Frank Herbert is most known for his novel series Dune, which has been turned into two big-time hits at the box office with Dune in 2021 and Dune: Part Two in 2024. Both films grossed over $400M at the box office, and the second one grossed over $700M in revenue. The 2021 Dune film won the following Academy Awards: Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and Best Visual Effects. The film’s cast includes notable stars such as Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem and Jason Momoa. It has taken some time for Herbert’s work and genius to be recognized broadly.
His initial Dune book was published in 1965 and received critical acclaim in the novel and science fiction literary world. The writer’s journey for Herbert is an interesting one and involves much time investment. Before his big break in writing, Herbert served during World War II in the Navy Seabees for six months as a photographer and his service was cut short because of a head injury, which led to an unfortunate medical discharge. He went to work writing for The Oregon Journal and then worked for the Seattle Star and Oregon Statesman.
Herbert moved away from reporting and more into science fiction by the early 1950s. His first story was Looking for Something, which was published in the April 1952 edition of Startling Stories and he had more stories published soon after that in Astounding Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. His first novel was published in 1955, The Dragon in the Sea, which was a critical hit but did not sell much. This led him to his big hit which he started researching for in 1959. Dune began as a magazine article about the Oregon Dunes close to Florence, Oregon, and he researched an incredible amount. The extra research piqued his curiosity and interest, which led to his authorship fame. The novel was published in two parts across eight installments in Analog, an American science fiction magazine. His book was rejected by around 20 publishers, yet finally found a home with the Chilton Book Company. Once published, Herbert’s career ascended in altitude as the book received the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1965 and shared the Hugo Award in 1966. The book did sell some and led to him teaching and eventually leaving the newspaper writing world in 1972.
Through the 1970s and beyond, Herbert worked consistently and successfully as an author with such titles as Dune Messiah in 1969, Children of Dune in 1976, God Emperor of Dune in 1981, Heretics of Dune in 1984 and Chapterhouse: Dune in 1985, which was the last single novel published in his lifetime. The first film iteration of Dune hit the big screen in 1984 and was written and directed by David Lynch. The film starred many A-listers for their time with Kyle MacLachlan, Patrick Stewart, Sean Young, Sting, Virgina Madsen, Max Von Sydow, Jose Ferrer and Francesca Annis. The movie was panned by criticism even with a big budget, top-notch special effects and the backing of Universal Pictures. Dune did do well in Europe and Japan, however, it was still not enough. David Lynch held himself accountable for its shortcomings and it still received an Academy Award nomination for Best Sound. The film has been released at different times with updated cuts to improve the overall storytelling similar to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner with multiple different releases and versions.
Even with the initial film version’s lack of mega success, Herbert pressed forward with publishing works. His wife passed in 1985 and he married Theresa Shackleford, who he knew through the book world. Herbert passed in 1986 from complications while recovering from cancer surgery. His legacy still lives on with devoted fans across the world, which in a way form a cult from his writing. Herbert touched on many key points on society in his books such as evaluating leadership, ecology, survival, sanity versus madness and how language shapes thought. Some movie and science fiction fans strongly believe that Dune has inspired further long-living franchises such as Star Wars, Mad Max, Alien and Tremors. Hints of Herbert lived throughout all of them such as Spice and smugglers (i.e. Han Solo) being a part of the Star Wars universe, the vast post-apocalyptic style wasteland in the Mad Max series, the foreign culture and deep space exploration of Alien and the carnivorous worm creatures that travel underground and hone into their targets through sound in Tremors. All have correlations to the world of Dune.
Dune is a science fiction landmark and draws comparisons to The Lord of the Rings for its world-building, characters and myth. His novels after his first Dune novel were mostly New York Times Best Sellers and Herbert was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006. He has had many more books published posthumously such as The Ascension Factor, High-Opp, Angels’ Fall, A Game of Authors and A Thorn in the Bush. The franchise has been further added to with books published by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson using notes and fragments from Herbert’s writings. These include three prequel trilogies with Prelude to Dune, Legends of Dune and Great Schools of Dune and two post-Chapterhouse Dune books with Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune.
Herbert has left a legacy of creativity in science fiction and storytelling which will last generations. He has a similar fate to Phillip K. Dick author of Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report with not getting to see the full success of his novels turned into feature films. His works still reach people and influence culture likely well beyond what he ever dreamed of, courtesy of a Navy veteran and fellow journalist turned sci-fi author. Check out the Dune films and books, you will enjoy them.