The most common question I get at workshops and book-signings is “How do you co-author a novel?” I know only two things about co-authoring novels: The projects with Frank were a pleasure; and a successful “act of collaboration between consenting adults” (as Frank put it) is rare. Several things worked in our favor: we both were writers (not a writer and an expert in something else); we wrote at the same time every day (before internet, on typewriters, three carbons); we wrote the part of the work we were thinking about each morning and worried about ordering the pieces later; we had almost identical childhood backgrounds in the same valley (his cousin married my mother’s cousin); we had the same sense of humor and passion for books of all kinds.

Co-authored novels, with both names on the cover, did not exist in the late 1970s, to our knowledge, so when we made the commitment, we had to recognize the problems we’d face. First, with each other: We shook hands on the agreement that if at any time one of us wanted to cut something and the other really wanted to keep it, we’d keep it. Our thinking was that the friendship was more important than any element of the story. For the record, that problem never came up. The publisher wanted only Frank’s name on the cover for the marketing advantage, claiming that fans would not trust a co-authored work; we both insisted on both names on the cover. As a result, together we received a fraction of the advance that Frank would have received under his name. The whopping success of The Jesus Incident made the issue moot. We had to recognize that some critics would claim that Frank ran out of ideas and had to bring some youngster on board; critics would claim that I was some unknown regional poet riding on the coattails of Frank Herbert. We did hear those criticisms, but because we’d recognized them in advance, we didn’t let them interfere with the work. Frank’s wife, Bev, was our strongest supporter (literally, with the occasional lunch and snacks) in that she helped us to think of these important, non-writing issues that might interfere so that we could strategize around them and proceed with the work.

We mutually despised dictators who controlled people by manipulating their religion and their food supply; we weren’t crazy about war for oil or rubber; we shared very strong views on civil and human rights, and a passion for the natural world. Clones became our vehicle for making human rights a centerpiece in the Pandora Series.