I'm a huge fan of the Frank Herbert series of Dune novels, and have been well since the early 1980's. This might even be part of the reason for my enjoyment of sand!
Anyway, after checking out the second in a series, produced by The Scifi Channel, Dune's Children of Dune, I was intrigued to find out how Frank Herbert had passed away, as well as what might have inspired him to write the Dune novels.
Lo and behold, I was quite shocked to find out why!
From a
website on books and authors:
"In Dune, Herbert plunged into an alien future centered around a complex interplanetary civilization. Herbert's idea date in the late 1950s when he studied a governmental ecological project designed to halt the spread of sand dunes on the Oregon coastline. The book sold over 12 million copies, was translated into several languages and adapted for the screen. Herbert examined inside a frame of an entertaining Space Opera several themes - the development of psi powers, intergalactic politics, religion (especially Zen Buddhism), functions of an alien ecosystem, and messianism." It got me thinking immediately, "what could have been if the Oregon Dunes, one of the great beautiful wonders of the West Coast would have been allowed to further evolve?"
The chances are that everything from the coast to Eugene could have been sand!
The sand was actually a product from the coastal mountain range, and where water run-off to the sea, broke down the boulders and rocks into sand. At the turn of the 19th century, it is well known that Gorse or Whin was brought over from Great Britain and planted in large numbers to prevent the sand from further being blown inland and thus allowing the noxious weed to spread. They have spent inordinate amounts of money in recent years clearing the dunes of this same Gorse!
Many of those areas where the sand still peaks through, like the site of Bill Robinson's Ocean Dunes, is some of the most definitive golf land imaginable.
But how it further relates to the Dune saga is that this effort to prevent the dunes from turning Southern Oregon into a desert was the result of politics and prevention--the inspired storyline of the Dune novels!
So, all of you guys from the Northwest and people who have visited these wonderful dunes from Haceta Head to the Coquille River, can you imagine the golf land that still exists in many of these hills, filled with sand and forest scrub, and we're talking land not unlike that of Pine Valley!
There exist a possibility that not just Bandon Dunes being an epicenter of great golf in the United States, there may have been the possibility that it could have been as earth-shattering as the Eastern Coast of Great Britain; the Melbourne Sandbelt, and the longest island in New York!
What makes it even more impressive to me is that it would all serve as the impetus for a great sci-fi tale that still today manages to entertain and enlighten. The political intrigue of the Dune books is not only unique, but it makes the subject of science fiction all that more palatable!