The publication of Philip José Farmer's third novel in the Riverworld series, The Dark Design, was a major event in 1977. People had been waiting a long time for this novel, after the publication of the first two in the Riverworld series in 1971.

It was also a major event in Italy, where the wait after the first two translations was nearly as long as in the USA.
The Italian book, Il grande disegno, included a translated essay by Lester del Rey about the novel. This same essay was published in the information bulletin of the publisher Nord in Italy, Cosmo Informatore No. 1, July 1978. It also included Farmer's foreword to the novel.

Phil Farmer's novelette "Tongues of the Moon" was published in 1961 in the magazine Amazing. Some years later Phil rewrote it somewhat and expanded the story to the novel Tongues of the Moon (1964).

It is a fast-paced action story where the Russians control a large part of the world, including North America. They want to add the rest of the world to their ideas of communism. The "axis of evil" of that time, the Argentineans together with the South Africans as the South Atlantic Axis, do not agree with the Russian territorial claim and start a war. They want to strike first. This war leads to the total destruction of Earth. The battle then continues on the moon.

Last month I added two essays by Jörg Kastner (Germany) to the bibliography. With one of those essays Kastner mentioned an earlier essay by him in the German magazine Phantastische Zeiten, issue 5/88.
I searched for a copy, found and bought one. Again a very thorough and interesting essay by the German author Jörg Kastner, "Zwischen Sex und Religion" (Between Sex and Religion), with the subtitle "Die phantastischen Welten des Philip José Farmer".
The article is about the main themes in Farmer's fiction: sex and religion. Kastner shows this with many descriptions and examples of Phil's work.
But it is also about Farmer's life and career, his literary love for Tarzan and other pulp heroes, and about him writing several sequels to other author's works.