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News
& What's New - May 2008 |
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Mystery
of
Tarzan Alive solved |
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29
May 2008
No,
not the mystery if Tarzan was real or not —for that you have
to read
the biography Tarzan Alive
yourself— but a far bigger mystery of course. The mystery of
an
ISBN for the Doubleday hardcover edition. Sometimes an ISBN had been
mentioned online with the edition, but there is no ISBN printed in the
first or second printing.
Lee Barrie (US) has a copy of the third printing and has sent me proof
of the printed ISBN in this one, on the copyright page and the
dustjacket. A new entry has been added on the book page. Thanks Lee!
With this mystery solved, now I can sleep again at night...
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Original
art of The Empire of the Nine |
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26
May 2008
Recently
a friend of mine, Willem Hettinga, discovered the website of artist
Mark Salwowski. He also noted that on the page 'Art For Sale' one of
the offered artworks was the cover of the British omnibus The
Empire of the Nine. The artist of the cover of this omnibus
got no credit for his work by publisher Sphere Books, and till now I
did
not know who the artist was. The book page has been corrected with the
name of Mark Salwowski.
Not only that, but I have also bought the original art from the
artist. It is the first original cover art based on Farmer's work in my
already huge Farmer collection. I hope to receive the painting at the
end of this week.
Mark Salwowski also did another cover for one of Farmer's books
—for which he did receive credit in the book—, the
1985 printing of the British edition of Strange
Relations.
If you like artwork, then the website of Mark
Salwowski is certainly worth a visit.
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(picture
used with permission)
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Romanian
edition of The Magic Labyrinth |
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25
May 2008
In
November 2007 did Romanian publisher Nemira finally publish the fourth
translated novel in the Riverworld series, Labirintul
magic (The Magic Labyrinth). The
first three novels, Fluviul
Vietii (To Your Scattered Bodies Go),
Vasul
Miraculos (The Fabulous Riverboat) and
Planul
Misterios (The Dark Design)
were all three published in June 2006. The first three novels had also
been published in 1998 in trade paperbacks by the same publisher. There
is no information online if Nemira
will also publish the fifth and last of the Riverworld series, Gods
of Riverworld.
I am still trying to get the Romanian editions, but till now with no
success.
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Review of
Up From the Bottomless Pit |
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16
May 2008
Nathan
Brazil has written a review, nearly a year after the
collection had first been published, of Up
from the Bottomless Pit and
Other Stories for the Mid-May 2008 edition of SF Site.
It is a very positive review: "The combination of Subterranean Press
and Philip José Farmer is a terrific example of how well
publishing can work when a publisher is blessed with the brains to spot
a good thing." and "Every story has something to say, even if one or
two show their age."
Read the full review here.
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Sherlock
Holmes issue of Farmerphile |
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16
May 2008
Last
week I received Issue number 12 of the quarterly magazine Farmerphile.
Fans and readers of Farmer know that he has a very broad spectrum of
interests, as well in stories about Tarzan, Doc Savage, The
Shadow, Sherlock Holmes, and other detectives and (super) heroes, as in
topics like religion, sexual relations, environment, myths and
paramyths, to name just a few. Those interests were used by Farmer
throughout his writings, his fiction as well as his non-fiction.
The theme of Farmerphile
#12 is about two of Farmer's subjects of study and writing:
Sherlock Holmes and Sufism. Bette Farmer writes in her column about
some of the meetings of a local scion society of Baker Street
Irregulars, George Scheetz tells even more about these meetings. And a
1975 speech by Farmer of how Sherlock Holmes had been in contact
with Sufi masters.
There are more articles about Sherlock Holmes and Sufism, a discussion
on The
Other Log of Phileas Fogg that goes 'deeper' than the earlier
article by Dave Bonte (see under) —but that had been written
for a
completely different audience— , an short article about a
'new' Wold Newton Family member, Jongor, a piece about comic books, and
some interesting "Unpolished Pearls" by Farmer himself.
Artist Keith Howell did a marvelous job with the cover!
So, there is enough to enjoy. You can order a copy at the Official
Philip José Farmer Home Page, see here.
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What
Jules
Verne didn't tell |
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5
May 2008
Just
before our short vacation to Spain came an email from Dave Bonte
(Belgium) with information about an article written by him for the
official journal of the Dutch Jules Verne Society,
De
Verniaan Issue
No. 42, Spring 2008. The issue has several articles about Captain Antifer
(1894) and Around the
World in Eighty Days (1873).
Dave Bonte's article
is about the interstellar story behind the second novel, written by
Farmer in his The Other Log of Phileas Fogg.
About the battle between the Eridaneans and the Capelleans, two alien
races stranded on Earth, and the role of Captain Nemo in this story. An
interesting piece, but you have to be able to read Dutch in this case.
Our vacation in Spain was very nice, we had lovely weather. But, alas,
I had no luck, no Spanish books by Farmer could be found in the places
where we have been.
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| Added
Books |
Two publications have been
added on the book pages in May 2008.
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 The
Magic Labyrinth
The Romanian edition, Labirintul
magic, from Nemira, 2007.
Tarzan
Alive
The third printing from Doubleday.
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| Statistics |
Still no exact
numbers
right now. When the restyling
is finished I will give these numbers again.
These are the about numbers, the last time - in November 2006 - they
were counted:
1275
publications
750 different covers
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 "Milton Glaser")
 "Mark Salwowski")
 "David Ho")
 "Howell and Berlin")
 "Keith Howell")
)
