In France publisher Le Livre de Poche keeps reprinting Philip José Farmer's Riverworld books.

In July this year the eight printing of Le Noir Dessein (The Dark Design) was released.
The period between this and its previous printing is not as short as it used to be between printing, two or three years. This time it took eight years after the seventh printing. But the publisher keeps them coming it seems.

The Riverworld books haven't been published in French as ebooks.

The debut issue of the fanzine FarmerFan was presented at FarmerCon 100/ PulpFest 2018. A fanzine in letter format (28×21,5cm).

It contains three essays, and a very short bibliography of the pulp publications.
But no introduction, and/or no editorial, explaining the why and how of this fanzine. Only a piece about the writers. What is its goal? How often will it be published?

The three essays are Farmer related, not really about or by Farmer. Two Wold Newton Universe (WNU) articles, and the third about the title numatenu in the Opar/Khokarsa series. Great researches, if you like these detailed explanations.

What did not impress me much about the fanzine are the unnumbered pages (80 of them), and a Table of Contents with only the titles, not the page numbers. The lay-out is not really attractive, it looks a bit like an old school paper. The text typed with 1.5 rule over the full width of the page. One of the essays, the one by Emmons, takes more than half of the fanzine this way, with 43 pages. Why is the text not in two columns and typed in 1 rule? Maybe in a bit smaller font?
Under each title are two book covers shown, but no further illustrations in the fanzine. Except for some ads.
No information in Number 1 if and when the next issue will appear. I sure hope that the lay-out of Number 2 will be more inviting.

This issue refers to the website farmerfan.com, but the site is not updated. One of the pages you can «Purchase or download issues of FarmerFan». You cannot.

For FarmerCon 100, celebrating Farmer's 100th birthday, there were three programs made of 10 pages each. The covers of the three programs have a continuous cover illustration done by Keith Howell. Click on the picture to see it larger. I recognize most of the characters and items in the picture, except for three: the man and woman behind Farmer's left arm, and the woman in the second zero. Also the two black ravens or crows.


The three programs contain a few new pieces, essays by Darrell Schweitzer and Frank Schildiner, some reprinted material and a few excerpts. It also brings "A Brief History of FarmerCon", written by Leo Queequeg Tincrowder, a pseudonym Farmer had used. Why it was used now and by whom (Michael Croteau?) is unknown to me. I do not see the point why this pseudonym was used. The name of Tincrowder is spelled wrong, it is Tincrowdor.

Carrots or carats?
There were also small misspellings in The Philip José Farmer Centennial Collection.
On page 232 is mentioned the story "Don't Wash the Carrots". You do have to wash the carrots before you can eat them, but in this case it should be the story "Don't Wash the Carats".
On page 471 we see 'Jonathan Somers Swift, III', as well as the name 'Jonathan Swift Somers III'. The second version is correct.

It took me a long time to add all the 41 stories and 18 essays into the Bibliography. I had to make three new story pages for the three novel excerpts in The Philip José Farmer Centennial Collection.

It was a lot of work these past weeks. But what a massive collection this is! Huge, beautiful, interesting and greatly done. With a very nice wraparound cover illustration—for both the hardcover dustjacket as the trade paperback cover—by Mark Wheatly. The paperback has a much younger Farmer face. The cover shows several scenes from Farmer's work: Riverworld, Venus on the Half-Shell, Opar/Khokarsa, Tarzan, King Kong, The Lovers (I think) and the Wold Newton meteorite. See here the full cover.
A worthy tribute to Philip José Farmer's career. I love it! Super!


The book is divided in seven sections, one for each decade, starting with the 1940s, till the 2000s. The editor, Michael Croteau, gives for each decade a very interesting synopsis of Farmer’s life and career.
I started reading the very humorous excerpt "Casting Turtles", which led to reading the complete novel again!

You can order this book at Meteor House! The hardcover cost $50, and the trade paperback $35. Plus shipping. Or you can order one of the 52 limited deluxe, lettered and signed hardcover editions.