The Unpublished Short Stories of Frank Herbert
Even the author of Dune—the best-selling science fiction novel of all time—had trouble getting published. At first.
Frank Herbert wanted to be a writer, and though today his name is practically synonymous with worldbuilding and epic science fiction, Herbert didn’t start out with a particular genre in mind. He wrote mainstream stories, mysteries, thrillers, mens’ adventure pieces, humorous slice-of-life tales, and, yes, some science fiction.
In his early years, Herbert faced many rejections. His submissions came close-but-not-quite at magazine after magazine. Frank Herbert was an inspired writer with an unpredictable muse. He wrote what he wanted to write, about the characters and the situations that struck his fancy, paying very little attention to the market or the requirements of the magazines to which he submitted.
As a result, his stories were often the wrong length—too short to be released as a novel but too long for traditional periodicals. Magazines liked his work but could not use it. His agent also had a frustrating time finding a home for Herbert’s work.
And yet he kept writing.
Finally, in 1956, he found success, placing his novel The Dragon in the Sea with Doubleday, which received wide critical acclaim and made him a writer to watch.
So Herbert wrote another novel … which he couldn’t get published. And another novel, and more short stories, and other novels. He kept trying, with his subjects wandering all over the map, until finally he wrote Dune, which was possibly the most unpublishable SF novel of all, rejected more than twenty times before it was finally released by a house that specialized in auto repair manuals.
And eventually, that novel made him a world-famous author.
In Frank Herbert’s files, we found the completed and polished manuscripts for four novels—High Opp, Angels’ Fall, A Game of Authors, and A Thorn in the Bush—all of which have been released, as Herbert wrote them, from WordFire Press.
We also found the submission manuscripts for thirteen completed short stories, all of which failed to find a home in the magazines of the day. This volume collects all those previously unpublished stories, including the mystery/thrillers “The Yellow Coat,” “The Heat’s On,” “The Wrong Cat,” and “The Little Window”; humorous mainstream stories “The Illegitimate Stage,” “Wilfred,” and “The Iron Maiden”; serious mainstream stories “The Cage” and “A Lesson in History”; South Sea adventure stories “Paul’s Friend” and “The Waters of Kan-E”; and science fiction tales “Public Hearing” and “The Daddy Box.”
Readers can now appreciate the writing of one of the field’s masters in a kaleidoscope of stories that have not previously seen print. Enjoy.
—Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson