he energy to write, but he did the best that he possibly could. The novel, as important as it was, had to be secondary to Beverly Herbert, his loving wife and companion since 1946.

For the new book project, he was using a Compaq word processor since it was much faster than his customary electric typewriter. Each night he put the new machine away in a sealed "dry room" by the kitchen to prevent it from being damaged so quickly in the caustic, salty air that blew in from the ocean. By the middle of February, he told me he'd been having plot problems with the novel, but he was a little over halfway through the first draft. Only a few days later, he was interrupted by yet another of my mother's medical emergencies, one that forced them to return to a home they still owned in Port Townsend, Washington. Choosing to stay there instead, a short distance from Seattle, they could more easily obtain the best medical treatment for her. It was the practical thing to do, though they would return to Hawaii later in the year.

By early June, they were still in Port Townsend, and Dad had the first draft completed-around 200,000 words, which would eventually be cut to 165,000. I remember visiting them at their home on the Olympic Peninsula and seeing my mother reading the manuscript. A slender brunette woman, she was seated on a dark yellow recliner in the sitting area adjacent to the kitchen, with manuscript pages spread out on the table beside her. She said the story was great, that she couldn't put it down. Mom felt that each book in the series was superior to the one before, with plots and characterizations that were even better than Dune.

The strong characterizations of women in the series-and particularly in Heretics and Chapterhouse-appealed greatly to my mother. In fact, Dad based the Lady Jessica on her, creating a memorable literary character who had my mother's beauty and grace. Remarkably, even though Beverly Herbert passed away years ago, she continues to live through the ages . . . a significant testimonial to the love that Frank Herbert felt for her.

It is interesting to note the progression of women in my father's Dune novels. Female characters get stronger and stronger as the series develops, and in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, women are running most of the important planets in the Dune universe. By that time, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood is the most important political power, although it is a more austere age, without the grandeur and pomposity of the Imperium back in the days of Shaddam Corrino IV, the Emperor Paul Muad'Dib, or the tyrannical God Emperor, Leto Atreides II. The glories of the desert planet Arrakis are long gone as well, and the sandworm species has been moved off world, where it may not survive.

Thousands of years before the events described in Heretics of Dune, the God Emperor set mankind on his "Golden Path" and scattered civilization across countless star systems, as if sprinkling human seeds in the wind. But now, in Heretics of Dune, evil, supremely powerful women have emerged from the Scattering and threaten the Sisterhood. They call themselves "Honored Matres," which is ironic because there is nothing honorable about them. Individually and collectively, they can outfight the Sisters, so that the Sisterhood-like the sandworms-seems in danger of being wiped out. The brutal Honored Matres appear to be unstoppable, and there are rumors about their origins. Could they possibly be descended from failed Reverend Mothers, making them the dark side of the Sisterhood? Or could something else be at play, something even more sinister that has been generated in the secret breeding laboratories of the fanatical Tleilaxu?

Heretics of Dune is a remarkable, cerebral excursion through the most fantastic universe in science fiction. In this novel, as in God Emperor of Dune before it and Chapterhouse: Dune afterward, the author explored layers that he originally interwove into the action of the first novel in the series, Dune-layers containing important messages about politics, religion, ecology, and a host of other interesting, timeless subjects. The last three novels he wrote in the series are intellectually stimulating, and sometimes the action almost seems secondary. Huge battles, and even one that is environmentally catastrophic, occur behind the scenes.

As I wrote in Dreamer of Dune, the biography of my father, Heretics of Dune was actually intended to be the first book of a new trilogy that would complete the epic story chronologically. It is set thousands of years in mankind's future, long after the events in Dune. Before his untimely death in 1986, Frank Herbert wrote the first two books of the trilogy (Heretics and Chapterhouse), but he left the third unwritten. Using my father's outline and notes, I eventually co-wrote the grand climax with Kevin J. Anderson, but it required two novels for us to do so-Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007).

Heretics of Dune is the beginning of that extraordinary, climactic adventure, a giant leap in time and space beyond the novels preceding it. In this novel, you will meet a diverse and complex cast of characters, inhabiting worlds that stretch the imagination. It is a journey into what my father liked to call one of humankind's "possible futures," showing where we might very well be headed, into a tableau that is at once terrifying and exhilarating. Even with its complexities, Heretics is a page-turner, a novel that will not disappoint the most critical of Dune fans. After reading the last page of the book, you will want to go back and read it again, revisiting old friends in a fantastic realm that never quite leaves your thoughts.

Brian Herbert

Seattle, Washington

June 24, 2008





Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate but to limit. Do not ask Why? Be cautious with How? Why? leads inexorably to paradox. How? traps you in a universe of cause and effect. Both deny the infinite.

-THE APOCRYPHA OF ARRAKIS

"Taraza told you, did she not, that we have gone through eleven of these Duncan Idaho gholas? This one is the twelfth."

The old Reverend Mother Schwangyu spoke with deliberate bitterness as she looked down from the third-story parapet at the lone child playing on the enclosed lawn. The planet Gammu's bright midday sunlight bounced off the white courtyard walls filling the area beneath them with brilliance as though a spotlight had been directed onto the young ghola.

Gone through! the Reverend Mother Lucilla thought. She allowed herself a short nod, thinking how coldly impersonal were Schwangyu's manner and choice of words. We have used up our supply; send us more!

The child on the lawn appeared to be about twelve standard years of age, but appearance could be deceptive with a ghola not yet awakened to his original memories. The child took that moment to look up at the watchers above him. He was a sturdy figure with a direct gaze that focused intently from beneath a black cap of karakul hair. The yellow sunlight of early spring cast a small shadow at his feet. His skin was darkly tanned but a slight movement of his body shifted his blue singlesuit, revealing pale skin at the left shoulder.

"Not only are these gholas costly but they are supremely dangerous to us," Schwangyu said. Her voice came out flat and emotionless, all the more powerful because of that. It was the voice of a Reverend Mother Instructor speaking down to an acolyte and it emphasized for Lucilla that Schwangyu was one of those who protested openly against the ghola project.

Taraza had warned: "She will try to win you over."

"Eleven failures are enough," Schwangyu said.

Lucilla glanced at Schwangyu's wrinkled features, thinking suddenly: Someday I may be old and wizened, too. And perhaps I will be a power in the Bene Gesserit as well.

Schwangyu was a small woman with many age marks earned in the Sisterhood's affairs. Lucilla knew from her own assignment-studies that Schwangyu's conventional black robe concealed a skinny figure that few other than her acolyte dressers and the males bred to her had ever seen. Schwangyu's mouth was wide, the lower lip constricted by the age lines that fanned into a jutting chin. Her manner tended to a curt abruptness that the uninitiated often interpreted as anger. The commander of the Gammu Keep was one who kept herself to herself more than most Reverend Mothers.

Once more, Lucilla wished she knew the entire scope of the ghola project. Taraza had drawn the dividing line clearly enough, though: "Schwangyu is not to be trusted where the safety of the ghola is concerned."

"We think the Tleilaxu themselves killed most of the previous eleven," Schwangyu said. "That in itself should tell us something."

Matching Schwangyu's manner, Lucilla adopted a quiet attitude of almost emotionless waiting. Her manner said: "I may be much younger than you, Schwangyu, but I, too, am a full Reverend Mother." She could feel Schwangyu's gaze.

Schwangyu had seen the holos of this Lucilla but the woman in the flesh was more disconcerting. An Imprinter of the best training, no doubt of it. Blue-in-blue eyes uncorrected by any lens gave Lucilla a piercing expression that went with her long oval face. With the hood of her black aba robe thrown back as it was now, brown hair was revealed, drawn into a tight barette and then cascading down her back. Not even the stiffest robe could completely hide Lucilla's ample breasts. She was from a genetic line famous for its motherly nature and she already had borne three children for the Sisterhood, two by the same sire. Yes-a brown-haired charmer with full breasts and a motherly disposition.

"You say very little," Schwangyu said. "This tells me that Taraza has warned you against me."

"Do you have reason to believe assassins will try to kill this twelfth ghola?" Lucilla asked.

"They already have tried."

Strange how the word "heresy" came to mind when thinking of Schwangyu, Lucilla thought. Could there be heresy among the Reverend Mothers? The religious overtones of the word seemed out of place in a Bene Gesserit context. How could there be heretical movements among people who held a profoundly manipulative attitude toward all things religious?

Lucilla shifted her attention down to the ghola, who took this moment to perform a series of cartwheels that brought him around full circle until he once more stood looking up at the two observers on the parapet.

"How prettily he performs!" Schwangyu sneered. The old voice did not completely mask an underlying violence.

Lucilla glanced at Schwangyu. Heresy. "Dissidence" was not the proper word. "Opposition" did not cover what could be sensed in the older woman. This was something that could shatter the Bene Gesserit. Revolt against Taraza, against the Reverend Mother Superior? Unthinkable! Mother Superiors were cast in the mold of monarch. Once Taraza had accepted counsel and advice and then made her decision, the Sisters were committed to obedience.

"This is no time to be creating new problems!" Schwangyu said.

Her meaning was clear. People from the Scattering were coming back and the intent of some among those Lost Ones threatened the Sisterhood. Honored Matres! How like "Reverend Mothers" the words sounded.

Lucilla ventured an exploratory sally: "So you think we should be concentrating on the problem of those Honored Matres from the Scattering?"

"Concentrating? Hah! They do not have our powers. They do not show good sense. And they do not have mastery of melange! That is what they want from us, our spice knowledge."

"Perhaps," Lucilla agreed. She was not willing to concede this on the scanty evidence.

"Mother Superior Taraza has taken leave of her senses to dally with this ghola thing now," Schwangyu said.

Lucilla remained silent. The ghola project definitely had touched an ol