![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Above all he was intrigued by the idea that it might be possible to engineer an ecosystem, to green a hostile desert landscape.Ībout to turn 40, Herbert had been a working writer since the age of 19, and his fortunes had always been patchy. “These waves can be every bit as devastating as a tidal wave … they’ve even caused deaths,” he wrote in a pitch to his agent. Herbert hired a Cessna light aircraft to survey the scene from the air. Pushed by strong winds off the Pacific, the dunes moved eastwards, burying everything in their path. Frank Herbert, a freelance writer with a feeling for ecology, was researching a magazine story about a US Department of Agriculture programme to stabilise the shifting sands by introducing European beach grass. I n 1959, if you were walking the sand dunes near Florence, Oregon, you might have encountered a burly, bearded extrovert, striding about in Ray-Ban Aviators and practical army surplus clothing. ![]()
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