From his early years on Philip José Farmer was a ferocious reader. Many books he read made a great impact on him, like the Tarzan stories, Doc Savage series, and the Oz books. Of all three of these series he eventually wrote his own novel contributions, with The Dark Heart of Time (1999), Escape from Loki (1991), and A Barnstormer in Oz (1982).

But he not only wrote these novels about his favorite characters. He wrote more about Tarzan and Doc Savage.
About the Oz books Farmer wrote an essay in 1954, "The Tin Woodman Slams the Door".

Twenty years later, in 1973, Farmer wrote the short story "The Unnaturals", that only got published after its rediscovery in 2005. It was published in the fanzine Farmerphile Issue No. 2.
Christopher Paul Carey in his introduction writes that the story: «...provides the reader with an allegory which resonates as well today as it would have had "The Unnaturals" been published in 1973.»

Roger Elwood edited in the early 1970s a large number of anthologies. In 1974-1975 he edited the anthology series Continuum of four books with a new concept. Each book had eight continuing stories, which made it a unique anthology series.

Philip José Farmer wrote the Stations of the Nightmare series for these anthologies.
The first story in the series, "The Two-Edged Gift", introduces the reader to Paul Eyre, who shot a flying saucer. That impulsive shot had great consequences. Paul Eyre only acted strange at first, but he finally changed to somewhat else entirely it seemed.

When I, and several other Farmerphiles, were invited at Phil and Bette Farmer's house I saw many original cover paintings and loads of books. Several of these books were his own work of course. The visit happened in 2008, after we had attended Farmercon 90.

One of the titles that took my eye were copies of Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. Farmer had four copies of this book on his shelves.


But the spine of one of the dustjackets showed a different, much larger, lettering than the others. It became not clear if this was done on purpose or a misprinting with the publisher. Other than the spine the book was exactly the same as with the other copies, all first printings.

At the time I made a photo of the books, which I had forgotten till now. It shows the special dustjacket of which there exists at least one, and maybe only one, copy.

The small publisher Meteor House keeps coming with interesting news updates. Only a few days ago we announced the publication of Phileas Fogg and the War of Shadows, written by Josh Reynolds.

Two earlier novellas from Meteor House, Exiles of Kho by Christopher Paul Carey and The Scarlet Jaguar by Win Scott Eckert, are now available as ebooks.
Carey's Exiles of Kho is part of the Opar/Khokarsa series. Eckert's The Scarlet Jaguar is a sequel to The Evil in Pemberley House – cowritten by Philip José Farmer and Win Scott Eckert – is Pat Wildman’s second adventure.
It seems there are plans that Eckert will write more Pat Wildman adventures. Great news indeed!

The latest announcement from Meteor House is that they will publish The Evil in Pemberley House (2009) in a trade paperback for $20. It will be published in August and available at Farmercon IX.


Preorder your copy on time to get it signed by Win Scott Eckert! See the ordering page.