Exclusive interview for our web-site. Answers received on November 11, 2011.

This is the start of a new trilogy set about 80 years after the Battle of Corrin, after the thinking machines have been defeated and the new Corrino Imperium is just in its fledgling stages. Without machines, the great schools are being formed—the Bene Gesserit, the Mentats, the Spacing Guild, as well as the Suk Doctors and Swordmasters. This story also includes the return of Vorian Atreides as well as Erasmus, two of our most popular characters in the Dune universe. this is also the time period when anti-technology fanatics are trying to destroy all vestiges of advanced technology, whether or not it poses a threat.

This is a trilogy, with the titles likely being SISTERHOOD OF DUNE, MENTATS OF DUNE, and NAVIGATORS OF DUNE. Like our previous Legends of Dune and Prelude to Dune trilogies, they are three books with complex and interconnected storylines, not three individual novels. All of the schools will be in all of the novels, but it's a story too big to fit into a single book. We have outlined part of MENTATS, but Brian and I are working on the final manuscript for HELLHOLE AWAKENING, the second novel in our original SF trilogy.

When the thinking machines were gone, this was a time period where humanity had to blossom, to show its skills and powers without using the crutch of machines...although the fanatics want to destroy far too much and bring about a new dark ages. We always felt that the formation of the Bene Gesserit, the Navigators, and other key elements of the Dune universe was a very interesting story to tell.

It's not dead by any means. PAUL OF DUNE, WINDS OF DUNE, THRONE OF DUNE, and GOLDEN PATH OF DUNE/LETO OF DUNE are four individual, separate novels "inquels" that fill in the gaps between Frank Herbert's original novels. They don't form a straightforward, interconnected story like the Schools of Dune trilogy does. We did two of them, and felt that we wanted to go back to a different time period, the post-Jihad universe with many of the familiar characters we had developed in the Butlerian Jihad trilogy. The inquels are somewhat constraining because they have to fit in such a tight time frame, and the Schools trilogy gives us much more freedom. We do intend to go back and do the other two. Brian and I are also writing our HELLHOLE books in between the Schools of Dune novels.

We've already published quite a few Dune short stories that tell interesting side-tales and connect some of the other projects: Hunting Harkonnens, Whipping Mek, Faces of a Martyr, and A Whisper of Caladan Seas (all collected in THE ROAD TO DUNE), and Sea Child, Treasure in the Sand, and now Wedding Silk, all collected in TALES OF DUNE—the best-selling book released by http://www.wordfirepress.com. As we write our big novels, sometimes we think of a story we want to write that doesn't fit into the overall structure of the novel, so we set it aside and write it as a separate story. Now, with the advent of e-publishing, we can make the stories available worldwide instantly, and for a reasonable price. We may be doing more, but nothing in the works right now.

I am now re-reading all seven novels in the original Saga of Seven Suns series, just to refresh my memory. (Brian Herbert tells of how his father would reread the Dune novels with a yellow highlighter pen to mark the passages he particularly wanted to remember before writing a new Dune novel.) I will be writing a "next generation" trilogy, THE SAGA OF SHADOWS, which takes place 20 years after the end of THE ASHES OF WORLDS, with some familiar characters, some new ones, and an even bigger crisis that threatens to destroy the universe. I also just wrote the original prequel to Saga of Seven Suns, VEILED ALLIANCES, which is available at http://www.wordfirepress.com.

Hollywood is a very complicated place. We continued to have interest from various studios on the project, and we'll keep trying. we will keep our fingers crossed and hope that something is in the works soon.

Other than the Saga of Shadows, I am also working with Brian on HELLHOLE AWAKENING. My novel about Jules Verne, CAPTAIN NEMO, was just reissued in the US and the UK, and I have an original new hard-SF novella with a sequel written by my friend Steve Savile, TAU CETI, which is available worldwide as an eBook and in print at http://www.PPickings.com

Again, we're pursuing many different ways to bring the Dune universe to a wider audience, and we are definitely interested in both TV and graphic novels, but nothing to announce just yet.

best,
KJA

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