satellite tour" -- a bunch of interviews from a Los Angeles studio, beamed to television stations around the country for local morning shows.

And 6:30 in the morning on the east coast means 3:30 AM here on the west coast.

Starting at 3:30, we began a succession of sixteen television interviews, spaced five or ten minutes apart. While we tried to let the coffee work, a makeup artist plastered first me, then Brian, getting us ready for the cameras. Then we were hooked up to microphones and earplugs, ready to stare at the cameras, and a hand-drawn smiley face that symbolized the local TV station interviewer on the other end of the signal (we couldn't see who was interviewing us, but we could hear their voices in our ears).

We talked in the markets of Lake Charles (Louisiana), Evansville (Indiana), Lubbock (Texas), Baltimore (Maryland), Sioux Falls (South Dakota), Cheyenne (Wyoming), Denver (Colorado), Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Tucson (Arizona), Charlotte (North Carolina), Salt Lake City (Utah), Wichita (Kansas), San Diego (California), Portland (Oregon), and Huntsville (Alabama). We finished about 8 AM, and we were really drained. By the time we got back to our hotel, we tried to take a nap, but were too wired to get much rest.

I'm spending the rest of the day in the hotel, relaxing and working on the edits to METAL SWARM (my Warner editor FedExed me her marked-up manuscript), while Brian and his wife Jan take the rental car to explore Hollywood. Tonight, my friend Steven L. Sears -- the producer of the TV show XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS and others -- will be joining me for dinner.

The tone of many of our interviews this morning was a little surprising to us. Many of the announcers were very excited about HUNTERS, but sounded as if this was the first they had ever heard of the new Dune novels. It reminded me of another conversation I had had in one of my restaurant "haunts" a few months ago. The restaurant manager had introduced me to a new waiter, telling him that I was the coauthor of the new Dune novels. The waiter was very excited, telling me how much he had loved Frank Herbert's work, how he had read and reread the original six Dune chronicles. They were his favorite books, he said.

And yet, he hadn't a clue that there were any new books in that universe.

Now, Brian and I have released a Dune book every single year for the past seven years, and each one of our novels has been a major international bestseller. But a whole segment of loyal Dune readers doesn't know about them. It makes a certain amount of sense that, knowing of Frank Herbert's death two decades ago, fans would have stopped looking for anything new.

But still...it's been seven years!

Please help us spread the word. If you enjoyed the "Prelude to Dune" trilogy or the "Legends of Dune" trilogy, mention them to other Dune fans. Even if you preferred Frank Herbert's work, or if you liked *only* Frank's books, then suggest THE ROAD TO DUNE, the first new book with Frank's name on the cover in twenty years.

HUNTERS OF DUNE will be officially on the bookstore shelves tomorrow, August 22. We hope you enjoy it when the wait is finally over.

-- KJA