Frank Herbert

What Hacker News says

1. btillyMar 2025
   The article makes reference to Tim O'Reilly's excellent Frank Herbert.

   That book is well worth reading by anybody who wants to better understand Frank Herbert, and is available for free at https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/.

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2. ttctciyfMar 2024
   Tim O'Reilly, of the famous publishers, interviewed and later befriended Herbert while writing his 1981 book on the author, Frank Herbert. It covers a lot of the themes of the linked essay in an effort to explore the origin and meaning of the Dune trilogy, as it was then.

   The book is freely available on oreilly.com[1] and likely worth a look for anyone interested in TFA.

   For example, O'Reilly claims "in writing about the mystique of the superhero, Herbert himself was prey to it" quoting Analog editor John Campbell's rejection letter for Dune Messiah: "science-fictioneers [...] want heroes—not anti-heroes. They want stories of strong men who exert themselves, inspire others, and make a monkey's uncle out of malign fates! As Paul did in Dune —not as he fails completely to do in The Messiah"

   Campbell misses the point, O'Reilly says, " that Herbert deliberately looked for this reaction from his readers. To Herbert, the hero mystique is symptomatic of a deadly pathology in contemporary society, a compulsive yearning for easy answers. As long as men are looking for simple solutions to their problems, they will give over their ability to think for themselves to the first person who comes along and promises a solution. The Dune trilogy is an attempt to unveil that pattern and, in some small part, to change it."[2]

   1: https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/index.csp

   2: https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/ch09.html

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3. memexyJun 2020
   I like what I've read so far. He combines scientific metaphors in interesting ways. He's constantly making reference to physics, computation, cybernetics, information theory, semiotics, logic, general semantics, ecology, etc. I like all of those fields so his explanations make a lot of sense.

   I recently read "Frank Herbert" by Tim O'Reilly and Herbert also speaks with the same metaphors but with a much heavier emphasis on ecology: https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/.

   I suspect analyzing the ideas that Herbert and Watts emphasize and how they're related would be a very interesting and worthwhile exercise.

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4. isoosJul 2015
   Those who want to learn more about Dune and Frank Herbert, I strongly suggest to read Tim O'Reilly's interview / autobiography book:

   http://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/

   I am a long-time Dune fan, and this book and the background information it provides makes me read it and Dune again, and again.

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5. argimenesDec 2013
   'Graph Databases' by Ian Robinson, Jim Webber, and Emil Eifrem

   'Hackers and Painters' by Paul Graham

   'Virtual Reality' by Howard Rheingold

   'Stack Computers: The New Wave' by Philip Koopman

   'Thinking Forth' by Leo Brodie

   'WIMP Programming for All on Acorn RISC Computers' by Lee Calcraft and Alan Wrigley

   'Frank Herbert' by Timothy O'Reilly

   'Modern Painters: volume 1' by John Ruskin

   'Aratra Pentelici' by John Ruskin

   'The Art and Craft of Drawing' by Vernon Blake

   'The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci' by Dmitri Merezhkovsky ('romance' in the old sense of 'biographical novel')

   'Prehistoric Avebury' by Aubrey Burl

   'A Canticle for Leibowitz' by Walter M. Miller

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6. djkiviMar 2023
   Tim O'Reilly actually wrote a biography of Frank Herbert that people might find interesting:

   https://www.oreilly.com/tim/herbert/

   Edit: I see Tim O'Reilly was the editor of the "Maker of Dune" book mentioned here also.

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