Foreword by Frank Herbert, author of Dune

Foreword to the First Edition of ECLIPSE

The starry heavens are as much yours to enjoy as they are an astronomer's, which is a basic message of this informative book by Bryan Brewer. When we look outward with awe and wonder at the marvels awaiting us in an unlimited universe, it is well to recall what he tells us here about the roots of our ancient fascination with the sky. Even if you are someone merely making a wish upon the vision of a bit of cosmic rock burning itself out in earth's atmosphere, you are in tune with that unbroken past.

Eclipses, those positive markers of our relative movement through the void, make a superb focal point for our outward vision. There is a direct line between Alan Sheperd driving a golf ball across the Moon's surface and the Celtic stonemasons whose stellar observatory still stands on the Salisbury plain. From Stonehenge to that first landing on the Moon, the human statement is plain to read: If it moves, we want to know how and why.

When you stand in the shadow of those bluestone menhirs at Stonehenge to mark the moment of the summer solstice, it is not difficult to feel an affinity with those early astronomers. The archaeological evidence that this carefully arranged series of stone circles was also used to predict eclipses appears to be conclusive. They accomplished much with little beyond their own muscles and intellectual inspiration.

That is likely to be the view distant future generations will take when they consider today's accomplishments. We are always primitives where our own far-off descendants are concerned.

Let the computer-written ephemeris tell you then where and when the next eclipse will occur; that prediction is not different in kind from what the Celtic astronomers told their people.

It is, however, different in quality. It is doubtful that you will perform some esoteric ritual to force the dragon (or snake or worm) to disgorge the Sun.

Mysteries remain, though, and we remake our mythology with increasing frequency, partly because we are still creatures of this planet and caught by a racial compulsion to penetrate beyond the regions that we have already mapped.

I like to think of Bryan Brewer's book as a map of the influences and rhythms contained in eclipses. It is well to remember that more than half the Earth's human population still uses astrology as a guide in the making of decisions. There is a possibility that a kernel of truth remains at the core of this ancient belief. We are Earth creatures. It would be remarkable if the rhythms that influence this planet where we evolved produced no effects on our flesh comparable to the influences upon our religions and philosophies. When we look at the heavens, we look at a cosmic clock that has marked every evolutionary development upon this mundane surface. That clock is still ticking, as the eclipse reminds us.

Frank Herbert
Port Townsend, Washington
October 1978

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