Road to Dune Read Free

science-fiction treasure trove, including Spice Planet , which we wrote from Frank’s outline. We are also including five of our original short stories: “A Whisper of Caladan Seas” (set during the events of Dune ) and three connecting “chapters” surrounding our novels in the Butlerian Jihad saga: “Hunting Harkonnens,” “Whipping Mek,” and “The Faces of a Martyr.” We also wrote an original lead-in to Hunters of Dune , “Sea Child,” which was first published in ELEMENTAL, the tsunami relief anthology.
    Had Frank Herbert lived longer, he would have presented the world with many more stories set in his fantastic, unparalleled universe. Now, almost two decades after his untimely death, we are honored to share this classic legacy with millions of Frank Herbert’s fans worldwide.
    The spice must flow!
    —Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

SPICE PLANET

    The Alternative Dune Novel

    by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, from Frank Herbert’s original outline

INTRODUCTION

    FINDING SUCH A wealth of notes was just one step down the road, but the fresh material, ideas, clues, and explanations suddenly crystallized many things in the chronology of the Dune epic. It rekindled in us a kind of honeymoon excitement for the whole universe.
    We photocopied boxes of this material and then sorted, labeled, and organized everything. The biggest challenge was to make sense of it all. As part of the preparation work before writing our first Dune prequel, we had compiled a detailed concordance and electronically scanned all the text from the original six novels so that we could better search the source material. Now, with highlighter pens, we marked important information in the stacks of notes, illuminating unused blocks of text and descriptions that we might want to incorporate into our novels, character backgrounds, and story ideas.
    Scattered among the boxes, we found some sheets of paper marked with letters—Chapter B, Chapter N, et cetera—that were at first puzzling. These pages gave brief descriptions of dramatic scenes that dealt with sandworms, storms, and unexpected new spice-mining techniques. Some of the action took place in recognizable but skewed places, as if viewed through a fractured lens: Dune Planet or Duneworld instead of Dune, Catalan instead of Caladan, Carthage instead of Carthag, and the like. In Spice Planet, unlike Dune, the characters do not break the rhythm of their strides on the desert sand to prevent a sandworm from hearing them and attacking. Apparently, this had not yet occurred to Frank Herbert in the evolution of Dune .
    The chapters of Spice Planet were populated by unfamiliar characters—Jesse Linkam, Valdemar Hoskanner, Ulla Bauers, William English, Esmar Tuek, and a concubine named Dorothy Mapes. These strangers were interacting with well-known characters such as Gurney Halleck, Dr. Yueh (Cullington Yueh instead of Wellington Yueh), Wanna Yueh, and a familiar-sounding planetary ecologist named Dr. Bryce Haynes. Although a minor character (a spice smuggler) had been named Esmar Tuek in the final published version of Dune, he was quite different in the newly discovered notes, a major player and clearly the original model for a well-loved figure, the warrior-Mentat Thufir Hawat. Dorothy Mapes filled a role similar to that of Lady Jessica. The nobleman Jesse Linkam himself was obviously the basis for Duke Leto Atreides, and Valdemar Hoskanner was the embryonic Baron Vladimir Harkonnen.
    When we arranged all the chapters and read through the remarkable outline, we found that Spice Planet was a unique and worthy story in its own right, not just a precursor to Dune . Although the harsh desert is very similar to the one familiar to millions of fans, the tale itself is thematically different, focusing on decadence and drug addiction instead of ecology, finite resources, freedom, and religious fanaticism. In part of the short novel, the main character, Jesse Linkam, must survive in the