Frank Herbert: The Works.

Copyright © 2012 Bob R Bogle

I had to take a few days off from working on Memphis Blues Again to prepare my new (old) nonfiction book, Frank Herbert:  The Works, for publication.  It's now available at Amazon, and remember, even if you don't have a Kindle, you can download free Kindle reading apps to your computer or handheld device and read it there.

In fact I finished writing this tome in April 2006, but while I don't think a publishing house would have ever picked it up, I'm reasonably hopeful it might find a niche as an ebook.  This is a comprehensive (okay, exhaustive) critical analysis of all the published works of Frank Herbert.  Its ideas had been stewing and brewing and cross-pollinating in my mind ever since I picked up a Frank Herbert book for the first time in December 1977:  almost three decades' worth of reflection!  In that time I'd also devoured every other critical text about Herbert and his works that I could find.  This compendium embodies all the insights I could ever assemble and glean regarding his fiction and, more importantly, it seeks to recapture the incisive intellect of the man who created it all.  And perhaps the perceptive reader will find tie-ins between lessons I learned from Herbert and some of my own fiction.

So:  if you were ever a fan of Dune, or of any other works by Herbert, I hope you will consider delving into Frank Herbert:  The Works.

End of public service announcement; soon back to Memphis Blues Again, already in progress.

Table of Contents of Frank Herbert:  The Works

Dedication.
Acknowledgments.
Table of Contents.
Prelude.

ACT I. EXPANDING AWARENESS.
CHAPTER 1. THE FORMATIVE YEARS:  1920-1951.
1.01 Childhood and Youth.
1.02 The Santa Rosa Years and the Subconscious Mind.
CHAPTER 2. MINOR KEYS, PART 1:  1952-1957.
2.01 "Looking for Something?"
2.02 Bugs and Drugs:  Adventures in Darkest Mexico.
2.03 "Undersea Riches for Everybody":  Adventures in Darkest Washington.
2.04 "Operation Syndrome" ("Nightmare Blues").
2.05 "The Gone Dogs."
2.06 Peyote Experiment.
2.07 "Pack Rat Planet" (Direct Descent).
2.08 "Rat Race."
2.09 "Occupation Force."
2.10 Under Pressure (The Dragon in the Sea; 21st Century Sub).
2.11 "The Nothing."
2.12 "They Stopped the Moving Sand."
CHAPTER 3. HARBINGER:  1958-1962.
3.01 "Cease Fire."
3.02 "Old Rambling House."
3.03 The Godmakers.
3.04 "A Matter of Traces."
3.05 Maya and Metaphysics.
3.06 If You're Going to San Francisco . . .
3.07 "Egg and Ashes."
3.08 "A-W-F Unlimited."
3.09 "Mating Call."
3.10 "Try to Remember!"
3.11 "Mindfield!"
CHAPTER 4. END OF THE GOLDEN AGE:  1963.
4.01 Dune.
4.01.01 Tahaddi al-Burhan.
4.01.02 The Fall of House Atreides.
4.01.03 Muad'Dib.
4.01.04 The Mathematics of Spacetime.
4.01.05 Other Memory and Prescience.
4.01.06 Stoned on Melange.
4.01.07 Sub-Plots.
4.01.08 The Role of Thufir Hawat.
4.01.09 Death on Dune.
4.01.10 Baking the Cake.
4.01.11 The Drake Equation.
4.01.12 The Biology of Dune.
4.01.13 The Road to Dune, Part 1.
CHAPTER 5. COMPLETING THE MODEL:  1964-1967.
5.01 "Flying Saucers – Fact or Farce?"
5.02 It's a Complete Mystery.
5.03 "The Tactful Saboteur."
5.04 "The Mary Celeste Move."
5.05 Troop Build-Up.
5.06 The Green Brain.
5.07 "Committee of the Whole."
5.08 "The GM Effect."
5.09 Destination:  Void.
5.09.01 Calamity in Puget Sound.
5.09.02 Forever Jung.
5.09.03 Spectrum of Awareness.
5.09.04 Field Theory and the Ox.
5.09.05 Psychedelia.
5.09.06 Other Possibilities.
5.10 "The Primitives."
5.11 "Escape Felicity."
5.12 The Eyes of Heisenberg.
5.13 "By the Book."
5.14 The Heaven Makers.
5.15 "The Featherbedders."
5.16 The Santaroga Barrier.
5.16.01 Harnessing the Subconscious.
5.16.02 Emergent Social Properties.
5.16.03 Other Connections Made, Other Gambits Declined.
CHAPTER 6. SWITCHING STATION:  1968-1969.
6.01 1968:  A Wild Ride.
6.02 Return to the Olympic Peninsula.
6.03 Dune Messiah.
6.03.01 The Prescient Experience.
6.03.02 Motivations of the Cabals.
6.03.03 Clumsy Qizarate Meddling.
6.03.04 The Ghola Project.
6.03.05 Paul's Struggle.
6.03.06 A Dune/Children of Dune Switching Station.
6.03.07 A New Writing Style.
6.03.08 Problems and Peculiarities in Dune Messiah.
6.03.09 The Road to Dune, Part 2.
6.04 War Correspondent.
6.05 "The Mind Bomb" ("The Being Machine").

ACT II. EMBRACING INFINITY.
CHAPTER 7. CYBERNETICS AND ETHICS:  1970 & 1977.
7.01 Hierarchies:  the Western Viewpoint.
7.02 Whipping Star.
7.02.01 The ConSentiency.
7.02.02 Making Connections.
7.02.03 The Time Regeneration Theory.
7.02.04 Smashing Through the Hierarchical Walls.
7.03 The Dosadi Experiment.
7.03.01 Dosadi Origins and Influences.
7.03.02 Mass Sentient Experimentation and Informed Consent.
7.03.03 The DemoPol and Jedrik's War.
7.03.04 Shadow Government.
CHAPTER 8. MINOR KEYS, PART 2:  1970-1976.
8.01 New World or No World.
8.02 "Seed Stock."
8.03 "Murder Will In."
8.04 Soul Catcher.
8.05 "Carthage:  Reflections of a Martian."
8.06 Professor Herbert.
8.07 Hellstrom's Hive.
8.08 The Watergate Era.
8.09 "The Tillers."
8.10 "Encounter in a Lonely Place."
8.11 "Gambling Device."
8.12 "Passage for Piano."
8.13 "Death of a City."
8.14 Threshold:  The Blue Angels Experience.
8.15 In Sickness and in Health.
8.16 Arthur P. Jacobs and Alejandro Jodorowsky Dune Projects.
8.17 Introductions All Around.
CHAPTER 9. THE BRIDGE:  1976.
9.01 Star Wars:  Revenge of the Nerds.
9.02 Children of Dune.
9.02.01 Engines of Chaos and Creativity.
9.02.02 Alia and the Regency.
9.02.03 Jessica and the Bene Gesserit.
9.02.04 The Preacher and Jacurutu.
9.02.05 Farad'n and House Corrino.
9.02.06 The Twins and the Golden Path.
9.02.07 Stilgar and Failed Conservatism.
9.02.08 Once More Into the Absolute/Infinity Breach.
9.02.09 Curiosities of Children of Dune.
CHAPTER 10. ROGUE BIOLOGY:  1979, 1983, 1988, & 1982.
10.01 The Jesus Incident.
10.01.01 Kerro Panille's Pandora.
10.01.02 Dramatis Personae.
10.01.03 Send in the E-Clones.
10.01.04 Pandora's Biology.
10.01.05 Redoubt Siege and the Scream Room.
10.01.06 Hill of Skulls.
10.01.07 Mystical Gestation.
10.01.08 Being Human.
10.01.09 Nikki's Medea ("Songs of a Sentient Flute").
10.02 The Lazarus Effect.
10.02.01 Declining Health and Deadlines.
10.02.02 Right Place, Wrong Time.
10.03 The Ascension Factor.
10.04 The White Plague.
10.04.01 The Wearing of the Green.
10.04.02 Another Soul Catcher-like Story.
10.04.03 Black Biology.
10.04.04 Social Impact of Science and Technology.
10.04.05 Biocybernetics After the Human Genome Project.
CHAPTER 11. MAGNUM OPUS:  1981.
11.01 Blue Hawaii.
11.02 Ridley Scott Dune Project.
11.03 God Emperor of Dune.
11.03.01 Ultimate Alien.
11.03.02 Golden Path.
11.03.03 Breeding Program and Siona's Education.
11.03.04 Adrenalin Addiction and Social Engineering.
11.03.05 Intrigues and Schemes.
11.03.06 Duncan Idaho's Redemption and Leto's Fall.
11.03.07 A Love Supreme.
11.03.08 Ixian Navigation Machines and Harvesters of Death.
11.03.09 Masterpiece.
CHAPTER 12. MINOR KEYS, PART 3:  1977-1986.
12.01 "Come to the Party."
12.02 "Frogs and Scientists."
12.03 "Feathered Pigs."
12.04 Without Me You're Nothing.
12.05 David Lynch Dune Project.
12.06 The Death of Beverly Herbert.
12.07 "The Road to Dune."
12.08 Looking for America.
12.09 Man of Two Worlds.
CHAPTER 13. THE SORCERER OF DUNE:  1984-1985.
13.01 Heretics of Dune.
13.01.01. From God to Heretics.
13.01.02. Through the Biconcave Lens.
13.01.03. Bene Gesserit:  Goals and Diversions.
13.01.04. The Problem of Love.
13.01.05. Honored Matres:  Goals and Diversions.
13.01.06. Bene Tleilaxu:  Maddening Zealots.
13.01.07. Sheeana and the Idiot Priests of Rakis.
13.01.08. Duncan Idaho and Ghola Memory Restoration.
13.01.09. Lost Ones on Gammu.
13.01.10. The Tyrant Rules:  Taraza's Secret Plan.
13.01.11. Teg Transformed.
13.01.12. The Mathematics of Spacetime, Revisited.
13.01.13. No-Ships, Foldspace, and the Magic Universe.
13.01.14. The End of Dune.
13.01.15. Terminology of the Tleilaxu.
13.02 Chapterhouse:  Dune.
13.02.01. The Sisterhood Castled.
13.02.02. The Problem of Love, Revisited.
13.02.03. The Mentat Pinned.
13.02.04. Lampadas Captured.
13.02.05. Buzzell Sacrifice.
13.02.06. The Honored Matres of Dur.
13.02.07. Junction Endgame.
13.02.08. Murbella Promoted.
13.02.09. Scytale.
13.02.10. In the Garden.
13.02.11. Ix.
13.03. Critical Mass.
ACT III. AN AMERICAN TREASURE.
CHAPTER 14. AMERICAN TREASURE.
14.01 Dune 7.
14.02 The Death of Frank Herbert.


Bibliography.
About the Author.