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News
& What's New - July 2008 |
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Farmercon
90 |
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24
July 2008
On
Friday July 25th we will be flying to the USA. At first we fly to
Peoria, to attend Farmercon 90
on Saturday. We stay for the weekend in Peoria, where we hope to meet
Phil and Bette Farmer and a lot of other Farmerphiles too. It will be
great to meet them again.
On Monday we'll fly to Seattle. We are going to make a tour by car in
the states Washington and Oregon, visiting many interesting places and
cities. Around mid August we will be heading back to our own home in
the Netherlands.
So, you will have to wait for a report and photos of Farmercon 90 till
we have returned home. It will be the next update of the site. See you
then!
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World of
Tiers book page is ready |
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23
July 2008
Again
a book page has been redesigned, the one with the omnibuses and boxed
sets of books with the novels of the World
of Tiers series.
The old page had 28 publications, but there are now 44 publications.
Most of the added omnibuses were published in Russia in the early
1990s. In the same period several books were published in Ukraine also.
I discovered two omnibuses from the Ukrainian publisher Gemma, one
with the novels 1 and 2, and another one with the novels 5 and 6 of
the World of Tiers series.
But no information if there is an omnibus with the novels 3 and 4.
Added also are the two new Lithuanian omnibuses —see the
previous entry— Nuosavas
kosmosas and Lavalitinis
pasaulis.
Because of the added omnibuses, some other pages have changed
too. On the book page of the novel The Maker of Universes are
six new additions: four Russian and two Ukrainian publications. Behind
the Walls of Terra has five publications newly added: three
Russian, one Ukrainian and one Lithuanian.
Three other book pages with novels of the World of Tiers series, The
Gates of Creation, A Private Cosmos, and The
Lavalite World, will have the new information when those
pages are getting restyled.
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Correction
Lithuanian World of Tiers |
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17
July 2008
Last
week I received the first two Polish books for my Farmer collection.
Also for the first time the postman delivered three books from
Lithuania. I had discovered bookshops in both countries where
these books could be bought online, and where the staff was
friendly enough to help me in English.
When I received the three Lithuanian books it became clear that
what had been written before - see the entry of 22 June
2008 -
about the publications was not entirely correct. Both books are
omnibuses and each contains two novels of the World of Tiers series.
Nuosavas
kosmosas contains the novels The
Gates of Creation and A Private Cosmos, and Lavalitinis pasaulis
contains the novels Behind the Walls of Terra
and The
Lavalite World.
The bookpages of these novels will soon be corrected with the new
information.
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Red Orc's
Rage book page restyled |
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13
July 2008
The
book page with the information on all publications of the novel Red
Orc's Rage has now been restyled. Although not part of the
continuing story line, this novel belongs to the World of Tiers series.
Red
Orc's Rage was well received by the critics: "In this
art-imitates-life-imitates-art novel, nearly half the action
chronicles Jim's exciting and disturbing adventures in other worlds.
The result is a powerful blend of psychology and fantasy..." (Reading
for Pleasure, #20) and "Farmer's work is always
interesting. Here he is more interesting than usual. So go forth and
buy and read. And then ask yourselves: Are there any other SF books or
series that might lend themselves to similar uses?" (Analog, February
1992). See more reviews.
But it seems that the readers did not share the same enthusiasm. The
novel got only two editions in the US, a hardcover in 1991 and
a paperback a year later. It has never been reprinted. Tor
Books, the publisher of the novel, did not even include it in their two
World of
Tiers omnibuses,
published in 1996 and 1997.
The French publisher La Découverte however did include the
novel in their omnibuses of the series in 2005.
Maybe the fans were disappointed because Red Orc's Rage is
not really a sequel to the series. Jean-Marc Lofficier wrote in his
review on this: "Red Orc's Rage is not, properly speaking, a sequel to
the
previous Tiers books, but it does fill in many gaps, including new,
tantalizing hints about the Lords' origins. It also reveals the
identity of the mysterious British figure seen by Kickaha in The
Lavalite World. This alone makes it a must for any serious
Farmer
follower." (Starlog
#190, May 1993).
As I said, the book page
has been restyled now, with more information and new cover scans. A
before unknown Ukrainian edition has been added on the page.
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Has
Farmer given up on writing? |
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8 July
2008
It
seems that Philip José Farmer has abandoned writing new
stories and novels completely.
From the year 2005 on we have seen more previously unpublished fiction
than in many years before, but none of those stories were newly
written.
They all came from the 'Magic Filing Cabinet', as the editors of Farmerphile
like to call it.
From Farmer's own archives also. Stories which for different reasons
were not sold at the time they were written. But nothing completely new
has been written by Farmer in a decade. The last of these has been
published in 1999, the Tarzan novel The Dark Heart of Time.
The most recent announcements of new books were done in 2000, with A
Hole in Hell, a sequel to Nothing Burns In Hell, in
2002, with The Fanged and the Glittering One,
a slightly futuristic fantasy or mystery novel, and in 2003, with The
Rain Crow or Aromatic Swine Drive, a noir mystery novel.
But these announcements have been withdrawn. I am afraid that with so
many other announcements
we never will see these novels in print, at least not written by Philip
José Farmer himself. He will have his reasons, but it is
still a shame...
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Contents of
new omnibus |
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7 July
2008
The
July 2008 issue of Locus
announced the contents of the new omnibus The Other in the Mirror,
to be published by Subterranean Press next year.
The omnibus will contain the novels Fire
and the Night, Jesus
on Mars and Night
of Light.
It looks like a strange combination, a lesser known mainstream novel
with
two science fiction novels.
Fire and the Night
had only one publication in the US before, in 1962. Jesus
on Mars also
had one edition in the US and a reprint, both in 1979. Night
of Light (1966) has
been reprinted many times, the last time in 1983.
Maybe a combination of the novel Night
of Light with the other stories in the Father Carmody series,
published in the collection Father to the Stars
(1981), would have been more in the line of expectations.
See Forthcoming Books.
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Forthcoming
books |
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1
July 2008
The
limited, lettered and traycased edition of Venus
on a Half-Shell and Others has not been shipped yet. There is
a delay with the traycases.
The publisher, Bill Schafer from Subterranean
Press, wrote to me "The cases are overdue from the supplier.
I've got an email in to them asking for updates on this one and other
cases. Look for an update in our newsletter as soon as I can get an
answer out of them."
A second attempt with an email - see the entry on 18 June - to the
publisher, Chris Roberson, of MonkeyBrain Books
got a very quick response this time.
Two Hawks from Earth will
be
published, not in the Summer of 2008 but in the Spring of 2009, in a
trade paperback. The book will have a cover illustration by Lee
Moyer. Preordering information will be available on the
website by this fall, promised the publisher.
See Forthcoming Books.
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| Added
Books |
Twenty-nine publications have
been
added on the book pages in July.
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 Behind
the Walls of Terra
Five added publications, a Lithuanian edition, one from Ukraine,
and three from Russia.
The Gates of Creation
The Lithuanian edition, Pasauliu
vartai, from Eridanas (omnibus, 2008).
The Maker of Universes
Six publications were added, four from Russia and two from Ukraine.
Red Orc's Rage
The Ukrainian edition, Ярость
Рыжего Орка, from Gemma (omnibus, 1995).
The World of Tiers
Sixteen publications were added on the book page, with books from
Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania.
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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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 "Bob Eggleton")
