Echoes of War: Strong and Courageous By Daniel Gibbs

 Echoes of War: Strong and Courageous

By Daniel Gibbs

  I reviewed book one of this series waaay back in May of 2020. So when it comes to the authors I'm just gonna note that one of my friends and a patron write in this universe, although I have not met Mr. Gibbs himself. That said, everything in this review is my honest opinion. 

Okay, let's do a quick overview of the Echoes of War Universe for those of you in the cheap seats. Our protagonists are citizens of the Terran Coalition, a federation formed by people fleeing a totalitarian communist takeover of Earth through a newly discovered FTL drive. While not everyone agreed with the idea of living under the Coalition Constitution, leaving to settle their own planets with blackjack and hookers, most did and the Coalition was the largest human power in local space. While there were wars with aliens and those same neutral powers, for the most part, the Coalition managed to find ways to live peacefully working out solutions to sexism, racism, and other problems that allowed people to live free and full lives. Of course, everything changed when the League of Sol attacked. 

The League of Sol is what that totalitarian communist government that took over Earth grew up to be. They cemented their hold on Earth and expanded to the stars, settling who knows how many worlds and building a vast fleet to spread the word of Marx to the stars (See, a Marxist state cementing their hold on Earth and then going to the stars would be pretty rad. {I don’t know about that…} There is a whole genre of music called Soviet Wave which is literally built on a kind of Nostalgia for a Lost Future that the USSR never got to have.  But the League of Sol is like… strawman communism {I will agree to that}.). Centuries later they found the Coalition and for some reason just jumped straight to attacking. Which I gotta be honest I find dreadfully unrealistic and dull (Because you’re smart.). Even if you're Sauron reborn cradling your newly forged ring, you know that intelligence - that is information about your enemy - is the difference between victory or defeat. A period of peaceful coexistence would have allowed the League to gather information about the Coalition's abilities and weaknesses as well as create a 5th column behind enemy lines (Which is what I would do, because I’m not dumb.). Instead, by falling upon the Coalition out of nowhere, they cemented the peoples of the Coalition together to resist for decades with minimal social fracturing as the Coalition peace movement never got anywhere near the 1960s. 

Meanwhile, in the neutral planets, the League did pursue a more rational policy, selling itself as a counterweight to the local hegemony of the Coalition (This is smart.). Now as is the nature of human politics the behavior of the Coalition when it was the only 500-pound gorilla in the room built-up resentments and grudges. Not only that but the League presented an alternative vision of the future, one without class division or massive wealth imbalances. It is not shocking to consider that many among the neutral planets were drawn to such ideals and some even considered joining the League. Especially since it looked like the Coalition would slowly but surely lose their war to the League anyway. One such neutral planet was the planet of Monrovia which voted to join the League in a free and open vote. 

However, there was a wrench in the gears. The League doesn't allow for religious belief (Which, as the atheistic Jew communist in the room, I can tell you is completely insane.{What bothers me is the hyper focus on religion while ignoring things like ethnic and language identity, if you’re trying to break down all barriers between your populace, you have to aim at those to} ), preaching the idea that the State is everything and the ultimate expression of humanity (Which is just shitty communism, because the whole point of communism is to get to a point where the state dissolves. {Which will never happen}). Monrovia had a large minority of religious people, who were utterly opposed to giving up their beliefs. So something had to be done and the decision was made to reeducate those people, quietly, for their own good. As well as the good of the rest of the planet of course. While this made a lot of people uncomfortable, everyone agreed that it was necessary and even the people being sent to the camps would ultimately benefit. The ones who survived anyway. It was all for the greater good. Besides with the League winning, it was all just a matter of time anyway... Wasn't it? (Again, completely nuts.  If you want to get rid of religion, the way to do it isn’t to be all nasty about it. You make a society such that religion becomes… redundant.  You create a society that’s so good that people have less need to console themselves and find purpose with religion.  Won’t happen immediately, but religion will eventually fade into relative irrelevance if not non-existence. {I should note as a religious person myself, I disagree with this, in fact anthropology has looked into this and found strangely that religions that require more of you tend to thrive in these environments.  However, for the vast majority of citizens my editor is right, make life comfortable enough and they just kinda stop being religious})

The problem with an argument that declares something to be just a matter of time is that not only does the universe love to prove such a declaration wrong; it also ignores that a situation can change instantly if new variables are introduced. Also, new variables are always going to come crashing into anything that's not a controlled experiment. As you might have guessed the Terran Coalition didn't play along, building an experimental new battleship, the Lion of Judah, and foiling an underhanded attempt by factions in the League to use a peace conference as a cover for a terrorist attack. This brought in the most powerful Alien nation in local space, the Saurian Empire, on the side of the Coalition and that has turned the tide. 

While the Lion of Judah is an impressive leap of technology and firepower, it's still one ship and a single ship doesn't win wars. Entire fleets of fresh allies and arms and equipment produced by factories out of range of the League, however... This means the Lion of Judah, under the leadership of Colonel David Cohen, can also be sent on diplomatic missions to neutral planets to convince everyone that League victory is no longer unavoidable. So when the battleship shows up in Monrovian space right when the homegrown resistance has gotten enough evidence to expose the government turning reeducation camps into concentration camps? Well, this leaves the leaders of Monrovia alone holding the bag and right next to the now expanding Coalition's borders. 

The Coalition on the other hand can't afford another war, so the leaders of the Coalition intelligence services call in outside help. The Little Sisters of Divine Recompense are an order of warrior nuns, trying to make an increasingly deadly galaxy safe for people without powerful protectors. Answering the call, they'll gather in their thousands to fight an army a million strong to liberate the camps and save as many lives as possible. They do this by using for the most part nonlethal means, although no one's invented a non-lethal air to air missile. They aren't alone as Colonel Cohen and a number of his senior officers join as volunteers and that homegrown resistance movement will take all the help it can get. The sisters' resources and numbers are incredibly limited, however, and they will not conduct a regime change, focusing instead on stopping the mass murder and providing aid and evacuation to the victims. As the alliance is strained by disagreements over tactics, ethical boundaries, and even mission objectives can our rag-tag band of do-gooders hang together? Or are they doomed to hang separately? 

I find it interesting that once you get away from the League, the universe that Mr. Gibbs created becomes more complex and interesting by leaps and bounds. The government of the planet of Monrovia isn't controlled by snickering monsters gloating over every death but by human beings. Many of them are tormented by what they've agreed to but keep telling themselves that they're in too deep to stop and there just isn't any other choice. The morass of self-preservation, groupthink, learned helplessness, guilt, and desperation keeps pulling them deeper into a metaphorical bog of awful choices. Which makes the storyline all the more horrifying. Because you don't need especially bad people to commit genocide, just people convinced that they're doing the necessary or right thing and a minority dehumanized enough that they can be targeted. 

Our regular characters are still fairly interesting and they provide a good point of view for the readers. Most of them are people trying to do the right thing even under orders, others such as our crew of volunteers are people willing to put themselves at high risk to do something right. It's here that we have our most interesting conflicts though. As the Sisters steadfastly refuse to engage in high lethality war, sticking to mostly less than lethal munitions and operations to clear camps, detention centers, and what not depending on a technology and mobility advantage against the Monrovian numbers and home-field advantage (This tactic is, by the way, insane.). They face increasing pressure to not only resort to more traditional means, by which I mean bullets, but also to expand their operations to overthrow the government. The Sisters argue that they can't clean up after overthrowing the government and without significant buy-in, by the population, such operations are doomed to long-term failure. Meanwhile, the homegrown resistance keeps pushing and straining for the death blow against their oppressors. Mr. Gibbs actually puts in work to keep the resistance from being too sympathetic by having them do things like engaging in suicide bombing and underhanded tactics like using the sisters as stalking horses to draw out targets (The latter is good.  The former is bad.  Better to use kamikaze drones if you’re gonna do Propaganda of the Deed.). 

The League is mostly a vague background threat here, while the Coalition itself is rendered in shades of gray. With a number of supporting characters pointing out that if Monrovia had resources necessary to the war effort, there would be a Coalition battle group in the void above and Coalition Marines swarming the ground. Combined with Mr. Gibbs's really nice character work and this book is frankly better than the first one. For example, there are a number of atheists on the good guy side and this results in what I felt were adult discussions of faith vs non-faith. Including atheists working to stop the camps pointing out that someone doesn't need faith in any higher powers to see a difference between good and evil or to realize that mass murder is wrong. This makes the book much less about ideological conflict and more about what we do when confronted with something horrible and how we should never consider ourselves immune to becoming monsters.

That said there are minor characters from the League who show up in the book and they stand out by how one-dimensional and lackluster they are compared to everyone else. I also feel like there should have been some long-term consequences for the senior staff to go racing off on a private adventure. So I'm giving Strong and Courageous By Daniel Gibbs a B here. This honestly tells me if you can pry Mr. Gibbs away from the League he's capable of writing a much more interesting story. 

Well, this is our last review of the year folks, so I hope you enjoyed it.  Our patrons are still voting for what review we will return with but right now it looks like In the Court of the Crimson Kings by SM Stirling.  That said if you'd like to weigh in on that, join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where the polls for January and February are both up and you can vote on both for just a dollar a month.   Your insane editor and fearless reviewer will return on January 21st but until then, have a happy holiday and Keep Reading! 

Red Text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black Text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

The Sky People By SM Stirling

 The Sky People

By SM Stirling

I talked about Mr. Stirling's background in my review of the Peshawar Lancers so I won't rechew that soup. The Sky People was published in 2007, by Tor books. The Sky People is a combination of several genres and it's one of the reasons I really enjoy it. In this case, it's a combination of alternate history and planetary romance. I believe I've discussed both these genres before but let us do a quick overview. Alternate History is an examination of changed history, Man in the High Castle being a recent popular example. Now in most works, the rule is to change one thing and see what the effects would be but this can be difficult. For example, if the change I made was thousands of years ago, who can say what those effects would be in full? 

 Planetary Romance is an older genre and is basically a person who goes to an alien world and has adventures there. The how and why of getting that person to an alien world is generally regarded as unimportant, they can fly there on a spaceship, be teleported via experiment, or even summoned like magic. Traditionally the world in question is not a high-tech world but an exotic place with a mixture of technologies in play or is even a high fantasy setting in space. This is, unfortunately, a much-ignored genre these days but maybe someday we can see a comeback. The important part is our main character is from someplace else having adventures in a world strange to both the character and the reader. 

Our main character, in this case, is Marc Vitrac, a Bayou-born Cajun swamp rat who has done good. How good? He's beat out millions of candidates to qualify as a member of the colonial/research team for Venus. As one of the operatives of Jamestown - the US-Commonwealth joint station - in the year of our lord 1980 AD, his job is to gather information on the indigenous life forms of Venus, both past and present, and try to map out the evolution of life on a whole new planet. He also has to manage relationships with the natives, who range from stone age nomads to bronze age city dwellers. He's good at his job too, which is a good thing since life on Venus is driving the paleontologist and biologist of the Jamestown team slowly mad. Let me explain that a bit. 

Since the 1960s when the first Soviet probes landed on Venus (RIP USSR), life on Venus has been shockingly Earth-like (What?). Various literal dinosaur species are ranging across the hot, wet world (Well it is hot…).  On top of that, there are various mammalian species that show a close relationship with earth species, like the Tharg who aren't bovinoid but flat out bovine, or the natives who are homo sapiens as far as anyone can tell (No!  No!  This is not okay! {Merry Christmas buddy!}). The only real difference is that the natives have a slightly better sense of smell but that might be due to the difference in atmospheric pressure increasing their reliance on their nose because they can't depend on their eyes and ears as much. The fossil record doesn't just mirror Earth, it's full of fossils that might as well as be from Earth (Okay, what the fuck is going on here?  Did someone terraform Venus? {Read the book!}). 

These revelations, as well as the 1960 probes showing Venus and Mars, were life-bearing planets have radically changed a lot of things on Earth. Both the USSR and the USA worked together to tamp down any sparks of the Cold War. Because why fight over patches of dirt on one planet when there might be an entire galaxy out there? (Except that the Cold War was never actually about patches of dirt, but rather ideological hegemony. {Which can be expressed in a variety of different ways, in this case by competing to prove which system was superior at reaching out to the solar system and using the knowledge gained in that reaching} ) As a result, the middle east is a sleepy backwater with Jerusalem patrolled by an international peacekeeping force. Vietnam never happened and the Soviets aren't sending troops into Afghanistan (This is a much better world. {Of that, we can agree}). In 1980, NATO is a dead letter with Western Europe split off to form the European Union, which struggles to compete with the two superpowers. The Sino-Soviet Split never happened and the Common Wealth of Nations, the Organization of American States and the US are all slowly merging into a single organization to better share scientific and material resources for the space race. So increasingly the Warsaw Pact+the PRC and the US+OAS+Commonwealth nations competing, peacefully, for influence and turf in a solar system with three life-bearing worlds. 

However, even with vast sums and manpower being funneled into the space race, the actual shipping of people and materials is incredibly expensive (This also undercuts the notion of the Cold War being suspended {I didn’t say it was suspended, it was shifted to space, there’s a difference}). So every person who ends up on Mars and Venus is in the top 1% when it comes to intelligence and physical ability or as close as you come balancing the two. Everyone there is the result of a brutal selection and training process designed to send our best to other worlds. In this regard Marc, while not a scientist, is clearly an educated man who understands more than the regular swamp rat and has been trained to at least be able to serve as a competent lab assistant in research, while also being able to survive for days at a time out in the bush with minimal equipment and his wits. He doesn't even have to worry about the Soviets since their base, called Cosmosgrad is hundreds of miles away, although it would be nice if they would share their information on native life (If we are still in a paradigm of great power competition, why would they? {Because hoarding scientific knowledge has never worked out well?  It certain never works out well when we try to.} Are they not sharing unilaterally? {the scientific knowledge the American-Commonwealth missions find are made public, the implication is that USSR does not do so}). 

When an East Block space ship goes down in a crash in an unexplored part of Venus, it's a catastrophic loss for everyone. Marc, Chris, and Cynthia are selected as part of the crew of the lighter-than-air ship sent out to search for survivors, with Cosmosgrad sending over one of their own, with the wife of one of the ship's crew members, to aid in the search. However, they'll have to deal with the storms of Venus, the wildlife, and native politics to achieve their goal, and worse... What if the surviving crew of the ship no longer wish to be rescued? Or what if they've been suborned by something else? Something old, cold and advanced beyond the wildest dreams of humanity? (You mean like what very clearly terraformed Venus?) Something that may not be happy to see Terrains mucking about on Venusian clay and be willing to do all sorts of things to correct this deviation from the plan? 

So right off the bat, I think Marc is a great character. The only way to make him better would be to make him an outright anthropologist or have him be a Marine instead of an Army Ranger (I feel like this is wish fulfillment on your part.{nonsense I am clearly objective in everyway}). He even tames a Great Wolf, a sort of ramped-up Dire Wolf to serve as his loyal henchdog, and frankly does a better job than any of the Starks. Taming the native wildlife is another staple of Planetary Romance and I was honestly pleased with how well done it was. His Cajun background gives him a different viewpoint than a character from say New York City would have. Honestly, science fiction could stand to have more characters from groups like the Cajuns or the Creole ethnic groups. Now some folks may find the inclusion of Cajun-style French distracting but Stirling keeps it limited to easily figured out phrases and words. Not entire conversations like some writers I know (Oh hi Mark!  Yes, dear readers, in my own writing I will do sections in German, Yiddish, and sometimes even Russian, with contextual translation.  But then again, I am insane.). I will say that if you hate Marc, however, this book is not going to be for you because Marc is the viewpoint character for at least 85% of the book, with most of the rest of the book given over to a character I'm not going to discuss to avoid spoilers. I will say those of you who have read the books should feel free to discuss them. 

I also liked how, despite there being a love triangle (Because of course there is.), everyone manages to be a professional and an adult. I can put up with a certain amount of romantic mucking about but when it turns into self-destructive melodrama it makes my teeth hurt. Stirling clearly feels that people who have gone through a training regime designed to instill self-discipline and control should be able to deal with such things better than your average high schooler and I am incredibly thankful for that. There are of course other romantic entanglements in the story, this is in the tradition of Burroughs after all, but I'm not going to discuss them to avoid spoilers. 

I really like the supporting characters as well.  Stirling can give us an array of interesting characters from other viewpoints and backgrounds. The plot is fairly straightforward, but that's not a bad thing and sets up a fun and engaging adventure of survival in the wilderness against forces unknown and hazardous. Stirling does take his time to set up the main plot but the 100 pages he spends before that aren't wasted, giving us a look at the bronze age city-state that is the most advanced civilization on Venus and that the US-Commonwealth mission has shared things such as medical advancements, farming knowledge and is starting with much debate to share iron working with. He also gives us a full view of the Venusian wildlife which is pretty awesome. My view is that it's a shame there are only two books in this series but according to what Stirling has said on the Spacebattles.com website, that's entirely due to popular demand. The only real issue I have is that at the end of the book there are hints at this massive adventure that Marc had that we'll never get to see due to the book being under 300 pages. I could have lived with another 100 or 120 pages of the book devoted to that. Still, I encourage you to check out this book as the Sky People by SM Stirling gets an A-. 

    I hope you enjoyed this week's review, if you'd like a voice on upcoming reviews or to discuss current one consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads where the polls for January and February's reviews are already up!  Next week we return to Daniel Gibs Echoes of War Universe with the second book in his series Strong and Courageous.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading! 

red text are remarks by your editor Dr. Ben Allen

black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders

Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert

Frank Patrick Herbert Jr was born on October 8, 1920, in Tacoma, Washington. His paternal grandparents had come west to live as part of a utopian community called Burley Colony. It was one of the many experimental communities that had sprung up across the United States in the late 1800s and started out championing ideas like gender equality and some socialist ideas (A note: utopian socialism, as opposed to scientific socialism, does not work and intentional communities like this tend to either revert to the capitalist commodity form of social production, or they collapse into toxicity.). For example, everyone was issued an equal salary, mostly in script printed by the Burley Colony. By the time of Frank's birth, much of the socialist element had been abandoned. His grandparents ran a general store for the community while his father pursued a variety of jobs to earn money for the family, among them running a speakeasy in the 1930s (Likely contributing to what happens later…{spoilers!}). Mr. Herbert's father was agnostic but his Mother and Aunts were devoted Catholic and they insisted that Frank be educated in a Jesuit school. 

Mr. Herbert was an intelligent child and declared at the age of eight that he was going to be a writer. He was often noted as carrying a boy scout's bookbag full of books of a wide variety of subjects and the other kids at school often deferred to his knowledge. According to Mr. Herbert, much of his childhood outside of school was full of camping, fishing, and digging for clams. Unfortunately, his teen years were also filled with having to care for his little sister Patty Lou who was born when he was 13. At this point, his parents had turned to binge drinking. I can't help but think this impacted his schooling, as his high school career is noted as “checkered” with several failed classes. I gotta point out that if he's caring for an infant at home and likely as not dodging drunk parents, it's no wonder that his classwork was faltering (Folks, don’t do this to your kids. {I almost feel like binge drinking is worse than normal drinking because it’s inconsistent, which means your kids don’t have a normal to work around.  They have days where you’re a good parent and trustworthy and then there are days when you’re a drunken mess and there’s no telling what you’re gonna be on any given day.}). 

Mr. Herbert threw himself into journalist work, first working for the school paper and then dropping out of high school in his senior year to work for the Tacoma Ledger for about 4 or 5 months. He did return and graduate later that year and even sold his first story, a Western that netted him $27.50 (Which is $539.45 in today’s money, factor in purchasing power, and that ain’t bad.). He also wrote two dozen stories that were flatly rejected. He used the money to bundle up the now 5-year-old Patty Lou and buy bus tickets to flee to an Aunt and Uncle's place (Good kid.  But for the love of God, people, don’t do this to your kids.). From what I can tell, he didn't regard his parents as capable of caring for her and couldn't bear to stay any longer. Patty Lou seems to have been raised by that Aunt and Uncle from that point because she fades out of the narrative of Mr. Herbert's life. As for Mr. Herbert, having seen to his little sister's safety, he promptly headed south to California to seek his own path. 

He was highly mobile in 1939 and 1940 working for both the Glendale Star and Oregon Statesmen in a variety of positions. It's during this time he met his first wife, Flora Parkinson, information about her is somewhat sparse but they were married in the spring of 1941, in Tacoma by a Night Judge. In February of 1942, his first child and only daughter Penelope was born, in July he was drafted into the Navy and served as a photographer stationed in Virginia. Flora elected to stay in California with her family. Mr. Herber would serve for six months until a head injury from an accident resulted in him getting discharged in 1943. He headed back to California only to find Flora had disappeared and taken their daughter with her and her family refused to tell him anything about where she was or why. They divorced with Flora being awarded custody of their daughter (Dear God, that sucks.{My frustration is a complete lack of anything on her reasoning or motivations so I’m gonna avoid commenting on what to me looks like a case of parental kidnapping}).

For the rest of World War II, Mr. Herbert worked in Portland for the Oregon Journal. In 1945 he found a job working for the night desk of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and sold his second story to Espire for $200. He spent his days attending the University of Washington on the GI Bill. He wouldn't last long because he refused to do things like announcing a major or attend introductory classes wanting to only study classes that immediately interested him (Oops, that isn’t a good idea. {Mr. Herbert did seem to have a problem with doing anything step by step or following rules}). It was in a creative writing class that he met his wife of 37 years and the mother of both of his sons, Beverley Stuart Forbes. Both of them were the only ones in the class who had sold fiction, as Beverley sold a romance story and had her own literary dreams. Mr. Herbert dropped out of college and married Beverley in 1946, their first son Brian, was born in 1947. Beverley would be a major factor in Frank's success, not only as a sounding board but she provided feedback and often pushed Frank to write more realistic female characters. Mr. Herbert flat out said that Lady Jessica was in many ways modeled on his wife, as an intelligent, driven woman (This is something I struggle with in my own writing, it’s a perspective I lack.  Which isn’t to say I don’t try, because I do.  But it’s hard.  So good on him for putting in the effort!). 

While Mr. Herbert was always able to find newspaper work, financial difficulties haunted the couple. An attempt to build a house collapsed and the bank repossessed the half-built structure. Meanwhile, Mr. Herbert's first wife reappeared demanding child support (She sounds like a lovely person.  Granted the kid deserves support, but Jesus Christ.). In 1949 while working for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat they became close friends with Irene and Ralph Slatternly, who were both Jungian psychologists. It's here that Mr. Herbert developed an interest in ESP, genetic memory, and the idea of a collective unconsciousness. These are ideas that would show up constantly in his work (God, do they!). Mr. Herbert also met Alan Watts, who introduced him to Zen Buddhism. Mr. Herbert also began growing out his beard as his second son Bruce was born in 1951. In 1952, he sold his first science fiction story and creditors began to haunt his steps again. So when his friend and mentor, science fiction Legend Jack Vance invited Mr. Herbert to bring the family on an extended vacation to Mexico, it seemed like a good idea (I mean, fuck creditors!  Fucking parasites! {On the flip side Herbert had borrowed money and promised to pay it back}). 

It's in Mexico that Mr. Herbert first experimented with things such as hashish cookies and morning glory tea (Oh My! {He says the first time was an accident}). In 1954, Mr. Herbert was hired as a speechwriter for Senator Guy Cordon. This led to him spending time in Washington D.C and learning about the federal government. He even meet Senator Joe McCarthy at a party and had a front seat to the red panic (What is really funny to me is that there actually were communist spies all over the US, but the US was too incompetent to catch them, in the main.  Instead, it persecuted people who were either not communists, or who were openly communists and thus not useful as spies.  Meanwhile, during this period, the Cambridge Five were operating in the UK.). This would directly help inspire his first novel, set on a US sub in the future stealing oil from nations that they were locked into a war with. The story focused more on the paranoia of the crew as they realize one of them is likely a spy.  It was praised as a great examination of closed societies.  This book also marks where he started the process of dealing with writer's block by taking psychoactive drugs, in this case, peyote. He wrote it first as a serial series that he sold to Astonishing Science Fiction Magazine under the title Under Pressure and later rewrote it as the novel Dragon of the Sea, selling it to Doubleday. It was here that Barbara decided to abandon her own writing attempts in the mystery genre and got a day job to support the family writing fundraising copy for Tacoma's Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. 

According to Brian Herbert, Frank Herbert was at best a flawed father figure (He was a shitty father.  More on that later.). Mr. Herbert believed in corporal punishment (Which is child abuse.{Sure, but it was common to the point of being culturally expected.  On this one point, I’m not going to condemn him for doing what his culture told him was good parenting.  It’s not like he had great role models growing up}) and often subjected his sons to sessions with a lie detector (Wtf? {There are parents who pay to have that done to their kids today, it's still fucked up though}). He was also manic in preserving his isolation during writing time, even going so far as to lock the boys out of the house if their mother wasn't home (Yeah, um… that is really shitty parenting.  And suddenly, Brian not giving a shit about his father’s artistic vision for the Dune universe makes more sense. {Then Brian should have written his own damn universe.  This also wasn’t uncommon. I’m not saying it's okay but when everyone you trust tells you that this is what you should do...}). I'm not going to defend this behavior as today it would result in your kids being taken away from you and frankly, that may be to their benefit if you're treating them that way. My issues with the American foster system aside. I will note that bluntly from what I've seen and found that Mr. Herbert parenting wouldn't have stood out that much in the 1960s as corporal punishment was fairly common even decades later and even today parents are often eager to do things like stick their kids in a lie detector which seems overboard to me at best, and massively invasive and an abuse of authority at worse. 

While Dragon of the Sea sold well enough, the couple didn't use any of the money to settle their debts. So when the IRS came knocking they took another trip to Mexico so Frank could try to write a second novel, this didn't work. So in 1956, Mr. Herbert took another day job working for a Republican candidate who lost his race, but he learned about a project being done by the Department of Agriculture up in Florence Oregon. Where they were using poverty grasses like European Sea Grass to anchor the dunes. That had started engulfing entire towns and highways in sand at this point. Enthralled, Frank headed up to take a look. He started a magazine article he never finished and at some point became inspired to write a novel. To support his research efforts while Beverley was working as an ad copywriter, he would work for another Congressional candidate who lost the election 70 to 30%. (It seems his politics were as shitty as his parenting.  We’ll get there, I promise.)

At this point, Beverley was the main breadwinner of the family and when she was offered a job in San Francisco as an advertising manager, the family moved there and Mr. Herbert got a job with a local paper. At this point, Mr. Herbert was able to win custody of his daughter and was able to socialize with local science fiction writers. It was also here that he finally finished the novel that would cement him into history; he released Dune first as a serial series and then rewrote it as a novel and began shopping it around. It was rejected 23 times, with editors largely liking the work but believing it would never sell. One rejection letter even read “I feel I'm making a mistake but...” 

Dune becoming successful, especially after Ace Books bought the paperback, started a whole new chapter in Mr. Herbert's life. One that largely resolved his financial problems. His daughter Penelope married and moved out, and so did his oldest son Brian. Apollo Astronauts named a crater on the moon Dune in his honor and the sequels were well received. This is also where Mr. Herbert's relationship with his youngest son began to break down. By 1969 when Dune Messiah was published 

Bruce and Frank Herbert grew estranged over the fact that Bruce Herbert was openly gay (Good for Bruce!). Bruce Herbert not only was openly gay but deeply involved in queer theater in San Francisco and became an activist for gay rights. Although Mr. Herbert never formally disowned his son, he would openly state repeatedly that he believed that Bruce was making a choice to be gay and that was unwelcome in his home. I'm not going to defend this behavior, while I try to be neutral when writing about authors, this was flat-out bigoted behavior. Sadly from everything, I could find Mr. Herbert never grew out of it and would even try to talk Bruce out of visiting his mother when she was dying, which is honestly disgusting behavior but we'll get there. (I have absolutely no such qualms about neutrality. {I don’t think I’m being neutral when I call the man a bigot}  Fuck Frank Herbert.  I don’t ‘judge people by the times they live in’ as a means of excusing this sort of shit, unless it was literally the sort of thing that was an outside context problem at the time.  Stonewall had happened.  His son was gay and fighting for his rights as a human being.  It was Frank’s duty as a person and as a parent to stand up for his son, and of all his miserable failures as a parent, in this, he manifestly failed.  He is a contemptible man, and human being, no matter what we might say about the quality of his writing. That he tried to restrict Bruce’s contact with his dying mother only cements this.).

The 1970s were something of a heyday for the Herberts. They were able to buy a home which they set about making it as environmentally sustainable as possible with 1970s technology. This included a chicken house heated via methane from the birds dropping and a solar heated pool. Mr. Herbert started teaching courses on writing dystopian and utopian fiction at the University of Washington and wrote a number of non-Dune novels. He also emerged as an early champion of environmentalism and ecological thinking. Often arguing that humanity needed to curb its addiction to fossil fuels. In the 1970s!  Basically, he was calling for renewables and other actions before it was cool.  In 1976 Children of Dune was a break-out hit, Mr. Herbert toured 21 cities in 31 days on a book tour and then the book Dune was optioned for a movie. The beginning of the end came in 1980 when Beverley was diagnosed with lung cancer. They moved to Hawaii because they were told the warmer climate would help her. This was funded in part by money from Hollywood.  Mr. Herbert was hired as a consultant for the attempts to film his book and in part by the wild success of God Emperor of Dune. As a result, Mr. Herbert was handed what was at the time a massive advance on a 5th book. 

Mr. Herbert would split his time mostly between writing books and caring for his wife, becoming in effect her primary nurse. While he welcomed his eldest son and his daughter, he attempted to talk his son Bruce out of coming. He would never apologize or mend his relationship with Bruce (Fuck him, right in the ear.). She passed away in 1984. Frank would believe until his dying day that she would speak to him in his dreams. This became a major factor in his third and final marriage to the much younger Theresa Shackleford, who was a literary agent for Putnam books. Her job was mainly to take care of authors visiting Los Angles for book signings, it was on the job that she met Mr. Herbert in 1985, who would say later that when he was leaving L.A, Beverley appeared to him and told him to marry Theresa. They were married in 1985. Theresa would say later that Mr. Herbert was the most brilliant man she ever knew and despite that, he never made her feel stupid or inept but would always listen to her and was wonderful to talk to. Mr. Herbert would pass away in 1986 from pulmonary embolism.  He had just finished Chapterhouse Dune, the title having been chosen by Beverley before she passed away. 

Bruce Herbert continued his activism and worked in electronics, however, he contracted AIDS and passed away in 1993, his brother Brian was there with him (Good, he was better than most.  A lot of AIDS patients - gay or not - died without their families, given comfort only by their fellow LGBTQ people, many of whom were also dying.  Their governments literally laughed at them and used AIDS to kill millions in a genocide by neglect.) Brian continued his father's work as he was offered 3 million dollars to keep writing with Kevin J Anderson and finish the Dune series. Much like Philip K Dick, the best I can say is Frank Herbert is a deeply flawed man who rose from flawed beginnings. I suppose Mr. Herbert would point out this is one reason why you should beware of idolizing anyone too much and placing too much trust in the idea of heroic or charismatic leaders. Because just like him, they're at best human beings and therefore made up of good and bad. That doesn't excuse his flaws but it also doesn't bury his virtues. I leave it to you my readers to make your final judgments. 

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't expecting this overview of Frank Herbert's life to be so... Contentious?  Anyways, even if you didn't enjoy it, I hope it was educational.  Next week we'll be reviewing an SM Stirling novel, The Sky People.  If you would like a voice in upcoming reviews (polls for January and February are up!) consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads for as little as a dollar a month.  

Dune By Frank Herbert

Dune 

By Frank Herbert

It's 1958 in Florence Oregon the department of agriculture is trying to anchor moving sand dunes using poverty grasses. A journalist starts an article about this project that he will never finish. Instead, his studies will merge with his view of feudalism as humanity's natural state (What the actual fuck? {It’s a popular position}), his interest in superheroes and messiahs, and his observation that the desert is the home of several religions with messianic overtones. Although I would argue with him that Christianity is actually a child of the desert's edge at best. Added into this churning sea was experimentation with psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychedelic produced by a variety of mushrooms, which Herbert made a hobby of cultivating (I am completely non-shocked by this). 

What emerged after five years of research and writing was Dune. A novel that has been compared to the Lord of the Rings in its scope and influence. Much like Lord of the Rings, it has had a powerful impact on its genre and on popular culture outside of it, with music, comics, and other entertainments being directly or indirectly inspired by it. Dune is also infamous for the rocky road it traveled to be published and that difficulty seems to plague every attempt to adapt it. Let's take a look, shall we? 

Dune was first published as a serial in Analog magazine, Part I of the novel was released in three parts under the title Dune World from December 1963 to February 1964. Parts II and III were released in five parts under the title Prophet of Dune from January to May of 1965. The serial version was well received so Mr. Herbert collected them, expanded and cleaned them up, and began shopping around for a publisher for Dune as a stand-alone novel. Over twenty publishers turned him down, not because they thought the novel was bad, but because they thought it was too different and too weird for wider audiences to accept. It wasn't a Buck Rogers style, two-fisted, ray gun tale so, popular wisdom argued that science fiction audiences would reject it (It was, after all, the Fabled Age of Chrome!). 

However, a fellow writer turned editor named Sterling Lanier believed in the story and pitched it to his bosses over at Chilton Company, a publishing company known for primarily printing do-it-yourself auto repair manuals. They started publishing in August 1965, the first run of Dune was priced at almost $6 which in today's dollars is about $49. Needless to say, at first it didn't sell well and critics hated it... Because it wasn't a Buck Rogers style story with ray guns and robots among other things. They complained about the pace, the density and sheer alienness of the societies presented. Lanier was fired but went on with his writing and also became a fairly acclaimed sculptor, so he would get the last laugh on his bosses in several ways here. 

Meanwhile, Dune slowly built up its popularity through word of mouth. A process that modern folks would find agonizingly slow compared to today. Remember there's no internet, no cell phones, if your buddy lives in another city you have to sit down and write him a postal letter and wait weeks for a response. The word did spread, as copies were passed around and more and more people read the book, bought their own copies, turning Dune into a success. In 1966 it won the Hugo, tying with Roger Zelazny's and winning the first Nebula award for best novel. It eventually won over defenders, such as Arthur C Clark and Robert Heinlein. Today it's been translated into over a dozen languages and sold millions of copies and will likely sell millions more. Much like the Fremen who occupy the center of the narrative, Dune endured and outlasted its critics and then burst out into the science fiction landscape in a riotous assault. 

We've done it before but let's go over the background one more time. Humanity is united in a single empire under the Padishah Emperor (Shaddam IV, at this point.  What gets me is how vast and far-flung this empire is, and I’ll get to why momentarily). His authority is not absolute.  He must contend with the Great Noble Houses of the Landsraad, the Spacing Guild, and various other organizations like the Bene Gesserit sisterhood. The Great Houses directly control the planets of the Empire. Now the Emperor does have his own planets.  Including the planet where he raises his dread Sardaukar troops but the Great Houses united could drown them in bodies. That requires them to be united however and the Great Houses are riven with feuds and petty politics (This is what gets me.   The Sardaukar are produced on one planet, and the empire is absolutely vast, with various houses controlling one or more other entire planets.  It shouldn’t necessarily take all the houses to swamp the emperor in bodies, even with his terror troops, because there’s only so terrifyingly badass one guy can be.  I don’t know, it just seems to me that Herbert didn’t consider the problem of scale.{Sure you don’t need everyone, but if a bunch of houses decide to side with the Emperor, so you need a big enough faction to convince at least most of the others to sit this one out or the outright support of the spacing guild to let you defeat everyone in detail.}). In addition, space travel is controlled by the Guild who have created a monopoly on FTL travel. So to overthrow the Emperor you need to unify a bunch of petty aristocrats and gain the approval of a corporate monopoly. Or do you? 

The empire also depends on the spice Melange, which is only found on the planet Arrakis aka Dune. Spice enables the Guild to safely travel by folding space. Spice enhances human mental and physical capabilities and even extends life. Without spice, the civilization of the Empire collapses and traps the majority of humanity into single system isolation. Dune is a desert planet, dominated by giant sandworms that devour anything in their path. Most of humanity lives in the northern hemisphere behind a ring of mountains called the shield wall. So says conventional wisdom anyways, out in the desert the Fremen, the natives of Dune live in hidden communities and resist all outside authority. Considering that outside authority is the House Harkonnen, a Great House known for its brutality, it's easy to see why they resist (It is easy to see why any indigenous people resist imperialism in any form, but the Harkonnen are like… Belgians in the Congo level bad.). Change however is in the air, as the Emperor has taken Arrakis away from the Harkonnens and given it a new house, House Atreides, and thus onto Dune comes hither Paul Atreides the central character of our narrative. 

Paul is an interesting character. He is both the product of thousands of years of controlled breeding by the Bene Gesserit, a sisterhood of talented women who seek to create a superhuman they call the kwisatz haderach, and an utter accident. Because Paul, according to the Bene Gesserit plan isn't supposed to exist, his mother was only supposed to give birth to daughters to marry the Harkonnen heir. Frankly, given what they planned to do to that hypothetical girl, I don't blame Jessica for having a boy instead (I don’t blame her either. And unifying the two houses with Feyd-Rauthe at the head?  Yeeesh.). That said Paul has powers beyond what anyone was expecting and has been raised outside of anyone's control while being trained by both his father's instructors and his mother Jessica (Trained as both a Male Bene Gesserit, and a Mentat, which is utterly terrifying even before the special sauce.). Once exposed to a massive amount of spice, he develops the ability to see into possible futures (Strictly speaking, he had limited prescient vision before that.).  This paired with his own education of Bene Gesserit and Atreides martial arts and political skills turns him into an impossibly charismatic and skilled leader and fighter. Which makes him dangerous to everyone. 

The first part of our novel is how House Atreides comes to Dune, is betrayed from within, and is overthrown and scattered by the combined Imperial and Harkonnen forces. It is a tragic story of good people being betrayed and mistakes made for the noblest ends. However, the well-intentioned House Atreides falls and savage Harkonnen stands triumphant. At this point, Paul and his mother are forced to flee to the Freman and fight for a place in their harsh but collectively supportive society. Paul learns of the secrets of the Freman and their secret goal to create a planet that has both greenery and desert and he works to co-opt that goal with his own goal of revenge on everyone who either helped with the destruction of his family or refused to act to prevent it(In the process, he does legitimately go native.). To this end, he and his mother train the Fremen in the Bene Gesserit martial arts and create a truly terrifying military machine. More importantly, Paul figures out how to utterly destroy all the spice on Dune. Because in his estimation it's only the person who can destroy a thing that can truly control it. 

That's only one of the conflicts driving the story, there's also Bene Gesserit's desperate attempts to save their breeding program, Jessica's attempt to keep Paul from diving into the abyss and the biggest driving conflict is Paul versus history. Because while Paul wants revenge and to topple the throne of the Known Universe, he seeks to do so in a relatively contained way. His visions increasingly show him that once you unleash violence like this, it can't be contained. He is constantly plagued with visions of a Galactic Jihad in his name, of Freman in their millions seizing control of FTL and using it to storm world after world waving the Green Banner of House Atreides as a sign of his divinity. Paul's struggle in this novel is to prevent the Jihad while achieving the throne, but his failure is in the fact that the throne and the Jihad are inseparably linked. Paul could have stopped the Jihad by giving up the throne and deciding that there was a limit to revenge but he couldn't do that. In the end, he’d rather have the blood of billions on his hands than surrender one inch of his ambitions. In short, Dune is about Paul failing to resist the temptations of power and vengeance and how all the power in the universe won't help you if you can't resist those temptations. You'll end up swept up in the tide, as helpless as any peasant (Not really sure how he could have not taken the throne though. In a situation like the one he was in, he kinda had to.  I suppose he could have just held Spice hostage forever…{Take the Imperial family hostage and just rule as Duke of Dune and Caladan and maybe seize the Harroken domains or for that matter just kill everyone and fade back into the desert and let the universe sort itself out.  There are options here, whether they’re as good as taking the throne I suggest we leave to the reader to ponder})

I should note the above is only one way to read the text, there is also the story of a tragic fall, the triumphant rise of a colonized and hunted people into a galactic superpower, or their hideous corruption into a new wave of imperialist oppressors There's the struggle of Jessica to try and save her children from themselves and the outside world. There's also Paul standing there as a prime reason why you shouldn't attempt to breed human beings like cattle (Including back-crossing!  Woooo!). You can also see an environmentalist story.  With the Fremen as a people who are consciously and constantly working to reshape the ecology of their world for the better while seeking to live in harmony with it. There is a commentary on how feudalism leads to decadence and stagnation.  Where the upper class is doomed to turn in on itself in a cannibal struggle for power and influence or even just basic safety. All of this is in the text and is paired with magnificent world-building and characterization. Even Princess Irulan is given a depth of characterization.  This is despite not appearing in the novel until the last chapters and is done by having each chapter start with a quotation written by her about the history of Paul, Dune, or the greater Universe. It's easy to see why Dune swept science fiction like a Fremen army and left a deep imprint. 

The text is somewhat dense at times. The plot starts off slow and builds to a great speed only to scream to a sudden stop (My favorite parts are all fairly early in the text to be honest.). Something Herbert admits to doing on purpose as a way of forcing the reader to come up with their own ideas on Dune.  It is still populated by unforgettable characters and intriguing societies and ideas. The Mentats and Bene Gesserit alone are utterly enthralling as ideas. I could have a dozen people read Dune and they would give me a dozen different ideas of what the story is about and still not be wrong. That fascinates me on a certain level.  I admit, I don't think you could write Dune today as it stands firmly on ideas that modern readers would dismiss in a lesser novel.  For example, racial memory, eugenic breeding programs, or using drugs to expand human perception and mental abilities. That said, I'm giving Dune by Frank Herbert an A. Every time I read it, it takes my breath away and it has more than stood the test of time. Ya hya chouhada muad'dib. 

Having also read this book, many times, it is one of my favorites and I give it an A+

     I hope you enjoyed our review of Dune, which was chosen by our ever-wise patrons.  If you would like a voice on what gets reviewed and when consider joining us at https://www.patreon.com/creator-home for as little as a dollar a month.  Next week we take a look at Frank Herbert himself.  Until then, stay safe and keep reading! 

Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen

Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders