Brian Patrick Herbert (born June 29, 1947) is a bestselling American author who lives in Washington state. He is the elder son of famed science fiction author Frank Herbert.
Brian Herbert's novels include Sidney's Comet, Prisoners of Arionn, Man of Two Worlds (written with his father), and Sudanna Sudanna. In 2003 Herbert wrote a biography of his father: The Biography of Frank Herbert. The younger Herbert has edited The Songs of Muad'dib and the Notebooks of Frank Herbert's Dune. Brian has also created a concordance for the Dune universe based on his father's notes, though, according to the younger Herbert, there are no immediate plans to publish it.
Brian is most famous for his collaborations with author Kevin J. Anderson, with whom he has written multiple prequels to his father's landmark 1965 science fiction novel, Dune, all of which have made the New York Times Best Seller list. The duo began with the trilogies Prelude to Dune (1999-2001) and Legends of Dune (2002-2004). Brian and Anderson next published Hunters of Dune (2006) and Sandworms of Dune (2007), two sequels to Frank Herbert's original Dune series which was left incomplete after his 1986 death. According to Herbert and Anderson, these novels are based on an outline and notes left behind by Frank Herbert for what he referred to as Dune 7, his own planned seventh novel in the Dune series. In 2008 Brian and Anderson began publishing Heroes of Dune, an interquel series of four novels which take place between the novels of Frank Herbert's original series.
Married since 1967, Brian and his wife, Jan Herbert, have three daughters named Julie, Kim, and Margaux Beverly. Brian also has an elder half-sister, Penny; their younger brother, gay activist Bruce Calvin Herbert, died of AIDS in 1999.