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News
& What's New - January 2015 |
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More
and better covers |
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28 Jan
2015
Ralf
Lux (Germany), webmaster of the Clifford
D. Simak International
Bibliography, probably thought that I had nothing to do after
finishing
the story pages. He sent me an email, four printed pages long, with
links about new information for me and this website.
So, back to work...! Many thanks, oder vielen Dank, Ralf!
 What
follows are the first few items of Ralf's list.
I added a cover of Οι
Εραστες
(1989), the first Greek edition of The
Lovers from publisher Ars Longa.
Also one of 恋
人たち (1966), the first Japanese edition of the
same novel from publsher Hayakawa. I'm still looking for the cover of
the second Japanese edition, or the book itself of course.
The Israeli edition of Dayworld,
עולמיום,
from publisher
Am Oved (1988) is completed with a picture of the cover.
The Romanian edition of Dayworld
Rebel, Rebelul din Dayworld
(2001), has a better cover, and now a larger one too.
The Russian Riverworld omnibus Мир реки (Russkaya
Troika, 1991) was
published with two different dustjackets. Till now only the first cover
was shown, but I have added the second cover too.
Finally I found proof of another printing, January 1995, of Plus
fort que le feu. the French translation of More Than Fire.
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Philip
José Farmer Day |
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26 Jan
2015
January
26, 1918
(February 25,
2009)
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Japanese
Werewolf |
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21 Jan
2015
Recently
I updated the story page of "Wolf, Iron and Moth".
Fred Fischer (USA) send me a puzzle if there might be a what he thought
Chinese translation of the anthology The Ultimate Werewolf,
because of a cover picture he found.
 A Chinese translation is unknown to
me, but I already knew there to be a Japanese translation. Fred's cover
proofed this.
I did some research and found the data for the Japanese translation of
the story, "狼の血脈". I even found a way to order the book for my
collection. As soon as I receive it, the cover scan will be replaced
with a better one (Done!).
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Thirty-one
eBooks from Gateway |
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19 Jan
2015
British
publisher Gollancz started in 2011 the SF Gateway imprint for their
line of eBooks. Gollancz is very successful with these eBooks. Many
authors see their –sometimes long lost– books again
'in print', and available for the reader.
Gateway (website)
published till now 31 books by Philip José Farmer.
Eighteen of them in 2012, twelve in 2013, and only one in 2014. See the
chronological list below. It includes the complete Riverworld series, the
complete World of Tiers
series, and the three Exorcism
(or Herald Childe) novels. Finally, also both the fictional biographies
about Tarzan and Doc Savage, and the very rare Love
Song are available.
03/2012 |
03/2012 |
03/2012 |
03/2012 |
03/2012 |
05/2012 |
06/2012 |
06/2012 |
06/2012 |
07/2012 |
07/2012 |
07/2012 |
07/2012 |
08/2012 |
08/2012 |
08/2012 |
09/2012 |
11/2012 |
01/2013 |
01/2013 |
03/2013 |
05/2013 |
06/2013 |
06/2013 |
07/2013 |
07/2013 |
07/2013 |
07/2013 |
07/2013 |
10/2013 |
12/2014 |
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Most of Farmer's books are
now in electronic format available. See the page 'Audio Books & eBooks'
for more information about these publications, or follow the link on
that page to the book page of a title.
These Gateway eBooks can be bought at Amazon, B&N, or Kobo for
instance,
for prices between £2.50 and £5.00, or $4.00 and
$8.00 in the US.
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The
final restyled story page! |
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12 Jan
2015
It
took about a period of four years to redesign all the
more than one hundred book pages. After I had finished these in the
summer of 2010 I started the job of redoing the 138 story pages. Now,
four and a half years later, I finished the last one.
Pfff...I'm happy to finish this task!
 It
was a tremendous amount of work to check every publication again.
Checking the publications in my own huge collection, or trying to order
the few missing publications from around the globe. Or else checking
some reliable sources on the internet if I couldn't get the publication
myself (yet).
It is still possible that I missed some story publications, during the
last few years several unexpected ones were found in sometimes obscure
books or magazines, but I dare to say that this is the most complete
and detailed bibliography of all of Farmer's writing.
The final story page is that of "The
Wounded" (1954). I could not remember what this story was
about, so I read it again. It is only marginally science fiction, if at
all. It is about love and the role Cupid plays in it.
In his early career Farmer wrote some astounding stories, like "The Lovers" (1952), "Sail On! Sail On!"
(1952), and "Mother"
(1953). But "The Wounded" is not one of his best stories, it is a
minor story. It was never commercially reprinted, but for Pearls
from Peoria.
If you haven't read it, don't worry, you won't miss it.
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A
Werewolf Story |
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12 Jan
2015
For
Byron Preiss' anthology The Ultimate Werewolf
(1991) Phil Farmer wrote an original werewolf story, "Wolf, Iron and Moth".
 The story was first time reprinted
in the collection Pearls from Peoria (2006).
In his short introduction to the story the editor, Paul Spiteri, wrote:
«In this story Phil brings some common sense to the mythology
of the werewolf. What kind of people would they be? How would they
function in the modern world? Would they exhibit the very basic need to
be with (or at least have knowledge of) their own kind?»
Nearly finished, only one story page left for restyling!
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Some
publication statistics |
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9 Jan
2015
Last
year, 2014, were the lowest amount of PJF books of the last ten years
published. Only six books and one PJF
related, with the novella from Josh Reynolds.
And in 2014 none of Farmer's stories were reprinted as far as I know,
also the lowest
amount of the last ten years.
| year |
books |
story
publications |
countries
books/stories |
| 2014 |
6
(+1)* |
0 |
3
/ 0 |
| 2013 |
13
(+1)* |
1 |
4
/ 1 |
| 2012 |
16
(+1)* |
2 |
5 /
2 |
| 2011 |
12 |
21 |
2
/ 1 |
| 2010 |
11 |
3 |
2
/ 1 |
| 2009 |
10 |
3 |
4
/ 3 |
| 2008 |
19 |
14 |
7
/ 2 |
| 2007 |
17 |
23 |
8
/ 2 |
| 2006 |
18 |
71 |
5
/ 2 |
| 2005 |
7 |
8 |
4
/ 4 |
*)
PJF related, but written by others.
There is not much hope that the year 2015 will do any better. Only two
novellas are planned
for publication, both PJF related and written by Christopher Paul Carey.
I'm still so sorry that Titan Books stopped with reissues of Phil's
work. They should have published at least the second and third Opar / Khokarsa novels,
after the first one. Meteor House might be able to publish these two,
we have to wait and see.
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The
Volcano in a Cornfield |
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7 Jan
2015
Six
stories, seven if you include the serial "Venus on the Half-Shell",
were written by Philip José Farmer for 'the department of
fictional authors' in The
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
These stories were
published in this magazine during the years
1975-1977. Farmer wrote them under pseudonym,
using the name of a fictional author.
 One of these stories is "The Volcano"
published in February 1976. It was published using the pseudonym of Paul Chapin, who is a
fictional author from the Nero Wolfe novel The League of Frightened Men
(1935) by Rex Stout.
"The Volcano" is a mix of a science fiction, fantasy and a detective
story. Pick your choice. Where did the volcano in the cornfield of a
farm in a little town come from? It could not be there, because the
place is far from volcanic origin. And then there is the strange
disappearance of a man. What happened to him?
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The
Marx Brothers in Science Fiction |
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6 Jan
2015
Phil
Farmer wrote a couple of odd and hilarious short stories.
He called them Polytropical
Paramyths.
These "...short stories are closer to the films of the Marx Brothers
and The Three Stooges than anything else I can think of...", according
to Farmer in his foreword to the story "The Voice of the Sonar in My
Vermiform Appendix".
 Like
the Marx Brothers movies, which I saw several times many years ago and
liked a lot, you should not take the stories very serious. Better to
laugh or smile the whole time while reading this story about the sounds
coming from an appendix.
The story was first time published in Quark / 2 in 1971,
and most recently reprinted in the collection Up
the Bright River (2011).
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The
Devil himself |
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3 Jan
2015
In
August 3014 Positronic Publishing brought another Super Pack anthology,
a month after the Science
Fiction Super Pack #1 (with the story "They Twinkled Like Jewels").
I discovered only now the other big anthology, the Fantasy Super Pack #1,
with 34 stories in it on 566 pages. It contains Farmer's story "Rastignac the Devil".
None of the 34 stories are protected by
copyright anymore, according to the copyright pages. This very big
anthology is a Print-on-Demand publication, and costs $19.99 for the
printed version, or $1.96 voor the Kindle eBook.
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Farmer
broke important ground |
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2 Jan
2015
M.
Keith Booker writes in his recently published book, Historical Dictionary of Science
Fiction in Literature, an interesting entry about Philip
José Farmer.
Booker starts this entry with: «The American writer Philip
José Farmer broke important ground in both science fiction
and fantasy, and in a number of different ways.»
Booker illustrates his statement with several examples of Farmer's
writing. With stories about sexuality like "The Lovers", about
religion like "The God Business",
and about alien biology like in "Open
to Me, My Sister".
About the evolution in planetary romances, with Farmer's The
Green Odyssey and The Wind Whales of Ishmael
for
instance.
Many of Farmer's novels and themes in his work are mentioned in this
entry: The Worlds of Tiers series, the Riverworld series, the Wold
Newton Family, the Dayworld series, and Kilgore Trout's Venus
on the Half-Shell.
This Dictionary, called in a review "a wonderful reference book", is
published in hardcover by Rowman
& Littlefield in October 2014. It costs $95.00 or
£59.95.
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| Added
Books |
One new addition
on the
book
pages this month.
 More than Fire
The French reprint (Plus fort que le feu) from Pocket, 01/1995.
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| Statistics |
These are the
numbers for the book pages this month.
1821
publications
1190 different
covers
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