Dr. Willis E. McNelly

[Mahdi]

Just a note before I begin, those of you who haven't visited the site in the last few days may want to check the February archive as lots of news has been posted latley, and not all is still on the main page.

Dr. Willis E. McNelly, the author of the Dune Encyclopedia, seems to be making quite a bit of news latley, and here is some more. While you can't be certain that this was written by him, it was posted on the scifi.com Dune message boards by DuneJihad, who claims that he was asked by the doctor to post it. I don't know DuneJihad, so I guess its up to you whether you want to believe it or not. It talks about novels he had planned to collaborate on with Frank Herbert, set in the Duniverse.

Here are the highlights of the post:

In the light of recent talk about prequels to Dune based on the Butlerian Jihad, Dune fans might be interested in knowing that this concept of writing a novel or novels about the BJ is not new. Rather, it is an idea I originated about a year before FH's death....

...I discussed the idea with Frank on the phone at some length - and suggested that he and I might collaborate on the novel. He thought it was a good idea...

...A year or so after his death I proposed the idea to Berkley suggesting that I write this prologue myself, but received no answer...

...A bit later, I sent all of the material to Brian Herbert,...about the Butlerian Jihad to be derived from that work. Unfortunately he also did not reply....

...We [Frank Herbert and Dr. McNelly] also discussed, albeit briefly, the posibility of collaborating on an interim novel about the oxygen catastrophe which overtook Arrakis when its primary source of oxygen, the sand worms, began to shrink in number....

If that post is to believed, then perhaps those of you who are fans of the DE and not the new prequels, may have something to look forward to, if Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson use what was discussed by Dr. McNelly and Frank Herbert. To see the whole post which contains more info. concerning the prequel and other things, click here.