SPY TACTICS BEHIND NEW `DUNE' NOVEL

SPY TACTICS BEHIND NEW `DUNE' NOVEL

SEATTLE (Wireless Flash) -- You can thank a former government spy for all the mania over the upcoming "prequels" to the sci-fi book "Dune." Co-author Brian Herbert says his father -- "Dune" creator Frank Herbert -- left behind floppy disks containing extensive notes on the cult sci-fi series when he died in 1986. However, no one knew where the disks were until two years ago when lawyers discovered them sitting in a safety deposit box in Seattle. Unfortunately, the formatting on the old disks was hopelessly out of date and the disks couldn't be read by modern computers. So, in order to retrieve the long-lost "secret files," Brian took them to a friend who once worked for the National Security Agency, who had access to all sorts of decoding machinery. Thanks to the spy techniques, Brian was able to use the 40 pages of notes to write the first of the prequels, "Dune: House Atreides," (Bantam) which will be in stores next month.