Quite a few stories by Philip José Farmer are inspired by religious themes. As Phil himself stated: «I've been a reader of the Bible most of my life». The very well written story "Towards the Beloved City" is based upon the Book of Revelations.
It was written for the original anthology Signs and Wonders (1972), with, as the subtitle says, 'Science Fiction Stories for the Christian Reader'.

Roger Elwood in his foreword in an anthology of religious science fiction stories, writes: «Farmer's story is probably the most Biblically oriented of all, and perhaps the most theologically complex. Farmer deals with the tribulation in an exciting, accurate, incisive manner.»

The web Blog "The Golden Age" published some time ago, in March 2011 and January 2012, scans of the covers and all of the twenty interior black and white illustrations done by Roy Krenkel for Philip José Farmer's two Opar / Khokarsa novels, Hadon of Ancient Opar and Flight to Opar.


I only discovered the blog entries recently, but if you love the art of Roy Krenkel as I do you might want to see the very large scans of the interior art, ten illustrations per book.
See here for the scans of Hadon of Ancient Opar, and see here for the scans of Flight to Opar.
Wonderfully done! Enjoy!

Jules Verne wrote Around the World in Eighty Days (1873).  In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (roughly £2 million today) set by his friends at the Reform Club.

Philip José Farmer thought that there was more to the story and wrote a 'sequel', with the truth behind Verne's novel about the aliens involved, with the novel The Other Log of Phileas Fogg.

And now Josh Reynolds on his turn wrote a sequel to Farmer's novel, Phileas Fogg and the War of Shadows, where «Fogg finds himself once more thrown into the white-hot crucible of war.»


This novella will be published by Meteor House in hardcover ($25) and trade paperback ($15).
See the website of Meteor House for more (ordering) information.

Philip José Farmer wrote six so called Polytropical Paramyths, "Many-turning beyond-myths" as Phil described them. They are all funny and rather bizarre stories.
The first of these was published in 1954, the short story "Totem and Taboo", in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

Farmer: «I got the idea for it while reading Freud's work of the same title, but don't ask me what passage triggered it off.»
Sigmund Freud examines in his book Totem and Taboo (1913) the system of Totemism. Farmer explains in his story what the totem can do in the right choice for a relation.

Recently I added some essays by the German author Jörg Kastner. I found his website online and an email address and wrote him, to let him know about the inclusion of his very interesting essays in the International Bibliography.
Kastner enjoyed receiving my email and told me that PJF is one of his favorite authors for a long time. He wrote the essays to spread the word about Farmer in Germany.

Kastner wrote yet another essay, about the Sherlock Holmes related stories by PJF, in The Soft-Nosed Bullet-In (SNOB) Nr.1, in January 1989. This was a fanzine of the German Sherlock Holmes Club "Von Herder Airguns. Ltd."
After the publication of his essay, "Mowgli, Kapitän Nemo und der bemerkenswerte Wurm", he received a telegram from the US, telling that Farmer didn't even know that there were essays published about him in Germany.
According to Kastner, his own books have been influenced by the works of Farmer, on several levels.

Jörg Kastner sent me scans of his essay, and also scans of an essay by Armin Hofmann in the German Fandom Newsletter # 28, April 1990. This article, "Philip José Farmers fleischliche Genüsse", is about the same omnibus (Fleisch) that Kastner wrote about in one of his essays.
Vielen dank Jörg!

Lee Barrie (USA) informed me about, and sent me the scans of the two page article "The Khokarsa Series" in The Gridley Wave issue #370 of July 2013.
This is a monthly publication for The Burroughs Bibliophiles, edited by Henry G. Franke III.

The article, written by Franke, gives a great overview and description of the complete Opar / Khokarsa series. Of the novels and stories written by Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey, with a recommended reading order.
Many thanks Lee!