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News
& What's New - June 2011 |
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The
Impotency of Nick Adams |
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26
Jun
2011
"This
story has a curious history" according to Philip José Farmer
in his foreword to "The Last Rise of Nick Adams" in The
Book of Philip José Farmer (Berkley, 1982). Farmer
then explains what happened to the story.
Originally it was published as "The
Impotency of Bad Karma" in the First Preview Edition of the
magazine Popular Culture,
June 1977. The story was written as by Cordwainer
Bird. The magazine had an extremely limited edition. A
second issue never appeared.
In the story are several well known science-fiction authors parodied,
like Asimov, Heinlein, Van Vogt and Barry Malzberg (as Michael B.
Hopsmount). Malzberg didn't
really like the parody of him, and for that reason Farmer rewrote
the story somewhat. So he removed Hopsmount and also Cordwainer Bird
from the story, to replace them with G.C. Alldrab (= J.G. Ballard) and
William Rubboys (= William Burroughs), two Englishmen.
The rewritten version was published as "The
Last Rise of Nick Adams" in the second volume of the
anthology Chrysalis
(Zebra, 1978).
But unlike Farmer thought in his foreword, in which he also explains
the use of the name of the fictional author Cordwainer
Bird as a pseudonym, the curious
history doesn't end here.
When Christopher Paul Carey edited the fictional author collection Venus
on the Half-Shell and Others, he discovered that one page,
the last one, of
the original publication in Popular
Culture was missing. None of the known Farmer collectors
had an original copy of the magazine, we all had photocopies of the
printed pages from the same source. All of us were missing the same
last page.
Thanks to Brad Lang, Popular
Culture's editor, the missing page was finally found.
It seems that Farmer himself also missed a page of Popular Culture,
while he rewrote the story to remove Malzberg from it. My guess is that
Farmer had to retype the story from the pages in the magazine, while
rewriting it somewhat. There were no personal computers at the time, so
he had to actually retype the story completely. While doing this he
must have missed the one-half column of the story on page 41, because
that piece is missing from the second version, "The Last Rise of Nick
Adams". It is an essential part of the story, and it is very strange
that Farmer missed it in his rewrite.
There is now a strange gap in the story. At one moment Nick Adams is on
the phone, and the next moment he reads the first letter. What first
letter? How the phone conversation went and the next phone call, and
how Nick came to receive three letters, is completely missing in the
rewritten story.
You're lucky when you have a copy of the lettered edition of Venus
on the Half-Shell and Others, because that is the only
publication (26 copies!) that has the original –and
complete– story,
next to the extremely limited magazine Popular Culture. A
copy of that one is nowhere to be found!
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Another
Canadian printing |
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20
Jun
2011
This
last year we already found seven previously unknown Canadian printings.
But Fred Fisher (Houston, US) again found a till now unknown
Canadian printing. Of the Jove/HBJ Books edition of Tongues
of the Moon (1978).
This printing has been added on the book page, with many thanks to Fred.
I also finally could buy a copy of the French publication Le
temps du retour (1985), a translation of Timestop!, which was
originally published as A Woman a Day.
Some small corrections were made on the data and the newly scanned
cover of the French publication has been added.
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Carl Lundgren
& Eric Ladd |
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Imagination |
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15
Jun
2011
Farmer
wrote some poems in the early days of his career. All eight of them
were published in the period 1949-1961 and for the most part appeared
in extremely hard to find publications. In a college poetry anthology,
in a university publication, and in fanzines. There might still be one
out there somewhere in an obscure fanzine, that we do not know of.
All eight known poems were included in the collection Pearls
from Peoria.
The page of the poem "Imagination"
has now been restyled.
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More
French publications |
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13
Jun
2011
I'm
just back from a few days in Paris. Visited this wonderful city with my
wife and some friends. This was not our first time in Paris, but we had
again a great time.
Of course I also took some time to visit a few book shops. There are
ten new French Farmer books in my collection. Some of them were already
known in the bibliography, but I also found four new ones: Le
Monde du fleuve (2010), Le Noir Dessein (wrongly
dated 2011, but from 2010), Les Dieux du fleuve
(2010) and Le Bateau fabuleux
(2007).
The new information hs been added on the book pages.
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Manchu |
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The Opar
(Khokarsa) novels in an omnibus! |
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13
Jun
2011
On
March 23, 2011 Subterranean
Press announced "a new mammoth volume" of Philip
José Farmer's work, to be published in the near future.
There was no further information about the contents, but in my news entry of March 24
I
assumed it would be an omnibus. With the Opar
novels for instance,
including the not yet published third novel. I was right in my
assumption!
Christopher Paul Carey, the co-author of the third novel, The Song of Kwasin,
brings the big news on his blog
and in an interview at the Official Philip
José Farmer Home Page.
Chris: "In spring 2012 Subterranean Press is slated to bring out a new
Philip José Farmer omnibus comprising the novels Hadon
of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, and the
previously unpublished The Song of Kwasin, the
latter novel having been completed by me from Phil's manuscript
fragment and outline, and in consultation with Phil ...The Song of Kwasin
tells the story of the hero Hadon's giant cousin Kwasin, and his
efforts to clear his name and take up the fight against the tyrannical
King Minruth, who has usurped the throne of the mighty empire of
Khokarsa".
The omnibus will be published in 2012. This is something to look
forward to.
Congratulations with the planned publication Chris!
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Bob Fowke |
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Hit below
the bible belt |
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3
Jun
2011
One
of the mainstream stories Farmer wrote in the 1940s, but never
sold at the time, is "Hunter's
Moon".
It was published for the first and only time in the special collection Pearls
from Peoria (2006).
"Hunter's Moon" is still a very strong story, even when written over
sixty years ago. A high-school teacher of sociology and general science
in a small town is falsely accused by the parents of his students of
'prying into things they think're sacred'. This because of a survey he
conducted among the kids.
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Keith Howell
&
Charles Berlin |
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| Added
Books |
Five publications were
added
on the book pages in June.
 The
Dark Design
The French reprint, Le
Noir Dessein, from Le Livre de Poche, 2010.
The
Fabulous
Riverboat
The French reprint, Le
Bateau fabuleux, from Le Livre de Poche, 2007.
Gods
of Riverworld
The French reprint, Les
Dieux du fleuve, from Le Livre de Poche, 2010.
To
Your Scattered
Bodies Go
The French reprint, Le
Monde de fleuve, from Le Livre de Poche, 2010.
Tongues
of the Moon
The Canadian printing of the Jove/HBJ Books edition, 1978.
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| Statistics |
These are the
numbers for the book pages in June.
1729
publications
1138 different
covers
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