END of the "Dune Encyclopedia" tyrade

[NeoDevilbane]

Brian Herbert very recently conducted an interview with the Sci-Fi channel's website. In it he says, verbatim, that Frank Herbert regarded McNelly's Dune Encyclopedia as, well, let me give you the excerpts...

---

BrianHerbert: The Encyclopedia isn't the canon Frank followed

BrianHerbert: It's an alternate universe

BrianHerbert: My dad called it excursions in the Dune Universe

BrianHerbert: He enjoyed it

BrianHerbert: But he wasn't following it in any way

---

There you have it. Unless you, as many of you might, believe Brian to be *lying*, I would strongly dissuade such notions. I don't know about the rest of you, but if my own father died tomorrow and I inherited his fortunes/legacy (in literature, in this case), I'm not going to bother with spiting one of his associates just for the sake of a whim.

IMHO, if Brian says Frank regarded the Dune Encyclopedia as "an alternate universe," then that's it. Everything within it, all of the "votes" certain houses had, the House Ordos along with it, should be thence considered rightly non-canon... end of debate.

Brian & Kevin are, at the very least, going concretely going off of Frank's notes and (in Dune 7's case) going directly off of Frank's outlines.

For the URL of this interview, go here :

http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/2003/bherbert3.11.html

- Neo

[Egeides]

I guess the only way to get more "canon" stuff would be to get Frank Herbert's notes, since what Brian and that X-Files guy are doing is... un-(Frank)herbertish.

[Mahdi]

The DE has never been "cannon". Just some people prefer it to the prequel novels, so they base there idea of Dune around it. Nothing wrong with that. It's all fiction, after all, there is no real "cannon" for soemthing that is a figment of the imagination.

[NeoDevilbane]

There may be no true "canon" in the post-Frank Herbert sense of things, but we're talking about a project that was released *during* Frank Herbert's lifespan that he himself openly regarded as *not* being official to his own works/outlines/chronology (published or not).

- Neo

[TMA_1]

an out of place House Vernius, Cymeks, a stupid emperor, a bad tio holtzmen. blah blah I could say many more.

If that was really how frank depicted the universe of Dune, than goodness gravy.lol

I highly doubt it. I always take vernius for example. Nowhere does it ever mention the house in frank's books. As a matter of fact they are more a technocracy than anything. They even mention it as a confederation of sorts. Brian and Kevin take huge loads of artistic license on Frank's books. The prequels are good and everything, but I just think its a little off.

[NeoDevilbane]

I wouldn't doubt they take some degree of license with Frank's work (I believe whatever license lays on the side of style, not the substance)... but on the other hand, I don't doubt for a second that Frank really *did* have a treasure trove of background info, notes, etc. detailing details Frank either witheld from the novels or removed himself for reasons of, oh I don't know, irrelevancy in whatever novel at hand (for what reason would, for example, Frank decide the reader absolutely needed to know the details of House Vernius' fall from grace years ago in the original Dune novel?). But Vernius was mentioned, wasn't it? In the Dune appendixes?

- Neo

[TMA_1]

nope. not once...