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Frank Herbert, born on October 8, 1920, in Tacoma, Washington, was a very smart kid. He carried books around in a Scout pack, reading everything he could. He was also a refusenik, having an independent spirit that frequently got him into trouble. He didn’t graduate from college because he wouldn’t take the courses required to complete a major—he wanted to study only what interested him.
He worked on the manuscript for Dune for six years. It was rejected by twenty-three publishers before Analog magazine published it in serial form from 1963 to 1965. Sterling Lanier, editor at Chilton Book Company, primarily known for publishing car repair manuals, offered to publish the book for a $7500 advance. Dune won both a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award.
Herbert wrote six novels set in the Dune universe, as well as best-selling science fiction titles such as Hellstrom’s Hive, The Dosadi Experiment, and The White Plague.
Married three times, Herbert had three children, one of whom, Brian, is continuing to write books about Dune with his co-author, Kevin J. Anderson.
Frank Herbert died in 1986 after a long battle with cancer.