Operation Haystack: A science fiction classic from Frank Herbert, author of DUNE!

Operation Haystack is a short science fiction space opera first published in 1959, a few years before Dune. The story is classic Frank Herbert and exhibit many of the themes from Dune; matriarchal societies, clandestine overthrow plots, distaste for politics, human colonies expanding through the vastness of space, and genetic manipulation through breeding in humans.

In the fictional setting, a galactic feminist conspiracy, weaved by a network of alpha women, threatens to take over the galactic government with the ultimate aim of establishing a cosmic matriarchy where females hold primary power, predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property.

The story was published at the beginning of Second-wave feminism which first began in the early 1960s in the United States. Whereas first-wave feminism focused mainly on suffrage and overturning legal obstacles to gender equality (e.g., voting rights, property rights), second-wave feminism broadened the debate to a wide range of issues: sexuality, family, the workplace, reproductive rights, de facto inequalities, and official legal inequalities.

Other Frank Herbert's short stories included in this print edition include Missing Link and Rambling House.

Frank Herbert was an American science fiction writer best known for the novel Dune and its five sequels. Though he became famous for science fiction, he was also a newspaper journalist, photographer, short story writer, book reviewer, ecological consultant and lecturer. Frank Herbert used his science fiction novels to explore complex ideas involving philosophy, religion, psychology, politics and ecology. The underlying thrust of his work was a fascination with the question of human survival and evolution.