From the Archive: 'Dune' Author Frank Herbert

The Great American Read returns to WTTW this fall. Explore the list and vote for your favorite book.

"For those of you who thought that science fiction was some star-crazed person sitting down and making up a whole bunch of stuff, that ain't the way it works," John Callaway says as he speaks to science fiction author Frank Herbert, who wrote Dune, the world's best-selling science fiction novel (it's on The Great American Read's list of America's 100 favorite novels). Callaway and Herbert then discuss how Herbert acquires the broad base of knowledge his fiction is based upon as well as one of Herbert's most pressing issues, environmentalism. "I refuse to be put in the position of having to tell my grandchildren, 'I'm sorry, there's no more world for you, we used it all up,' " Herbert says. Watch excerpts from the 1977 interview here.