Hunters of Dune - Brian Herbert [0]
DUNE
THE DUNE SERIES
BY FRANK HERBERT
Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune
BY FRANK HERBERT, BRIAN HERBERT,
AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON
The Road to Dune (includes original short novel Spice Planet)
BY BRIAN HERBERT AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Atreides
Dune: House Harkonnen
Dune: House Corrino
Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
Dune: The Machine Crusade
Dune: The Battle of Corrin
Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune (forthcoming)
Paul of Dune (forthcoming)
BY BRIAN HERBERT
Dreamer of Dune
(biography of Frank Herbert)
HUNTERS OF
DUNE
Brian Herbert
and
Kevin J. Anderson
Based on an outline by Frank Herbert
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.
HUNTERS OF DUNE
Copyright © 2006 by Herbert Properties LLC
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
www.dunenovels.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herbert, Brian.
Hunters of dune / Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“A Tom Doherty Associates Book.”
ISBN-13: 978-0-765-31292-1 (acid-free paper)
ISBN-10: 0-765-31292-1 (acid-free paper)
1. Dune (Imaginary place) 2. Life on other planets—Fiction. 3. Robots—Fiction.
I. Anderson, Kevin J. 1962– II. Title.
PS3558.E617H86 2006
813’.54—dc22
2006011429
First Edition: August 2006
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Tom Doherty
Whose support and enthusiasm for the Dune universe—and for us
as authors—has been unflagging. A dedicated publisher and
perceptive businessman, Tom is a longtime Dune fan and was
a good friend to Frank Herbert.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As with all of our previous Dune novels, we have depended on the efforts of a great many people to make the manuscript as good as possible. We would like to thank Pat LoBrutto, Tom Doherty, and Paul Stevens at Tor Books; Carolyn Caughey at Hodder & Stoughton; Catherine Sidor, Louis Moesta, and Diane Jones at WordFire, Inc. Byron Merritt and Mike Anderson put in a great deal of work on the dunenovels.com Web site. Alex Paskie offered in-depth advice on Jewish philosophy and traditions, and Dr. Attila Torkos worked very hard on fact-checking and consistency.
In addition, we have had many supporters of the new Dune novels, including John Silbersack, Robert Gottlieb, and Claire Roberts at Trident Media Group; Richard Rubinstein, Mike Messina, John Harrison, and Emily Austin-Bruns at New Amsterdam Entertainment; Penny and Ron Merritt, David Merritt, Julie Herbert, Robert Merritt, Kimberly Herbert, Margaux Herbert, and Theresa Shackelford at Herbert Properties LLC.
And as always, these books would not exist without the unending help and support from our wives, Janet Herbert and Rebecca Moesta Anderson, or the original genius of Frank Herbert.
AUTHORS’ NOTE
We wish Frank Herbert could have been here to write this book.
After the publication of Heretics of Dune (1984) and Chapterhouse: Dune (1985), he had much more in mind for the story, a fantastic grand climax to the epic Dune Chronicles. Anyone who has read Chapterhouse knows the excruciating cliffhanger ending.
The last novel Frank Herbert wrote, Man of Two Worlds, was a collaboration with Brian, and the two of them discussed working on future Dune books together, particularly the story of the Butlerian Jihad. However, with the beautiful dedication and coda that Frank wrote at the end of Chapterhouse, a loving tribute to his wife, Beverly, Brian originally thought that the Dune Chronicles should end there. As he explained in Dreamer of Dune, the biography of Frank Herbert, his parents had been a writing team, and they were gone. So Brian left