Reading library
Tacoma, Oct. 8, 1920 · Madison, Feb. 11, 1986
A journalist, photographer and ecologist before his time, he spent six years writing Dune after reporting on the shifting dunes of Oregon. Here is his complete work, and the universe his son Brian carried on with Kevin J. Anderson.
Above the axis, books by Frank Herbert. Below, those by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Tap a dot to jump to the book.
Frank Herbert, 1965–1985
Frank Herbert
On Arrakis, a desert planet and the only source of spice, House Atreides falls into a trap set by the Emperor and the Harkonnens. Young Paul takes refuge with the Fremen of the desert. Hugo winner and first Nebula winner.
Frank Herbert
Twelve years after his victory, Paul Muad’Dib rules an empire ravaged by a holy war fought in his name. A plot closes in around him, and his visions leave him no comfortable way out.
Frank Herbert
Paul’s twins, Leto and Ghanima, grow up under the regency of their aunt Alia while Arrakis turns green. Leto glimpses a terrible path to save humanity.
Frank Herbert
Thirty-five hundred years later, Leto II, half man and half sandworm, imposes a tyrannical peace on the universe. A novel of ideas about power, religion and the survival of the species.
Frank Herbert
Fifteen centuries after Leto II’s death, the Bene Gesserit, the Tleilaxu and the Honored Matres returned from the Scattering fight over a child who can command the worms.
Frank Herbert
With Arrakis destroyed, the Bene Gesserit retreat to their secret planet and prepare their reply. Frank Herbert’s last book, which leaves the series unresolved.
Frank Herbert, 1956–1988
Frank Herbert
His first novel: a closed-room drama aboard a submarine sent to steal oil from under enemy waters. A psychological thriller about paranoia and pressure.
Frank Herbert
In Brazil, humanity exterminates insects to farm the land. The insects answer by organizing into a collective intelligence.
Frank Herbert
The brains that piloted a colony ship have failed. To survive, the crew must create an artificial consciousness.
Frank Herbert
In a future ruled by immortal Optimen, genetics decides who is born and how. A couple tries to save their modified embryo.
Frank Herbert
Bored immortal aliens manipulate the lives of Earthlings to draw fiction from them. A California psychiatrist uncovers the deception.
Frank Herbert
A psychologist investigates Santaroga, a small California town strangely closed to the outside world, and what its inhabitants consume.
Frank Herbert
Jorj X. McKie, saboteur extraordinary, must save a star-creature whose death would wipe out much of the conscious beings in the universe.
Frank Herbert
A Native American student kidnaps the son of a high-ranking US official to carry out a ritual sacrifice. His only novel that is not science fiction.
Frank Herbert
An agent tasked with preventing wars between planets discovers powers within himself that will make him a god. The themes of Dune are already in germ.
Frank Herbert
Beneath an Oregon farm lives a human community organized like an insect colony. A secret agency tries to uncover its secret.
Frank Herbert
McKie investigates Dosadi, an overpopulated laboratory planet where humans and Gowachin were subjected to ruthless selection.
Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom
The Ship, now conscious and all-powerful, settles its passengers on Pandora, a hostile planet, and demands that they find out how to worship it.
Frank Herbert
A library planet that holds all human knowledge resists an empire determined to control information.
Frank Herbert
After his family dies in a bombing in Dublin, a molecular biologist releases a plague that kills only women.
Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom
Generations later, Pandora is covered in oceans. Humans are split between mutant islanders living on living rafts and those who chose to live under the sea.
Frank Herbert and Brian Herbert
A young Dreen, a being able to create worlds by thought, finds himself fused with a human on Earth. A comedy written with his son Brian.
Frank Herbert and Bill Ransom
Published after his death and completed by Bill Ransom, it closes the Pandora series.
Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
His first collection of short stories, written in the 1950s and 1960s.
Frank Herbert
A second collection of short stories.
Frank Herbert
Stories about religion, power and mental faculties.
Frank Herbert and Max Barnard
A guide to personal computing written at the dawn of the microcomputer. Herbert was a technology enthusiast.
Frank Herbert
An illustrated collection that includes “The Road to Dune”, a short guided tour of Arrakis.
Frank Herbert, edited by Tim O’Reilly
Essays and interviews on writing, ecology, power and heroes, gathered after his death.
Frank Herbert
A political dystopia written in the 1960s and left unpublished until 2012.
Frank Herbert
An adventure novel left in his drawers, published in 2013.
Frank Herbert
Another unpublished novel, published in 2013.
Frank Herbert
All of his short stories in a single volume.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, since 1999
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
A generation before Dune: the youth of Leto Atreides, the planetologist Pardot Kynes among the Fremen, and Shaddam’s first schemes.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Leto becomes duke, Baron Harkonnen extends his grip and the Bene Gesserit pursues its breeding program.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Shaddam launches his synthetic spice project on Ix, and Jessica is expecting a son she should not have had.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Ten thousand years before Dune, humanity rises up against the thinking machines of the Omnius intelligence. The origins of the Butlerian Jihad.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
The war against the machines has lasted for decades and turns into a crusade.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
The final confrontation with Omnius, and the birth of the hatred between Atreides and Harkonnen.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
The sequel to Chapterhouse: Dune, based on notes left by Frank Herbert: Duncan Idaho’s ship flees a mysterious enemy.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
The conclusion of the original series and the clash with the Enemy foretold in Chapterhouse: Dune.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Between Dune and Dune Messiah, Muad’Dib’s jihad, interleaved with flashbacks to Paul’s youth.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Paul has vanished into the desert. Jessica, Duncan and Gurney face the legacy he leaves behind.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Eighty years after the Battle of Corrin, the schools that will shape the Imperium appear: Sisters, Mentats, the Guild, Suk doctors.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
The Mentat school and the Sisterhood confront the anti-technology fanatics of the Butlerian movement.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
The struggle for control of space travel gives birth to the Guild.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Just before Dune, Duke Leto foils a plot against the Emperor, which will earn him the fief of Arrakis.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Jessica is recalled by the Bene Gesserit as the conflict with the Harkonnens worsens.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Paul, fifteen, prepares to leave for Arrakis. The trilogy stops on the first page of Dune.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Irulan, the Emperor’s daughter, and Chani, daughter of the desert: two women with nothing in common, before and during the events of Dune.
Behind the scenes, short stories and biography
Brian Herbert
The biography of Frank Herbert written by his son Brian.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Letters, cut chapters and “Spice Planet”, the first version of the story imagined by Frank Herbert.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Short stories that fill out the expanded universe.
Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
Four novellas about characters from Dune.
Adaptations and a documentary, since 1984
David Lynch
David Lynch’s adaptation of the first novel, with Kyle MacLachlan. An ambitious film, poorly received on release and a cult favourite since.
John Harrison
A three-part miniseries first broadcast on the Sci Fi Channel, which follows the novel closely.
Greg Yaitanes
The sequel miniseries, adapting Dune Messiah and Children of Dune.
Frank Pavich
Frank Pavich’s documentary on the unmade adaptation that Alejandro Jodorowsky planned in the 1970s.
Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve adapts the first half of the novel, with Timothée Chalamet as Paul.
Denis Villeneuve
The second half of the novel: Paul among the Fremen, up to the war against the Emperor.
Diane Ademu-John and Alison Schapker
An HBO series set about ten thousand years before Dune, inspired by Sisterhood of Dune, on the birth of the Bene Gesserit.
Denis Villeneuve
Denis Villeneuve’s planned adaptation of Dune Messiah. Release scheduled for December 2026.