I sent this today to a user on Facebook whose posts I follow for his insightful thinking, but as we are not friended on Facebook its Message function will probably bury it unless he goes looking for it, and he probably gets lots of message requests from other users who he hasn’t friended. So he may not even see this one.

But it occurs to me that I should put this here for other…innocents…who were traumatized by this Frank Herbert book, or who haven’t yet read it…

I saw your current post about that very strange children’s book and had to circle back around to your post, where you say there are two Frank Herberts. Personally I think there is only one and it’s like looking into Nietzsche’s abyss…but your mileage may vary. Since I read that post I’ve been thinking about asking you if you’ve ever read Soul Catcher and what your thoughts were on it. I think its where you really see the man.

If you haven’t I’ll spoil it for you right now so you won’t be traumatized by it like I was: The 13 year old kid is killed by his kidnapper, who he’d come in that Stockholm syndrome way to like and trust him a fatal second time. And if you think that kid’s sacrificial killing is bad enough, how Herbert constructs it, leads the reader to it, is worse, ugly worse.

It is the only Herbert book I’ve ever read and I think I might have felt less dirty afterward reading The Turner Diaries. There is a core at the center of that man, who it is said made his sons take lie detector tests when they misbehaved, that is darker than anything I ever wanted to see, and I have seen some darkness in my 73 years.

If you don’t have the time, or would rather not, I respect that. You’ve said you go down rabbit holes. This is the abyss. I was just curious.

—
Bruce Garrett
Baltimore, Maryland

Just curious about the rest of you too. In the way that I’m curious how other folk cope with evil that laughs in your face…