27 Facts About Frank Herbert

Frank Herbert's rural upbringing involved spending a lot of his youth on the Olympic and Kitsap Peninsulas.

Frank Herbert was fascinated by books and could read much of the newspaper before the age of five, had an excellent memory, and learned things quickly.

Frank Herbert had an early interest in photography, and bought a Kodak box camera at age ten, a new folding camera in his early teens, and a color film camera in the mid-1930s.

Frank Herbert enrolled in high school at Salem High School, where he graduated the next year.

Frank Herbert married Flora Lillian Parkinson in San Pedro, California, in 1941.

Frank Herbert subsequently moved to Portland, Oregon where he reported for The Oregon Journal.

Frank Herbert returned to journalism and worked at the Seattle Star and the Oregon Statesman.

Frank Herbert was a writer and editor for the San Francisco Examiner California Living magazine for a decade.

Frank Herbert was able to devote himself wholeheartedly to his writing career because his wife returned to work full-time as an advertising writer for department stores, becoming the breadwinner during the 1960s.

Frank Herbert later told Willis E McNelly that the novel originated when he was assigned to write a magazine article about sand dunes in the Oregon Dunes near Florence, Oregon.

Frank Herbert got overinvolved and ended up with far more raw material than needed for an article.

Frank Herbert was the Seattle Post-Intelligencer education writer from 1969 to 1972 and lecturer in general studies and interdisciplinary studies at the University of Washington.

Frank Herbert worked in Vietnam and Pakistan as a social and ecological consultant in 1972.

Frank Herbert divided his time between homes in Hawaii and Washington's Olympic Peninsula; his home in Port Townsend on the peninsula was intended to be an "ecological demonstration project".

Frank Herbert continued his Dune saga with Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune.

Frank Herbert planned to write a seventh novel to conclude the series, but his death in 1986 left storylines unresolved.

Frank Herbert helped launch the career of Terry Brooks with a very positive review of Brooks' first novel, The Sword of Shannara, in 1977.

Frank Herbert lived ten more years, but her health was adversely affected by the surgery.

In 1985, after Beverly's death, Frank Herbert married his former Putnam representative Theresa Shackleford.

Frank Herbert died of a massive pulmonary embolism while recovering from surgery for pancreatic cancer on February 11,1986, in Madison, Wisconsin, age 65.

Frank Herbert was a distant relative of the Republican senator Joseph McCarthy, whom he referred to as "Cousin Joe".

Frank Herbert believed that governments lie to protect themselves and that, following the Watergate scandal, President Richard Nixon had unwittingly taught an important lesson in not trusting government.

Frank Herbert used his science fiction novels to explore complex ideas involving philosophy, religion, psychology, politics and ecology.

Frank Herbert has attracted a sometimes fanatical fan base, many of whom have tried to read everything he wrote, fiction or non-fiction, and see Frank Herbert as something of an authority on the subject matters of his books.

Indeed, such was the devotion of some of his readers that Frank Herbert was at times asked if he was founding a cult, something he was very much against.

Frank Herbert refrained from offering his readers formulaic answers to many of the questions he explored.

Anderson said that Frank Herbert's notes included a description of the story and a great deal of character background information.