Free The Synopsis Treasury by Christopher Sirmons Haviland Page B

masters and regain their freedom.
    As he explored the alternate story of Destination: Void , Frank Herbert wrote to Damon Knight about the need for humans in a confined environment to survive against a hostile force—but in this case his story setting was a spaceship that was ostensibly full of cloned-human colonists bound for the Tau Ceti solar system. With the colonists in hybernation + , the vessel and its sophisticated computer systems would be operated by a conscious artificial mind that he called the OMC—the Organic Mental Core. Similar to his world-building for the novel Dune , Frank Herbert now speculated on what sort of religion might develop around the OMC, and on what humans would need to do in order to survive in a hostile environment.
    Ultimately, the artificial sentience of Destination: Void would become godlike and uncontrollable, with a religion developing around it. On February 25, 1965, Dad wrote to Damon Knight; “Question: How do you escape from the domination of an omnipotent, omnipresent being?” This was a question that the fictional Dr. Frankenstein might well have asked after creating his powerful monster. As Mary Shelley and Frank Herbert knew from considering such matters in detail, the plans and intentions of human beings often go awry. It is a line of reasoning that can lead to speculation about the folly of attempting to control the science of atomic bombs, or of commanding the superhuman Kwisatz Haderach that the Bene Gesserit of Dune sought to produce through generations of careful breeding. It’s the old problem of trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle once it’s out. Something always goes wrong when events spiral out of human control, and that makes for intriguing story possibilities.
    Frank Herbert was not a trivial man. He wrote about things that matter to us as a species. The complexity of his writing often caused him severe difficulties in getting his stories published. Dune was rejected for publication in book form by more than 20 publishers, in large part because editors found the first 100 pages too dense. Concerning Destination: Void , Damon Knight wrote to Frank Herbert on December 15,1964, “I found the story heavy going up to about p. 50. After that it pulled me by the nose.…” Through these letters, we see that my father was learning how to swim in the strange waters of publishing, that it was necessary to entertain his readers first and then slip into the text what he called “a potful of message,” but in ways that would not bore the readers or interfere with the story. With that in mind, a number of his works can be read in layers.
    Dune is the most obvious example, where the discerning reader can choose to read it as an adventure story, or as an ecological handbook, or can delve into it for the politics, religion, philosophy, and beautiful poetry. Destination: Void has interesting layers as well, mirroring the mind of its creator.
    Frank Herbert’s writings are like the melange of Dune, the spice that is never “twice the same.” The addictive substance is like life, he wrote, presenting “a different face each time you take it.” I encourage you to read these letters that my father exchanged with Damon Knight, and then go back and examine them again—just as Frank Herbert’s countless fans often do with his books. You will find something new and intriguing each time you consider his fascinating ideas, each time you peer into the remarkable mind of a genius.
    —Brian Herbert

    * At the time of his correspondence with Damon Knight, Frank Herbert had two working titles for his novel about the creation of artificial consciousness: When Shall I Awake? and Many Brave Hearts . Herbert published these ideas first as a short story, “Do I Wake or Dream?” ( Galaxy , August 1965), and then as a novel Destination: Void (Berkley, 1966). —BH

    + Frank Herbert intentionally spelled it “hybernation” instead of “hibernation” signifying that this was an