Frank Herbert was born in 1920. His colourful and varied career included stints as a radio news commentator and jungle survival instructor. He is best known for creating the world of DUNE, which established Frank Herbert as a master of modern science fiction. He died in 1986.
Unique among SF novels . . . I know nothing comparable to it except The Lord of the Rings. - Arthur C. Clarke An epic of political betrayal, ecological brinkmanship, and messianic deliverance... a universe of Machiavellian realpolitik, science fiction through the prism of the Cold War. There is little that is cute or cuddly: no furry-footed Hobbits, no teddy-bear-like Ewoks... This is terrain that is familiar to readers of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Herbert's scheming, backstabbing villain, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, would be perfectly at home among the Lannisters of Westeros. - The New Yorker One of the landmarks of modern science fiction . . . an amazing feat of creation. - Analog Powerful, convincing, and most ingenious. An astonishing science fiction phenomenon. - Washington Post One of the monuments of modern science fiction. - Chicago Tribune The time lives. It breathes, it speaks, and Herbert has smelt it in his nostrils.