Dune: House Harkonnen

When the sandstorm came howling up from south, Pardot Kynes was more interested in taking meteorological readings than in seeking safety. His son Liet only twelve years old, but raised in the harsh ways of the desert ran an appraising eye over the ancient weather pod they had found in the abandoned botanical testing station. He was not confident the machine would function at all.

Then Liet gazed back across the sea of dunes toward the approaching tempest. The wind of the demon in the open desert. Hulasikali Wala.

Coriolis storm, Kynes corrected, using a scientific term instead of the Fremen one his son had selected. Winds across the open flatlands are amplified by the planet s revolutionary motion. Gusts can reach speeds up to seven hundred kilometers per hour.

As his father talked, the young man busied himself sealing the egg-shaped weather pod, checking the vent closures, the heavy doorway hatch, the stored emergency supplies. He ignored their signal generator and distress beacon; the static from the sandstorm would rip any transmissions to electromagnetic shreds.

In pampered societies Liet would have been considered a boy, but life among the hard-edged Fremen had given him a tightly coiled adulthood that few others achieved even at twice his age. He was better equipped to handle an emergency than his father.

The elder Kynes scratched his sandy-gray beard. A good storm like this can stretch across four degrees of latitude. He powered up the dim screens of the pod s analytical devices. It lifts particles to an altitude of two thousand meters and suspends them in the atmosphere, so that long after the storm passes, dust continues to fall from the sky.

Liet gave the hatch lock a final tug, satisfied that it would hold against the storm. The Fremen call that El-Sayal, the rain of sand.

One day when you become Planetologist, you ll need to use more technical language, Pardot Kynes said in a professorial tone. We still send the Emperor

Brian Herbert is the son of legendary science fiction author Frank Herbert and has written the definitive biography of him, Dreamer of Dune, a finalist for the Hugo Award. He has also written many highly imaginative novels, including The Timeweb Chronicles, the ecological fantasy Ocean (with his wife, Jan), The Little Green Book of Chairman Rahma, The Unborn, and The Assassination of Billy Jeeling. His earlier acclaimed novels include The Stolen Gospels, Sudanna, Sudanna, and Sidney’s Comet, as well as Man of Two Worlds (written with his father). Brian Herbert also co-manages the legacy of Frank Herbert and is an executive producer of the new motion picture Dune and the forthcoming TV series Dune: The Sisterhood. He and his wife live in Seattle, Washington.
 
Kevin J. Anderson has written in many genres: science fiction, epic fantasy, suspense/thriller, and humor. He is best known for his work in the Star Wars, X-Files, Batman, and Superman universes, as well as the space opera The Saga of Seven Suns; the epic fantasy Spine of the Dragon; his humorous Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series; and two steampunk fantasy adventures, Clockwork Angels and Clockwork Lives, written with legendary Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart. Anderson is creative consultant on the new Legendary motion picture of Dune and is co-producer of the forthcoming TV series Dune: The Sisterhood. He is the publisher of WordFire Press and also professor and director of the publishing MA program at Western Colorado University.
 
Together, Herbert and Anderson have written numerous international bestselling novels set in the universe of Frank Herbert’s Dune, as well as the definitive graphic novel adaptation of the classic Dune. They are the authors of an original epic science fiction trilogy, Hellhole, Hellhole Awakening,

Written in a style so close to the original that it is hard to believe Frank Herbert did not direct it through some mysterious genetic link. I can t wait for the sequel. Rocky Mountain News
 
Extraordinarily well-developed and continually fascinating. Kirkus Reviews