Legacy
The main reason I want to discuss Frank Herbert in relation to the second book in the Dune series is because of the main driving force that led him to write this novel. This being the fact many people misinterpreted the first book. This mistake still occurs today! Tragically some people are not able to take of the rose tinted glasses when it comes to Paul and his actions in the first book. Frank Herbert responded to his audience with the creation of Dune Messiah and this is the main reason I want to discuss Dune Messiah in tandem with a discussion of Frank Herbert’s legacy and how the Author viewed his own stories.
Frank Herbert created the most influential and one of the most popular SCIFI stories of all time. I think it is important to realize that Dune was rejected by many publishers before it was eventually picked up by Analog (A SCIFI magazine) and published in multiple parts from 1963 – 1965. It was then reject again for hard cover publishing before it was published by Chilton Book Company. Dune was not an overnight success, but it did get noticed somewhat quickly and won a Nebula Award: Best Novel in 1965. Why was Dune rejected so much? I think the main reason is that SCIFI was still not a “real” genre to a lot of people, especially not in the medium of writing. A lot of SCIFI was not taken seriously in comparison to other genres of fiction. One reason people talk about Dune so much is because it was a big factor in changing this narrative. Dune took itself seriously and wanted to address BIG topics that other fiction novels at the time did not.