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News
& What's New - December 2011 |
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The State
Church knows it all |
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28
Dec
2011
Farmer's
first science fiction story had a huge impact, at the time of
publication. See the entry of December 12th.
Since the publication of "The
Lovers" many readers were asking –no,
demanding– a sequel.
Nearly a year later, in June 1953, Starling
Stories announced the
sequel, "Moth and Rust".
But it was not a sequel at all. The only thing both stories
shared
was the same Earth culture, with the State Church, or Sturch for short.
Sam Moskowitz in his essay:
"...Actually, it is a fast-moving cloak-and-dagger novel of the future,
comparable in theme to 1984
... Religion rather than sex is the major story ingredient. Farmer
explores the rise and nature of hypothetical new religions of the
future with the same scientific objectivity with which he previously
outlined the sex life of aliens."
According to Moskowitz the 'sequel' received only a lukewarm reception
upon publication.
Farmer expanded, partly rewrote and revised the story into the novel A
Woman a Day (1960), also known as The Day of Timestop,
or Timestop!.
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Ed Emsh |
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A thing
from another dimension |
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27
Dec
2011
Phil
wrote three novels in the "Doc
Caliban" series, starting with A
Feast Unknown (1969), and continued in in Lord
of the Trees (1970) and The Mad Goblin (1970).
The story wasn't finished yet and Phil had plans to write a fourth
novel in the series, originally titled The Unspeakable Threshold
(later titled The
Monster On Hold).
Alas, Phil didn't write the planned novel. The series stayed
unfinished, something that has happened to some of his other series as
well. He had an outline and a finished chapter of the projected novel.
Part of the outline and the chapter, "The
Monster on Hold", were published in 1983 in the anthology World Fantasy Convention 1983,
a souvenir book of the convention.
Farmer in his introduction: "The three novels above took place in the
late 1960s. The events of The
Monster on Hold
begin in the late 1970s when Doc Caliban penetrates Tilatoc's
supposedly impregnable fortress hideout in northern Canada. I won't
describe the result because I don't want to reveal too much about the
novel. But Caliban goes into hiding again. He hears that Anana has
decreed that whoever kills Grandrith and Caliban will become Council
members even if they are not candidates. (Caliban almost loses his life
when he gains this piece of information.) When the second section of
the novel begins (in 1984), Caliban is in Los Angeles and disguised as
an old wino. Tired of running, he's decided to attack, but, first, he
needs a lead. One night, a juvenile gang jumps him, thinking he's easy
prey. He disposes of them quite bloodily, but he spots a man observing
the fight. Later, he sees the man shadowing him. After trapping him,
Caliban questions him, using a truth drug he invented in the 1930s. As
Caliban suspects, the man is an agent of the Nine. Caliban allows him
to escape and then trails him. This leads to a series of adventures
I'll omit in this outline."
It is a thousand pities that Phil never wrote the novel. The published
chapter promised a lot.
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Rowena Morrill |
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How to
tell your mother? |
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26
Dec
2011
The
short story "Monologue"
is a very unsettling horror tale about a boy who isn't able to talk but
desperately wants to tell his mother something. How to tell her
otherwise than to show it...
Roger Elwood –who published the story in his anthology Demon Kind in
1973– said this about the story: "Outright shock and horror".
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The End
of the World |
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20
Dec
2011
Over
the years many people have predicted the end of the world. A prediction
with the exact date and time, based upon calculations or based upon
books, like the Bible. But so far, nothing ever happened... The world
still exists.
What would it look like, the end of the world? According to Philip
José Farmer's story "The
Making of Revelation, Part 1"
God
himself wants the spectacle to be filmed, with Cecil B. DeMille
–brought back from the dead– as the chief director.
The
script has to be written (and rewritten many times) by Harlan Ellison.
And God as the producer, with at least a hundred thousand angels as
assistant directors.
The result is a great action movie, really a spectacle! Even Satan has
a role.
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Love and
Sex on Ozagen |
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12
Dec
2011
Philip
José Farmer's first science fiction story shocked the world.
The
science fiction world, that is. It was rejected by two editors, before
it was accepted by Samuel Mines, editor of Startling Stories.
t was a taboo breaking story in 1952, because there was not only 'love'
in the story, but also sex. And on top of that, sex between a human and
an alien. An alien in human disguise, but nevertheless an alien. That
was something you didn't do in 1952.
But Farmer did it. And with success! For months after publication
readers were writing letters to the magazines, most of them in high
favor of the story. The story was "The
Lovers", of course.
One
of Virgil Finlay's illustrations for the story.
Mostly based on this novella Farmer received his first Hugo Award in 1953, as the Most
Promising New Author.
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Earle K. Bergey |
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Love Song
excerpts |
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10
Dec
2011
Philip
José Farmer's first science fiction story was the at that
time –early 1950s– very controversial "The Lovers".
Controversial, because in the story a human had sex with an
alien, although there were no explicit scenes about this in the story.
Farmer later proofed that he could write more explicit sex stories. He
wrote several of these, like the very erotic, gothic novel Love
Song (Brandon House, 1970).
The publishing house of this novel, Parliament News, Inc., published
two different excerpts
of the novel in two of their adult magazines, Last Date and Secret Hours, in
1970.
I still haven't found a copy of Last
Date, but together with a copy of the magazine Puritan
–see
previous entry– I found a copy of Secret
Hours. The excerpt comes with a two page illustration by
an uncredited artist.
The Short Fiction page
of the excerpts has been restyled.
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Rip Van
Winkle's Long
Wet Dream |
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7
Dec
2011
Philip
José Farmer wrote his own version of Washington Irving's
story "Rip Van
Winkle". He made it into a highly erotic and explicit, time
traveling story.
The adult magazine Puritan,
issue number 7 (1981) published it for the first time, with the title "Rip Van Winkle's Long Wet Dream".
After many years searching for it, I finally found a copy of this issue
of Puritan,
and corrected the
original title of the story. The few adult magazines with Farmer's
stories in it, are not easy to track down.
Farmer rewrote the story only slightly after that, to introduce the
'purple haze'. The second version, "The
Long Wet Purple Dream of Rip Van Winkle" was reprinted twice
in two collections of Farmer's stories.
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Howard Chaykin |
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Ten
Farmer titles from Titan Books |
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5
Dec
2011
According
to the December issue of Locus,
# 611, Titan Books will publish a total of seven Wold Newton Universe
(WNU) novels, and three standalone titles.
Two weeks ago we announced the first three known titles that are to be
published by Titan
Books: The Other Log of Phileas Fogg
(WNU), Time's
Last Gift (WNU) and Lord Tyger.
Other WNU titles that might be republished by Titan Books are: Escape
From Loki, Ironcastle, Stations
of the Nightmare, The Dark Heart of Time, Venus
on the Half-Shell, and The Wind Whales of Ishmael.
Also, but not likely because of the SubPress omnibus, Hadon
of Ancient Opar and Flight to Opar. And of
course the fictional biographies where 'it all started with', Tarzan
Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalytic Life
might be candidates.
We will have to wait and see what's actually
coming up from Titan Books in 2012 and later. It's a great idea of
Titan Books to publish a series of Wold Newton Universe novels!
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