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News & What's New - July 2011
FarmerCon VI this weekend
30 Jul 2011
 
This weekend, July 29-31 2011, FarmerCon VI takes place, together with Pulpfest 2011, in Columbus,Ohio (US). See the Official Philip José Farmer Home Page for the latest information, and the programming.
Alas, I cannot attend FarmerCon VI this year, but I wish everyone attending a very good time!

Meteor House, the publisher of The Worlds of Philip José Farmer (2): Of Dust and Soul, announced that the book will not be available at the time of FarmerCon VI, alas.
Mike in his latest newsletter: "Despite their best efforts, the book won't be ready until mid-August."
You still can order a copy of the book, if you didn't already.


Laura Givens
Job's Leviathan, the eighth poem
29 Jul 2011
 
Phil wrote only a few poems. Eight of them were published, as far as we know. The last one, "Jobs Leviathan" was published in June 1961, in the fanzine First Fandom Magazine. The editor of that fanzine, Lynn A. Hickman, reprinted the poem some months later in her other fanzine, JD-Argassy.

Like the other poems this one too has been reprinted in the extraordinary collection, Pearls from Peoria.


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Adventure Stories
26 Jul 2011
 
Mike already mentioned it with the latest update (July 9th), of the Official Philip José Farmer Home Page, the publication of the story "After King Kong Fell" in the collection The Big Book of Adventure Stories.
Immediately after that I ordered a copy and just received the big book.

Allan Massie reviewed the collection in The Wall Street Journal, and said this about Farmer's story:
"The Big Book of Adventure Stories is full of such pleasures. Some of them are fresh and unexpected: Philip José Farmer's story, "After King Kong Fell" (1973), for example. Farmer, like Gabriel Hunt, was writing after the heyday of the pulps and has a range of sympathy and understanding of perversity usually missing in the lurid tales. "Kong wasn't evil. It was what happened around Kong that was evil." Read it and find out."

The new publication has been added on the story page.


Rafael DeSoto
First expedition to Mars
17 Jul 2011
 
And yet another religious story about a Jesus character. This time not on a Dude Ranch (see the previous entry) but on Mars. One of the recurring themes in Farmer's fiction is the many aspects of religion, something he often approaches —like so many of the other themes in his fiction— in a controversial way. You do not have to agree with Farmer, but at least he makes you think about his ideas.

The story "Jesus on Mars" does that too. This is the highly condensed version of the novel Jesus on Mars, originally intended for publication in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Number 22 (1979). Due to miscommunication the deal with the magazine fell through.
Thanks to George H. Scheetz, who suggested it to Phil Farmer, the abridged story was published  in the collection Riverworld War, a limited edition and a collector's item.


Joan Hanke Woods
The Battle of Armageddon
14 Jul 2011
 
In the previous entry I asked the question if Philip José Farmer plagiarized the discussed story. The answer was no, of course he didn't.
But with this story, the magazine he submitted the story to was afraid that Farmer might be accused of plagiarizing a novel. So, the editors of the magazine turned the story down. The magazine was Playboy.

Phil Farmer had one story before in Playboy, "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol". That one was very well received by the readers. The editors were interested in another story, but they didn't dare to publish "J.C. on the Dude Ranch".

This is a very odd story, a strange mix of a western and science fiction, peppered with much eroticism and religious stuff. It might be that Playboy was afraid that their readers wouldn't like the religious references in the story, and for that reason turned it down. Because according to the information Farmer could not have read the so called plagiarized novel at the time he submitted the story.

Farmer included the story "J.C. on the Dude Ranch" in his collection Riverworld and other Stories. It has never been reprinted in the English language outside of this collection.


Don Ivan
Punchatz
It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal
12 Jul 2011
 
Rod Keen wrote only one story. It was published in the August 1978 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. This story, "It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal", was published only once. It has never been reprinted.

But Philip José Farmer took over the story, changed the last few lines, and had it published as "The Phantom of the Sewers". in his collection Riverworld and other Stories. So did Farmer plagiarize the story?

Rod Keen is a fictional author from the novel The Abortion by Richard Brautigan. Phil Farmer asked Brautigan's permission to use the name of Rod Keen, and write a story under the byline. So he did.
But why he changed the title when the story was reprinted, with only a slight change at the end and under Farmer's own name, is unknown.

With this story and the poem `In Common` another two story pages have been redone.


Alex Schomburg
A cover and a printing added
6 Jul 2011
 
Our regular contributor, Fred Fisher (Texas, US), found a copy of a missing book in my collection, and sent that one to me. It is the 1986 Berkley Books reprint of The Lavalite World. The publisher was very sloppy with the printing info in this book, the copyright page gives all the info –including the ISBN– of the first Berkley printing.
The cover scan has been added on the book page.

Fred also found a copy of a 1979 Panther Books (UK) reprint of The Dark Design. The book gives the indication that it could be the second printing, but the cover design, the lettering, and the cover price differ from the second printing I have. The higher price indicates that this one is a later 1979 reprint, and so, must be the third printing.
I have corrected the information of the UK printings on the book page.

Many thanks Fred for the book and the new info!


Boris Vallejo
Received: The Peerless Peer
1 Jul 2011
 
Published for the first time in 1974 in a limited edition hardcover, and only reprinted once in paperback in 1976. It took more than thirty years to see it reprinted again in its original state. The story had been rewritten after the initial publications. I'm talking about the novella The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, a pastiche, and one of Farmer's most funniest works.

And now again there is a new reprint of the original novella, by the UK publisher Titan Books, in a trade paperback, in their series 'The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes'.
The title changed to The Peerless Peer, but otherwise it is the same story. Written as by John H. Watson M.D., and edited by Philip José Farmer.

This publication has a new and very interesting afterword by Win Scott Eckert, in which he points out all the Wold Newton Universe references in the novel. Win declares this as "...one of the foremost entries in the Wold Newton series...".

You can buy the book from Titan Books (UK or US) or from any of the online book shops, for only £7.99 or $9.95.


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Added Books
Three publications were added on the book pages in July.

The Dark Design
The third Panther Books (UK) printing, 1979.

The Lavalite World
The Berkley Books reprint of 1986.

The Peerless Peer
The new edition, with a somewhat changed title, from Titan Books 2011.
 
Statistics
These are the numbers for the book pages in July.

1732 publications
1141 different covers
 
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© Zacharias L.A. Nuninga -- Page last updated: 30 Nov 2011