Category Archives: Frank Herbert

Hello, Thank You, And Books!

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Allow me to start by saying thank you for staying with me even when it has been a little while since my last post. Life has been a bit busy! A few months back my wife and I welcomed our beautifully amazing daughter into our lives and I also started a new position at work. Both of these life changing events have reduced my reading and writing time, but both have also been very rewarding. One day I’ll post more on being a father but today I can say there is nothing more amazing that holding your child in your hands. It is as if you are holding your heart in your hands. Simply amazing. But this post is about books isn’t it? On to the post!

Once upon a time when I was a young lad with a library card I discovered a few authors who managed to capture my attention and fire up my imagination! Robert Jordan was one such author. Wheel Of Time has just reached its fifth volume (The Fires Of Heaven) and I devoured the series! I read through the first five books three times before book six had a chance to be published and then with each new release I would reread the entire series. I loved it. I discovered friends in the pages of those books that I identified with more than I did the people around me. As a result those first five books are intensely special to me and I’ll forever be thankful to Robert Jordan for them.

Around that same time I also discovered an author by the name of Tad Williams and I leapt into his Memory Sorrow And Thorn trilogy! I was young so I thought I identified with young Seoman Snowlock and I sadly rushed through the trilogy trying to get past all the other bits to enjoy the adventures of Seoman. I loved the story, and I know I appreciated it at the time in my limited way, but just this past year I returned to Osten Ard (the land the books are set in) with a reread of the trilogy. My first time returning to those books in about 25 years! What did I discover? Beauty. This trilogy is a beautiful work of marvelous art and I can’t sing its praises enough! I truly identify with the side characters. The ones whose stories I couldn’t get past quickly enough to get back to what I thought was the main story. Now I see the beauty in their inner struggles and understand how very human they are and how amazing of a work Tad Williams created.

You never know what treasures you might find when you open a book, even if you’ve read that book before! Rereading Dune Messiah gave me a deeper appreciation for Frank Herbert because when you realize just how much he packed into this tiny book you are amazed! Such a short work yet so powerful!

Those are my bookish musings for the moment. I wanted to say hi to everyone and to continue our conversations on books! I intend to be a little more present here but I know you’ll understand if the posts aren’t as frequent as we’d all like. However I do intend to announce something here soon so do keep checking RedStarReviews for some fun upcoming news! 😊 I appreciate you all so much!

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Vintage SciFi Month 2018 Recap

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As y’all already surely know if you’ve been following me for any amount of time: January is always Vintage SciFi Month and this January’s reading was incredible! Let’s take a look at the three books I read this year.

Tactics Of Mistake by Gordon R Dickson is the fourth book of The Childe Cycle which I’m working my way through bit by bit each January. While it isn’t the best book in the series it is really good! It is a strong addition to an excellent series. If you’ve read Dorsai and wanted to know how the Dorsai became the most badass soldiers in the known universe then this is the book for you! If you’ve never wondered that but you still enjoy Military SciFi combined with Vintage Philosophy then this is still the book for you!

Up next was Philip K Dick’s classic of SciFi: Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep and it was an excellent story! I watched Blade Runner as a kid but I had never made time for the story it was based upon. I am glad I finally did! It was a very subtle story with a slow burn that once lit wouldn’t go out. Very enjoyable and easy to lose yourself in the story.

This January close to fifty people joined me for the #ReadDune Group Read, several of them reading Frank Herbert’s Dune for the first time! The good news is that almost everyone loved it! I mean how could you not love this book? This was either my fourth or fifth time to read it and I enjoyed it yet again! Getting to see everyone’s reaction to it was so much fun. Dune will always be special to me and I’m happy to report that it gets better with each reread!

I hope to see y’all join in on Vintage SciFi Month next January!

Read Dune Weekly Goals

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We recently announced the #ReadDune Group Read and now that we’re only a week away from starting we wanted to share the weekly target reading goals! This is a little tricky as there are so many different editions and each has its own page count. So it makes sense to do this by chapter, right? Right! Only… Frank Herbert didn’t number or name his damn chapters! The NERVE of that author! 😂

So everyone will need to keep count of the chapters they’ve read because we’re going to read a certain number each week. As this can get tricky we have another visual aide: each chapter starts with a section from fictitious history books and we’ll watch for specific chapter openings! This will (hopefully) work!

January week one we will read chapters one through fifteen and stop at the start of chapter sixteen you see pictured here! When you read “Greatness is a transitory experience.” you will have reached stopping point one. Everyone should be here by Saturday January the sixth. Next stopping point:

We will read chapters sixteen through the end of twenty-six and stop at the start of twenty-seven when you read: “At the age of fifteen, he had already learned silence.” This will be the stopping point on Saturday January the 13th. The next stopping point is fun:

That’s right! We stop at Book Three The Prophet! Frank Herbert came through for us on this split! Everyone should strive to be at The Prophet by Saturday January the twentieth.

The last week we shall read to the end of the story. With this pace we will all finish on Saturday January the twenty-seventh and then we’ll all hit play on the cheesy 80’s film adaptation and enjoy!

Read at your own pace but be aware that the conversations will include possible spoilers once we hit a Saturday goal as discussing anything from the week’s reading is fair game on a Saturday and beyond. Above all else please have fun!

Announcing The #ReadDune Group Read For Vintage SciFi Month!

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Officially announcing the #ReadDune GroupRead I’ll be hosting for #VintageSciFiMonth this January!

We’ll be using the #ReadDune hashtag to help keep track and follow along of each other’s posts and be able to enjoy more discussions on it! So break out your copies of Dune by Frank Herbert and let’s start spreading the word!

For those new to how I handle GroupReads here are some details:

Each week we have a target page/location goal in the book. We don’t discuss in detail anything that takes place in the book until we reach that Saturday Goal, and then we discuss only the sections we’ve read so far. You’ll find it works really well. The Group DMs are normally very fun and respectful, and allow for discussing shared emotional reactions, general observations, and encouragement to reach the goal. Once we’ve reached a goal we discuss things that happened in detail and have fun with it. If anyone hasn’t reached the goal they’ll need to be careful about the Group DMs on the weekends as that’s when a lot of specifics get discussed. I’ll be looking into the page counts of the common versions but it’ll probably be between 130-150 pages a week of reading.

What are Group DMs? Everyone who wants to participate will be invited into a group DM on Instagram or on Twitter (whichever social network you prefer). There’s a limit on how many can join so there’ll be a few group DMs created. I’ll be in each one to help moderate and help keep spoilers to a minimum. We’ve got several first time readers joining in so everyone needs to be conscious about posting spoilers! That’s where the page goals will come in to play.

Since we tend to have more than one Group DM I’ll also post a #ReadDune Instagram post and Twitter Post every Saturday Morning so that everyone can publicly discuss the book (up to that page goal) with everyone else easily.

Ready for the cheesy fun part? At the end of it all on either Saturday the 27th or Sunday the 28th depending on people’s schedules we’ll all hit play at the same time on the fun and cheesy 80’s movie edition of Dune and have fun watching the movie together to celebrate finishing the book!

Posting photos of your reading of Dune is highly encouraged! Please post away and use the #ReadDune hashtag and we’d love if you used the #VintageSciFiMonth hashtag too! Above all have fun! This is one of my favorite books, and I think it has a broad appeal. I’m hopeful you’ll like it, but there is no pressure to like it! If you don’t it’s really ok as I’m not the author, just a fan.

Let me know on Twitter or on Instagram if you’ll be joining in! Check out my latest post on Instagram or my pinned tweet on Twitter to respond and let me know if you’re joining!

Vintage SciFi Month Giveaway!

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Announcing the first ever giveaway for Vintage SciFi Month! LittleRedReviewer and I are happy and honored to host Vintage SciFi Month which is now entering its sixth year! In honor of that we are holding a special giveaway this year! In order to fit with the theme of the month the prize will be:


The Book Of Frank Herbert! A collection of ten short stories by Frank Herbert that was published in 1973 


It is one of the yellow spine Daw books!


We are super excited that this book will soon be in the hands of a Vintage SciFi Fan!


How do you enter and win the giveaway? Very simple: Use the hashtag: #VintageSciFiMonth on any Tweet or Instagram post or (public) FaceBook post and you’ll have your name put into the drawing! With each unique post you use the hashtag we’ll put your name into the drawing again! So the more often you post/tweet about Vintage SciFi Month the more opportunities you have to win!

We are limiting the giveaway to North America at this time due to cost. Sorry international readers! 


We are so excited to be able to host this giveaway and this wonderful month of reading! Thank you all for joining in! Now let’s start reading, posting, and talking about all of those amazing Vintage SciFi Books! 🚀💫

December Reading Plans! Attacking The Currently Reading Stack

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This past February I decided to clean up my currently reading list. The goal was to finish the books I had started in 2015. It was a great goal yet it was a little ambitious for such a short month. So now I’ve decided to try something different and set December aside as the month to attack my currently reading stack!


This means I’ll attempt to work through these seven books in December! I fully expect to fall short and probably to start reading an extra book or two alongside these seven, but it’s nice to have goals! I figure that with December being such a busy month it is a better time to try and finish books I’ve already started rather than start new books. We’ll see how it goes!


Betrayer by Aaron Dembski-Bowden is the 24th book of the ongoing Horus Heresy series I love so much. Always good to have some GrimDark Military SciFi on hand!

The Worlds Of Frank Herbert is a short story collection from the master of SciFi and a good way to prepare me for January’s Vintage SciFi Month!

Awakenings by Edward Lazellari is an Urban Fantasy that is starting off in a very kick ass grab your attention fashion. 


Gene Wolfe’s Book Of The New Sun series is a masterpiece of SciFi and I’m loving it. The goal is to complete the second book The Claw Of The Conciliator.  

Gail Z Martin’s War Of Shadows is the third book of her awesome Ascendent Kingdoms saga. Post magic apocalypitic fantasy? With good characters? Easy to enjoy!


These last two are the long reads that I doubt I’ll complete in December and expect to be reading into 2017. 

Bloodheir by Brian Ruckley is the second book of The Godless World trilogy and I couldn’t keep myself from starting it after I finished Winterbirth. 

House Of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski is off to a creepy start and I know this one will take me a while. 

So that’s my December Reading Plans! Finishing up 2016 and getting ready for new reads in 2017! 

What? Frank Herbert Wrote More Than Just Dune? Part 1

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When you hear the name of Frank Herbert you instantly think Dune, and rightly so! Dune is a masterpiece and is extremely influential in a way that most authors can only dream of. However if you stop at Dune you do yourself an injustice as Frank Herbert wrote several other amazing works. 


Frank Herbert wrote the ConSentient Series consisting of Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment along with a couple of short stories. This series never gained the fame or acclaim of his Dune Saga, but it is an incredible work nonetheless. 

Whipping Star is a strange name for a novel but soon after starting this book you realize it makes sense! This book is more dialogue and philosophy than action, but Herbert demonstrates his ability to weave action into his dialogue. This book (and the overall series) examines morality, justice, law, and truth. In this story we are face to face with an intelligence much greater and more ancient than our own. You are left asking what is the value of life when viewed through an ancient lense. What is it when viewed through a personal viewpoint? What is the value of all life in the galaxy? This story involves a lot of thinking and reasoning on the part of the reader, and I loved it. Very well executed. 


The Dosadi Experiment is gripping and fast paced, but again it hides its action within the dialogue. In this we examine evolution (a common theme in FH’s works) and not only how environment can cause evolutionary change, but also the proximity of alien life can drastically alter how a species evolves. The stakes in this novel are high and the tension is constant from start to finish. An amazing work of art. 

I’m writing this because a few years back I decided to branch out into the writings of Frank Herbert, to go further than his Dune Saga. I’ve been thankful for that choice and I’ll be sharing more on his other writings over time. I hope these posts encourage you to seek out his other works and join me in exploring them!