Before the release of Dune: House Atreides, our first novel set in Frank Herbert’s classic SF universe, Brian Herbert and I wrote this short story, which Amazing Stories magazine was eager to publish before the book came out. (We also had a House Atreides excerpt published in Playboy, which allowed me to proudly display copies of the magazine on our coffee table.) Rather than being connected to the prequel events in House Atreides, “A Whisper of Caladan Seas” is set during the events of Dune, a side story about other characters trapped during the battle of Arrakeen, after the Harkonnens swept in to defeat Duke Leto.
I love how this story turned out, although one reviewer responded with a baffling comment (as reviewers so often do) that he didn’t know where we had gotten the mystical aspects of this story, since he couldn’t recall any mysticism in any of Frank Herbert’s books! I still haven’t stopped scratching my head over that one.
Since that first short story, Brian and I have written and published over three million words together—with more to come.