ed: Don’t read the execrable Anderson prequels. Read The Dune Encyclopedia, which has entries on Holtzmann and everyone else. There’s a very interesting theory about why Alia succumbed to the inner Harkonnen involving Hardison’s Disease and the effect of an oxygen-poor atmosphere. The Dune Encyclopedia is a great read in and of itself.
adam yax: Could you post what Arafel is in the prequels? I refuse to read them after subjecting myself to the House Atreides travesty, but I am curious as to what they came up with. Use a spoiler box or something? Pretty please?
Rawkstah: I heard that the reason Herbert wrote so much sex into the later books is that his wife passed away, and that was part of his reaction to losing her. Makes it seem bittersweet, doesn’t it?
Yes, Frank did give his blessing to the Dune Encycolpedia (by Dr. Willis McNelly), but not without some reservation (from FH’s forward to the encyclopedia):
Now, I can’t really fault BH for doing what he is doing because he needed to bring certain characters (Norma Cevna and Aurelius Venaport spring to mind, as does Holtzman) into a time frame that doesn’t match the encyclopedia in order to tell as much as possible about the history of the Guild. Plus, there still is a chance that Holtzman could meet the demise that was writen by McNelly, just without the expanded time frame.