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News
& What's New - August 2012 |
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Portraits
of a Trickster |
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25
Aug 2012
The
last few months are special, or nearly unbelievable. So many
books
with new work by or about our Grand Master, Philip José
Farmer!
It feels a bit unreal. Phil is gone since early 2009, but it looks and
feels as if he is still with us.
Where is this feeling coming from? Well, we have the new Titan Books
editions, older work by Phil but all of these with unique material, new
introductions and afterwords.
Then Gods of Opar: Tales of Lost
Khokarsa, with two older novels and a completely new one.
Next comes Exiles of Kho,
a completely new Opar / Khokarsa novella. Maybe not written by him, but
it feels as if he wrote it.
And finally the third volume of the Worlds of PJF, Portraits
of a Trickster.
A book full with old and new, but unique works by or about Phil. I
haven't had the time to read it all, but started browsing and leafing
through the book with stories, essays and speeches, and reading pieces
here and there. Like the essay by Christopher J Garcia, who writes:
«...I discovered Farmer the same way I discovered Sturgeon:
in a
box that I knew I shouldn't be looking into. My Pops, he had a box
where he kept the things he'd rather not have Mom and I looking
at...» A fantastic discovery, written in a great essay.
And what to think of the third, never before published version of "The Impotency of Bad Karma"?
Or the highly erotic "The
Long Wet Dream of Rip van Winkle", or "The Many Dooms of Harold Hall",
or the four new stories by others in the worlds of Farmer, or...or...
I am not yet ready with this anthology. Not personally with the reading
of it and also not with the indexing of it in the bibliography. I'll
take my time...
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Keith Howell |
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Another
Opar / Khokarsa story |
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25
Aug 2012
Christopher
Paul Carey is coauthor with Philip José Farmer of
the Opar / Khokarsa
novel The
Song of Kwasin (2012). He wrote two more stories in
this
series. One by himself, “A
Kick in the Side” (2010), and one with Phil Farmer,
“Kwasin
and the Bear God” (2011).
Chris continues with yet another story in the series, a novella, Exiles of Kho. It
was published this month by Meteor
House. The book was released at Pulpfest 2012 / FarmerCon
VII,
earlier this month. There are only a few copies available with the
publisher.
Chris
Carey signing the book at FarmerCon VII.
I
do not know yet where to put this book in the Bibliography.
Probably I will have to create one or more new pages for this work and
the
others like this one, of stories in the worlds of Phil but not written
by him.
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Mike
Hoffman |
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A Raffles
and Manders story |
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15
Aug 2012
One
can very well read a Farmer story as it is, as a story on its own. But
very often there is more than one layer in his stories, many of his
tales are somehow interlinked.
Like there is with the story "The
Problem of the Sore Bridge—Among Others" (1975). It
is an adventure story with the protagonists A.J. Raffles and his
sidekick Harry 'Bunny' Manders. These characters were originally
created by E.W. Hornung, brother-in-law to Arthur Conan Doyle.
According to the introduction in Venus on the Half-Shell and
Others the story «...is a fusion of the world of
Raffles and Holmes...the tale is as much a Sherlockian pastiche as it
is a Rafflesian one...»
There is also a link to Doc Savage it seems. From the same
introduction: «...the curious reader may wish to do some more
investigating and pick up a copy of Farmer's authorized Doc Savage
novel Escape
from Loki, then one should compare what Raffles and
Manders find at the state of Mr. James Phillimore with what Doc Savage
discovers within a secret room inside the sinister Château de
Musard. As always, wheels within wheels...»
The story is written by Harry
Manders, a pseudonym of Farmer. Several of his pseudonyms
are in fact the names of fictional authors in his own work or in that
of other authors. Many of these pseudonyms are interlinked.
And finally, the story "The
Problem of the Sore Bridge—Among Others" is
linked to the Wold Newton Universe.
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Tom
Kidd |
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A Wold
Newton Prehistory Novel |
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10
Aug 2012
Yesterday
on Facebook Win
Scott Eckert revealed the new cover of Hadon
of Ancient Opar,
with the following words:
«Exclusive cover reveal! Live, from PulpFest and FarmerCon
VII: the cover for HADON OF ANCIENT OPAR, coming from Titan Books in
January 2013!»
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FarmerCon
VII |
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2
Aug 2012
Just
another week, August 9-11, before FarmerCon VII
will take place, together with Pulpfest 2012.
I will not attend, but I wish all the convention goers a very good
time! The programming looks interesting and exiting enough to have a
marvelous time.
If everything goes according to the plans then publisher Meteor
House will present the third volume of the anthology series The
Worlds of Philip José Farmer at the upcoming FarmerCon VII.
Not only that, but also the limited edition of Exiles
of Kho, a Lost Khokarsa novella written by Christopher Paul
Carey, will be released at the convention.
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J. Allen St.
John |
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| Added
Books |
One new addition on the book
pages this month.
 Portraits
of a Trickster
The third anthology in The Worlds of Philip José Farmer
series, from Meteor House.
Exiles of Kho
A new Opar/Khokarsa novella, written by Christopher Paul Carey. Published by
Meteor House.
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| Statistics |
These are the
numbers for the book pages this month.
1764
publications
1154 different
covers
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