[FitzChivalry]

It's a well known fact that Herbert died before writing the 7th book of Dune, a sequel to Chapterhouse Dune...
But i recently found out that such book was published in Romania, and that the publisher there claims he bought the Herbert manuscript for that book from the american copyright holders as long as they don't publish it outside of Romania.
A romanian that i talked to claimed that the book was published before the recent prequels to Dune, and there are things in it that are mentioned also only in the prequels, so if the author of the book knew of them it has to be based on the real manuscript.

Anyone knows anything about it?
Why Romania? Why not the rest of the world?
What's going on here?

[voider]

YEA! Whats the big idea anyway! I say we take some thumpers over to Romania stick them in the ground and let the worms have them!(just kidding)

[sueVee]

I may be wrong, but I think Herbert had some outlines for post mortem novels. I don't believe he had full blown manuscripts ready to be published after his death.

[Strut109]

How were the rest of the Dune series in comparison to the original novel? I've read up to "God Emperor of Dune" but was never able to finish it off, and I had to struggle to finish the others in the series. IMO, the first Dune was the best by far than the others I've read. Maybe its just me, because I feel the same way about Ender's Game and the Speaker of the Dead series.

[Vroomfondel]

The other Dune books sucked. Or at least, that's my opinion, having read the next two after Dune. The third one is ok, but just doesn't live up to the original. The second one is just plain awful.

[Eventine]

There was no manuscript for book 7. A lot of notes, but no manuscript. Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson are planning on writing book 7 based on these notes however.
This info is based on the website www.dunenovels.com (http://www.dunenovels.com)

[oeimae]

I read the first Dune book and liked it so much I bought the other books in this series, and read them all. My personal view is that I wouldn't read past the second; maybe, maybe the third. If the series ended at book 2 I would be quite satisfied with the closure in it. Reading the rest of them completely destroyed the story that Herbert had put into place in the early books. And the way the last book ended was absolutely *horrendous.* Ugh.

[Elessar]

I didn't like the second dune book that much. The third was ok.. and the fourth was.. uh.. well, pretty weird.

I cannot, however.. say that they were "bad". Sure thing, I didn't like "dune 2". But the way Herbert describes *some* of what happens, to me it sounded like things just had come that way.

Personally, I actually like the last two books best (those being "heretics" and "chapterhouse"). The Ending of book 6 is also pretty much open and leaves a lot to think about.

Herbert will never write what you expect he would. Things change in a way you would never expect. The story evolves in a way you would never think of.
And I think that is what a lot of people don't like about the stories- they just tend to go in a direction completely off from what we would expect.


-- Elessar

[vortexreader]

Personally, I love every volume of the Dune Sequence. The reason I think a lot of people don't like the latter books is because the action moves right away from Arrakis...and we all love the planed Dune...

[Elessar]

Hiya FitzChivalry,


I just recently read that post of yours (I replied once already) and wanted to write something about it.. but I had lent my exemplar of "House Atreides", the first prequel, to a friend...
I guess you know this already, but since I can't be sure, I'm gonna write it anyway.

There is an epilogue to "House Atreides", written by Brian Herbert. He describes how he got to write the prequels and plan for the sequel, "Dune 7". He mentions that he only knew his father was planning something *VERY* special for Dune 7, and that Frank Herbert had annotated some scenes in paperback versions of "Heretics" and "Chapterhouse" with a marker. But he hadn't been able to find those paperbacks after his death.
He also describes how, in May 1997, the lawyer who was looking after his parent's estate (<- not sure if that is the right term :-P) called him on the phone. In a banksafe in a suburb of Seattle two containers were found, which belonged to Frank Herbert... no one had known about their existence. They contained documents and floppy disks about the way Herbert planned Dune 7.



But i recently found out that such book was published in Romania, and that the publisher there claims he bought the Herbert manuscript for that book from the american copyright holders as long as they don't publish it outside of Romania.


From how Brian Herbert described how he found those manuscripts, and Kevin Anderson and him working on the prequels already, I would highly doubt that. I don't think Brian Herbert would give those documents away, which probably belonged to him, and not to any publisher?
Did you find out anything else about all this?


-- Elessar