Dangerous Visions!

I've finally done it. I've finally read all of the 1967 anthology Dangerous Visions edited by the rambunctious Harlan Ellison. For science fiction fans of a certain age this is who's who in the field. It's a crossroads of sorts with plenty of classic names from science fiction's "Golden Age" such as Asimov, Del Rey, Sturgeon, and Pohl. And fresher faces who went on to become a new generation of renowned talents such as Spinrad, Zelazny and Delany. And lots of talents who fall in between such as Farmer, Knight and Dick. The collection garnered two Hugos and two Nebulas for the stories within. Not a bad showing at all for novice editor Harlan Ellison.  

As much as I enjoy Ellison's fiction, I think I prefer his nonfiction better. And this collection offers up some dazzling little essays introducing the various talents. His snark is full on display as he praises and pinches the writers within. Those who are his friends get especially sharp barbs. Each story is also accompanied by an afterword from the author. They range from a single sentence to much larger reflections. 

Here is the table of contents: 

"Foreword 1 - The Second Revolution" by Isaac Asimov'

"Foreword 2 - Harlan and I" by Asimov

"Thirty-Two Soothsayers" (Introduction) by Harlan Ellison

"Evensong" by Lester Del Rey

"Flies" by Robert Silverberg

"The Day After the Martians Came" by Frederick Pohl

"Riders of the Purple Wage" by Phillip Jose Farmer (Hugo for bet novella)

"The Malley System" by Miriam Allen de Ford

"A Toy for Juliette" by Robert Bloch

"The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World" by Harlan Ellison

"The Night that All Time Broke Out" Brian W. Aldiss
"The Man Who Went to the Moon -- Twice" by Howard Rodman

"Faith of Our Fathers" by Philip K. Dick

"The Jigsaw Man" by Larry Niven

"Gonna Roll the Bones" by Fritz Lieber (Hugo and Nebula for best Novelette)

"Lord Randy, My Son" Joe L. Hensley

"Eutopia" by Poul Anderson

"Incident in Moderan" and "The Escaping" by David R. Bunch

"The Doll-House" by Hugh Jones Parry

"Sex and/or Mr. Morrison" by Carol Emshwiller

"Shall the Dust Praise Thee?" Damon Knight

"If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?" by Ted Sturgeon

"What Happened to Auguste Clarot?" by Larry Eisenberg

"Ersatz" by Henry Slesar

"Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird" by Sony Dorman

'The Happy Breed" by John Sladek

"Encounter with a Hick" by Jonathan Brand

"From the Government Printing Office" by Kris Neville

"Land of the Great Horses" by R. A. Lafferty

"The Recognition" by J. G. Ballard

"Judas" by John Brunner
"Test to Destruction" by Keith Laumer

"Carcinoma Angels" by Norman Spinrad

"Auto-da-Fe" by Roger Zelazny

"Aye, and Gormorrah" by Samuel R. Delany (Nebula for best short story)

I haven't the inclination to review every story. But some that stood out were "Eutopia" by Anderson, "The Happy Breed" by Sladek, "Test to Destruction" by Laumer, "The Night that All Time Broke Out" by Aldiss, and "Evensong" by Del Rey. I found all the stories enjoyable in their own way, but I will have to say I'll need to read "Riders of the Purple Wage" by Farmer again to fully grok it. The stories were selected because in most cases they pushed boundaries at a time when boundaries desperately need to be pushed. (Actually, they probably need to be tested all the time.) I wasn't shocked especially by any story, but I'm reading these tales in 2025, over half a century from when they were concocted and first published. That the stories feel fresh at all is a triumph for the collection, but perhaps a sad commentary on society. 

As tall peak as Dangerous Visons was, it's sequel Again, Dangerous Visions is even more daunting. I've already dived into it and expect a report when I get get through with it. That's going to take a spell. 

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The Evil In Pemberely House!

The Evil in Pemberley House is one of the last entries in the Wold Newton mythology which Philip Jose Farmer had a direct hand in producing. The novel based on an outline by Farmer is the work of Win Scott Eckert, a writer who has specialized in Wold Newton yarns for several years now. This is one is a hoot and full of hard-nosed action and some provocative and at times erotic sex. Patricia Wildman is the daughter of Doc Wildman, Farmer's Wold Newton version of Doc Savage. Patricia is a young vital woman and a freshly made widow who is filled with complex sexual hang-ups, many having to do with her father. Patricia's "Daddy Issues" are only part of a longer and at times complex tale of which sets its action in the estate from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. It's a scary house full of hidden passages, legendary haunts, and a gang of murderous relatives. 

We first meet Patricia as she is heading to take control of the titles and the estate which has fallen to her through inheritance. I will not even begin to try and to explain the family tree, but the book offers the reader two, one at the front which is spoiler free and another at the end which fills in those blanks. As is the case with much of Farmer's Wold Newton material most people are related to one another, if only tangentially, or related to someone you've heard of or read about. We follow the story from Patricia's perspective, and she is a young woman who is capable and astute thanks to her genetics and her upbringing. Still, she makes more than a few blunders which create some fearsome challenges. 

Like all the Wold Newton books, this one is a celebration of the myriad adventure fictions which have fired civilized imaginations for centuries. One of the problems with reading Wold Newton stuff is that the sheer complexity can get overwhelming and at times works against the momentum of the narrative. In this story for instance there is an embedded short story, which is read by Patricia over time which supplies necessary clues, but which unfortunately takes the reader out of the chase somewhat. But that's also the glory of his kind of stuff. Making the connections, getting that "Aha!" moment as the secrets unfold is pure fun, if at times a wee bit agonizing. 

Featuring a sexy painting by the late Glenn Orbik up front, this is not a book for the faint of heart. If explicit sex scenes offend you, this is not the book for you perhaps. Eckert in a forward says that Farmer was insistent that the sex stayed in the story, that those aspect of the story was as potent as possible. In the spirit of An Feast Unknown which in many ways ignited the Wold Newton universe so many decades ago, this late addition is full of blood, thunder and other vital juices. You have been warned. 

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Tiger, Tiger Burning Slow!

I've been wanting to read Lord Tyger for several years. I scooped it up when Titan Books published a few years back as part of their Philip Jose Farmer Grandmaster series. I kept putting off getting into it until the time was ripe to plow though it with the gusto a Farmer book deserves. Finally, the time came, and I began, but within a few chapters I detected trouble on the horizon.

Sadly, I have to say that this story of a young and vital and brutal "Ras Tyger" is overwrought. By that I mean despite is great skills Farmer has created a book here which becomes its own worst enemy with scenes and sequences which lumber on and on long after any vital effect is disappeared. The early parts of the story which show Ras learning about some inconsistencies in the jungle environment in which he is being raised are intriguing, but the mystery is not sufficient to support the rambling and repetitive nature of the investigation.

Also, Ras often takes time (as does Farmer) to diddle with the local natives. I'm not insulted by that, it's part of a Farmer novel and I know that going in, but it seems in this instance to be gratuitous after a while and bogs down the forward progression of the narrative.

I trust most stories by Farmer to clutch me by the throat and never let go. This one lets me loose repeatedly. Because of that it's taken me many months to finally finish this book which eventually dawdles to a reveal which is almost too obvious from the get-go.

Maybe I'm not in on the joke here, but the payoff is far too little after a much too long wait. Cut this book in half and you have a spirited yarn, but please cut it down.

For the first time I have to say I cannot recommend a Farmer novel, a unique experience.

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The Adventures Of The Peerless Peer!

This Wold-Newton story by the late Philip Jose Farmer is a total hoot. This was the first Wold-Newton adventure I ever read, even before I much knew what the concept was all about. A lot of the humor was lost on me when I first read it over thirty years ago. For those who might not know, the story pits a very old Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, both drawn out of retirement during World War I against an old foe Von Bork who has developed a formula which could specifically destroy the traditional foods of England. The duo are flown into the teeth of the enemy by pulp heroes G-8 and The Shadow (in other identities) and dropped off after much expended energy into the hands of the enemy who take them aboard a zeppelin and then transport them into the wilds of Africa where they encounter a lost civilization and the Lord of the Jungle, the titular Peer himself, the mighty Tarzan.

  It's a fast-paced adventure with lots of sniggering jibes at all the heroes involved. G-8 is crazed, The Shadow is a berserker, and Tarzan himself is not exactly as Edgar Rice Burroughs described him. Holmes and Watson are very funny as the two old partners become increasingly disagreeable as the wild ride continues across the globe. There are the usual Farmer digs on the lack of sexual content in the adventures of the classic pulp heroes, and that in itself makes for some funny sequences.

 

If you've never encountered The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, I highly recommend this very short novelette. The volume currently available from Titan Books supplements this small story with an essay further extrapolating on the characters involved and offers up several extras to pad out the still slim volume. 

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Doc Savage - His Apocalyptic Life!

Doc Savage - His Apocalyptic Life is the sequel of sorts to Philip Jose Farmer's Tarzan Alive - A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke. The latter work told the life story (up to a point) of the great King of the Jungle popularized by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his extensive series of novels. Lord Greystoke though is only one member of an illustrious family dubbed by Farmer and other modern researchers as the "Wold Newton Family". These are descendants of a curious band of folks who happened to be present in Wold Newton when a meteor dropped and bathed them all in a special ionized radiation which seemed by inference to have a profound effect on their progeny. And Farmer tells the story of Lord Greystoke, the epitome of the savage feral human and in this later work focusing on the crime-fighter Doc Savage he does likewise for the epitome of the modern technological man. 

The subtitle refers to Farmer's opinion that the threats to mankind which required Doc Savage's intervention were of such earth-shaking quality as to earn the term "apocalyptic". Doc Savage is no less than a supremely trained superman who saves the planet on a nigh regular basis -- monthly in fact as revealed by Street and Smith's publication schedule for the popular pulp hero. Farmer spends a good deal of time in the early chapters connecting Savage to the work of writers like William S. Burroughs and Henry Miller, suggesting that the works of these writers share in many respects Savage's apocalyptic framework. The details of Doc's life are explored and a timeline is suggested, one which is often at odds with the sequence of the novels. Then Farmer explores the life and times of Savage's "biographer" Lester Dent who with a few other pulp mavens detailed the stunning events in Savage's life adding in necessary fictional elements where necessary. 

Then Farmer goes to extensive lengths to talk geography and architecture, specifically the location and layout of Doc's skyscaper headquarters in the Empire State Building. It is revealed by Doc had played a seminal part in its construction allowing for his future offices and even an elaborate tube system for quick transportation to the Hidalgo Trading Company, a false business where many of Doc's amazing machines reside. Farmer is meticulous in his examination of the location referring constantly to the "super sagas" for information on how the sites changed over time. Tarzan is a man who is ideal when reduced to his most basic needing only his father's knife to cleave his way to success. Doc Savage in contrast is a man of technological marvels which enhance his own ideal physical gifts. Tarzan and Doc are two sides of a coin, superior in their ways but always perhaps best understood in contrast. As it turns out they are also cousins. 

Also identified as a member of the elaborate Wold Newton clan is Monk Mayfair, Doc's ape-like associate who just so happens to be a famed chemist as well. His rough exterior is contrasted in the tales by his best mate and rival Ham Brooks a dapper lawyer. These two are the primary agents of Doc's "Fabulous Five" but are joined by Renny Renwick an engineer of renown, Long Tom Roberts an electronics wizard, and Johnny Littlejohn an archeologist and geologist of note. These five men are loyal to Doc and often hungry for the adventure they find by association with him. Farmer dedicates a chapter to each of the five men, plucking the "true" from the fictional. Getting special treatment is Doc's cousin Patricia Savage who shares many of Doc's singular physical gifts. One gets the feeling that PJF has a crush on Pat, or at the very least he implies that Doc might. 

Doc Savage - His Apocalyptic Life is a grandly entertaining book for Doc Savage fans or for fans of the Wold Newton Family itself. We get not only what has been described but chronologies of the "super sagas" and expansive family trees to show the connections among the many disparate personalities in the Wold Newton Family. In the Altus edition which I read this time we are treated to a forward titled "Book of Magic" by Win Scott Eckert in which he details how he came across this tome and how it became a linchpin work for his imagination. I identify with much of what Eckert describes as I was discovering many of these same works at the same time such as The Rocketeer by Dave Stevens which treats the reader to some unofficial Doc Savage action. 

When I first read this book by Farmer I'd read only a smattering of the "super sagas" but thanks to Anthony Tollin's reprint program from a few years back I now have read them all. Armed with that detailed knowledge this book by Philip Jose Farmer is even more enjoyable. 

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Tarzan Alive - A Definitive Biography Of Lord Greystoke!

Tarzan is alive. Philip Jose Farmer spent decades developing this enticing notion that the Lord of the Jungle fabricated by Edgar Rice Burroughs over a century ago was not only based in no small part on a real man but a real man who thanks to African magic was still very much alive and would be for centuries to come. To that end Tarzan Alive - A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke from Bison Books is an outstanding read for anyone fascinated by ERB's legendary Ape Man like I am. Farmer was compulsive in his fascination with Tarzan and spent long hours writing up articles to explain this and that detail about his legend. He takes that compulsive power and writes a biography for all of us to enjoy which seeks to not only convince the reader that Tarzan is real but that most of his many adventures in the depths of Africa really happened (to greater and lesser degrees). 

ERB then is reduced to a role he actually creates for himself in the context of the Tarzan tales, a documenter of the events as he learns them. His information according to Farmer was by its very nature incomplete and because ERB sought like Tarzan himself to keep his real identity a secret many adjustments were made to the "facts" to hide things that might reveal just a little too much. As they say on the vintage cop show Dragnet - "Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." So Tarzan is real but that's not his name and neither is it Greystoke. Jane is real but that might not be her name. Opar is real but it's not quite as resplendent as ERB makes it out to be. La is real and she tempts Tarzan mightily but what happens to her is a mystery. Korak is real but he is not who you think he is. 

Mostly Farmer says the events of the first two novels in what he dubs "The Epic" are mostly true. After that it gets a bit more elusive. Pal-Ul-Don is not exactly what we think it is but there just might be dinosaurs of a sort. Lost kingdoms exhibiting traits of Crusaders and Roman Legions might be real but not on the scale we read about in the novels. The Leopard Men are real but the Ant Men are fiction. On and on it goes as Farmer deals in grand details with the events of Tarzan's life putting the novels and events into an order. The great apes which raised Tarzan are not quite what we thought they were, but neither were they civilized. Poor Jane comes in for some hard use but never does Farmer reject the essential love story which nests at the core of the Tarzan mythology. 

The book proper is followed by Addendums which add even more details to the events. One is an essay by a named Professor H.W. Starr who posits many of the connections which inspired Farmer to begin with though he reaches some slightly different conclusions. The longest Addendum, the second one is a crushingly detailed listing of the expansive genealogy of Tarzan's family including all the elaborate connections which make him a key member of the Wold Newton Family. (Briefly the Wold Newton Family is a conceit on Farmer's part that many of the world's famous historical and fictional figures are part of one elaborate family tree and that certain members were exposed as a group to nurturing radiation from the Wold Newton meteor which grants them superhuman gifts.) The Bison edition which I took great pleasure in reading this time also includes "Tarzan Lives - An Exclusive Interview with the Eighth Duke of Greystoke" and "Extracts from the Memoirs of "Lord Greystoke" which were both key elements of The Man Who Met Tarzan which I looked at last week. With both these volumes one has most of Farmer's key speculations about ERB's legendary creation.

The volume from Bison Books also includes a Foreword by Win Scott Eckert and an Introduction by Mike Resnick. These two essays serve well to put the Farmer focus on Tarzan into a working context for a new reader. Reading this work is rather like visiting the inside of Philip Farmer's hefty imagination, fully informed by robust readings and perfectly willing to take leaps of fancy which allow the whole Wold Newton enterprize to prosper. Philip Jose Farmer never broke from his pose that Tarzan was alive. If he could believe then so can I, and after you read Tarzan Alive - A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke so might you. 

But PJF was not done. His next stop logically enough was Doc Savage. More on that next week. 

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Secrets Of The Nine - The Monster On Hold!

The first three installments of the Secrets of the Nine saga were all written by Philip Jose Farmer in 1968 or thereabouts and were published as A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin. These stories detailed how Doc Caliban and his half-brother Lord Grandrith battled the Nine, a secret cabal of impossibly old people who tried to run the world from the shadows. There was a fourth installment titled "The Monster on Hold" or "Down to Earth's Centre" proposed by Farmer at a 1984 convention where he shared some of the notes and early writings. It was alas never finished in his lifetime. But now it has been completed under the title The Monster on Hold by Win Scott Eckert who is an accomplished Wold-Newton theorist and has finished other Farmer fragments such as the The Evil in Pemberly House. 

The novel serves as a sequel of sorts to a canonical Doc Savage story, the last one in fact by Lester Dent entitled Up from Earth's Center. This Doc Savage finale from 1949 has the Man of Bronze confront underworld denizens who might or might not be actual devils. That the story ends without supplying the typical rational explanation for mysterious doings is unusual in the Savage canon and has led to much speculation as why this turned out the be the final outing for the good Doctor. (We know it was because Conde Nast saw that pulps were dying in the face of the new breed of paperback and the technological advance of television but don't mention that to a Wold-Newtonian scholar.)

Weirdly the story also draws upon a non-canonical Doc Savage story titled "Who Goes There?" written by John W. Campbell Jr. The "Thing" from this creepy story is suggested to have come from space and maybe that's true but maybe not, and did they kill them all really. 

Finally, the story owes a tremendous debt to H.P. Lovecraft and his C'Thulhu Mythos, the weird stories about other-dimensional supernatural overlords who are trying their damnedest to creep back into the world of men. There are also hints of Edgar Allan Poe blended in. 

The story begins in 1977 when Doc Caliban and his associates invade the North American stronghold of a member of the Nine. They are confronted with all kinds of threats, both to the body and mind but they prevail. Skipping forward to 1984 Doc Caliban again gathers his allies to descend into a vast cave network in New England (possibly around Miskatonic University) led by a man who is impossibly young and who was first encountered when these caves were penetrated in 1949. Doc and his team again face both threats to body and mind and find a weirdly bizarre world of peculiar creatures. It is a world which evokes Dante's Inferno but it's not that either. Eventually Doc sends his aides back to the surface as he goes even deeper. He's not alone though as the other-dimensional nature of this dim world allows him to connect to an "Other", a version of himself called "Lacewing". It is in fact Doc Wildman from the  Wold-Newton Universe. These two Docs acting as one encounter "Shrassk", a creature who exists between dimensions but seeks entry into our own to dire effect. There are more mysteries still to be solved but I don't want to ruin it all for you. 

 

The Monster on Hold was a rousing read and more than lived up to my expectations. It brought some closure to storylines developed in earlier "Secrets of the Nine" books but certainly left much room for more. This "Creative Mythograhpy" as Farmer called it makes for delightful reading as it mixes the new and old together with just the right blend of spicey storytelling. In addition to the story itself this volume also contains Eckert's seminal essay "The Wild Huntsman" which serves to clarify some of the relationships between characters. There are extensive original materials from Farmer himself as well as an excellent chronology to help a reader make sense of it all. The Monster on Hold can be picked up from Meteor House Press.

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Secrets Of The Nine - The Mad Goblin!

The Mad Goblin is one part of two which are together sequels to A Feast Unknown. The organization of this novel and its ACE Double mate The Lord of the Trees is made somewhat awkward because they are two adventures which dovetail into one grand battle which is shared between the novels. It's all rather complicated and led me this time read the books in a weird way, bouncing back and forth between them to capture the flow of both narratives and how they link. 

 

The Mad Goblin tells of Doc Caliban's battle against the near immortal member of the Nine named Iwaldi. Iwaldi plans to destroy most of the human life on Earth to return it to a time he remembered in his prehistoric past. His plans are opposed by the Nine who send agents to his German castle to stop him. Doc Caliban with his two aides Barney Banks and Pauncho Van Veelar (sons of his longtime associates) bring the battle to Iwaldi but are soon lost and trapped in the labyrinth beneath his castle. There they encounter two humans who claim to be archeologists who have themselves been trapped by Iwaldi's forces. There is a great deal of back and forth and many deadly traps are thwarted (more or less) but eventually Doc and his allies get free of the caverns and the forces of both the Nine and Iwaldi and head to Salisbury Plain and the monument Stonehenge where the Nine are to gather to bury one of their own. This quick-paced yarn ends with a brutal battle on the grounds of Stonehenge wrapped in a dense fog which makes finding all your allies difficult. More I will not say so as not spoil it all. 

Like its ACE Double companion, The Mad Goblin is designed by Farmer to be read at a breakneck pace. The action rarely stops and even when things become murky still there is an underlying motivation to race to the end. The final battle literally wrapped in the "fog of war" which allows it to dovetail effectively when the same battle is the climax of The Lord of the Trees. By the end of this story and its companion the Nine have suffered losses, but so have Doc Caliban and Lord Grandrith. The war against the Nine is not over. 

More on that tomorrow. 

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Secrets Of The Nine - Lord Of The Trees!

The Lord of the Trees is one part of two which are together sequels to A Feast Unknown. The organization of this novel and its ACE Double mate The Mad Goblin is made somewhat awkward because they are two adventures which dovetail into one grand battle which is shared between the novels. It's all rather complicated and led me this time read the books in a weird way, bouncing back and forth between them to capture the flow of both narratives and how they link. (More on The Mad Goblin tomorrow.)

 

The story picks up some months (undetermined) after the events of A Feast Unknown and Lord Grandrith and his half-brother and ally Doc Caliban are waging their war against the Nine, an ancient cabal which effects humankind in secret and offers to its agents the secret of near immortality. Lord Grandrith is planning to infiltrate the caves in Africa which have long served as a base for the Nine, but his plan is interrupted by many attempts on his life. He is captured by an agent of the Nine named Murtaugh and dropped into a sheer chasm where he encounters an old ally, a beautiful woman named Clara, and a new one named "Dick". Dick it turns out is one of the apelike creatures that raised Lord Grandrith so many years ago but Dick was plucked from the wild as child and raised in civilization (rather the opposite of what happened to our hero). John Cloamby (Lord Grandrith's real name) doesn't know who he can trust but he does escape and he takes his two new companions with him to complete his mission. There is treachery and I won't say much more in order not to spoil the story but eventually Lord Grandrith ends up in England on the Salisbury Plain  at the site of Stonehenge where he hopes to end the threat of the Nine once and for all. 

The story is told at a breakneck pace, as if Farmer wanted the reader to complete the book in one sitting. There are no chapter breaks but there are shifts in location which do serve to key the book to its companion The Mad Goblin. Lord Grandrith is of course supposed to be a version of Tarzan of the Apes, but Farmer pushes the idea that Tarzan as we've come to know him is much to civilized and human to have been raised by another species. His version of the feral man is much more savage and less sensitive to the moral qualms of polite society. This book does not have the extensive sex scenes which its predecessor had but a reader can easily see where Farmer might add some if he so chose. A Feast Unknown was for adults only, this book is for all Tarzan fans - young and old. 

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Secrets Of The Nine - A Feast Unknown!

It's a bit hard to describe A Feast Unknown to those readers who might be already inclined to read it. Those readers would be fans of either Tarzan of the Apes or Doc Savage or both. But this novel is not really about them while at the same time it is. (I told you this was complicated.) Philip Jose Farmer had a vivid imagination fueled by his adoration for pulp adventures and the heroes who dominated them. He has written about Tazan many times and put forth the theory that Tarzan was in fact a real live person. (As he says about his theory, he's serious but not "deadly serious".) Likewise for Doc Savage, though neither man is exactly like their "biographers' have described them. The fictional characters are based on these real men so to speak. This is all part of Farmer's elaborate Wold-Newton Family Theory which creates an immense family tree with all sorts of familiar literary names included. But the universe of A Feast Unknown actually precedes all of that.

 

In the universe of A Feast Unknown written and set in 1968 or thereabouts we meet John  Cloamby, Lord Grandrith who despite looking to be in his twenties is actually nearly ninety years old. He has taken an elixir provided by "The Nine" an impossibly ancient cult which guards its secrets with deadly force and uses its influence and wealth to secretly affect world affairs. In this story which is presented as merely one volume in the chronicles of Lord Grandrith we meet him when he comes under attack from Kenyan military forces. Grandrith will spend much of this adventure naked and discovers to his dismay that killing causes him to become sexual aroused. This proves to be a side effect of the elixir which as made him nearly immortal. Another person who has taken the drug is Doc Caliban who as this narrative beings believes that Grandrith has killed his cousin Trish Wilde. Caliban (also suffering the sexual problem) spends much of the novel trying to kill Grandrith. At some point they are both summoned to the lair of the Nine to find out they are candidates to join the Nine, but only one can it is determined the one who kills the other will get the nod. And that's it, but not really. 

Before reading A Feast Unkown you must realize it was originally published by Essex House, famous for its pornographic productions. And on some level A Feast Unknown is pornography with much space devoted to describing sexual acts between men and women and other alternatives as well. It's blunt and all of it functions within the boundaries of the plot, which at its heart is a rousing pulp adventure. Farmer writes in a style which encourages momentum, and it's actually difficult to stop reading A Feast Unknown once you commit to it. I guarantee you will see Tarzan of the Apes and Doc Savage in a new light after you've finished. But that was Farmer's point really I think. 

There were two conjoined sequels to A Feast Unknown -- Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin. These were issued as an ACE Double paperback originally and while they pick up the action of A Feast Unknown are not pornographic in any way, though this is definitely the same universe. There was a fourth novel titled The Monster on Hold, projected by Farmer which remained a fragment at his death but which has now been finished by Win Scott Eckert. I'll be taking a gander all three of these novels as this week rolls along. 

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The Man Who Met Tarzan!

Tarzan is alive. Philip Jose Farmer wrote as if he truly believed this utter impossibility. He famously (or perhaps infamously) wrote Tarzan Alive - The Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke. I'll be taking a closer look at that classic bit of "mythography" next week. But that was hardly all that Farmer wrote exploring the "true" facts of Tarzan's identity and history. The Man Who Met Tarzan from Meteor House Press collects most of the other articles and whatnot. Included in this entertaining and eclectic tome are prefaces to books, articles from other collections, articles for publications dedicated to the study of Tarzan and even speeches Farmer delivered to like-minded Tarzan fans. Nearly all of it pushes the key notion that Tarzan was and likely is alive for real. 

The collection begins in earnest with small but tasty items like a few introductions to Farmer and his methods in "Creative Mythography" from fanzines like The Burroughs Bulletin and ERBivore. We get delightful items like "The Princess of Terra" which inverts the story of John Carter and is written from a Barsoomian's perspective should he end up on Earth. Also included is "From ERB to Ygg" which is an early practice in genealogy which plots the connection of Woden to Burroughs himself. These are speeches and articles from assorted ERB fanzines and such, some light and frothy and others with a somewhat weightier mission.

The book is divided into sections but really the articles are pretty much of a piece. The premise that Tarzan is a real live person, and the point is to explain to varying degrees how ERB's novels reflect that "truth". "The Outsider" and "The Feral Human in Myth and Society" are both items from the collection Mother Was a Lovely Beast which Farmer edited, and touch on the very core notion of Tarzan's uprbringing. 

There are several articles dealing with apparent problems with ERB's chronology in the novels such as "The Great Korak-Time Discrepancy" which tackles the potential confusion of Tarzan's son's birthday and his later being reported fighting in WWI. Farmer takes elaborate steps to suggest a surrogate for the son is still related to Lord Greystoke and who marries Meriem. Likewise, articles such as "A Reply to "The Red Herring" and "The Lord Mountford Mystery" seek to rectify contradictions in the timelines and between ERB's stories and those of writes such and H. Rider Haggard. 

In a section called "Parsing the Legend" we get several pieces that go to the heart of Farmer's fascination with Tarzan and the seductive La of Opar. There is also an elaborate explanation of the coat of arms of the family. (The coat of arms is represented in glorious color on the back cover as well.)

The truly juicy bits though are "Excerpts from, the Memoirs of Lord Greystoke" and the infamous "An Exclusive Interview with Lord Greystoke" from a 1972 Esquire magazine. These two presentations go to the essence of Farmer's conceit that Tarzan is real and still living a robust life thanks to some African juju which has gifted him with nigh eternal youth. These are best understood in conjunction with the book length Tarzan Alive "biography" which Farmer wrote. (I'll have more to say on this next week.) 

If you're a Farmer fan this is an essential bit of reading. If you're a Tarzan fan it's less so, but I adore this kind of frivolous but yet compelling tomfoolery. I don't need Philip Farmer's illusion that Tarzan is a real person to enjoy the stories but thinking about them that way does add unexpected spice. I know Philip Farmer didn't meet Tarzan but it's fun to imagine that he did. 

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After King Kong Fell!

King Kong from 1933 is a pivotal movie in pop culture in so many ways. It created for the world a new mythic monster, a creature who was not human but was still able to evoke a sense of tragedy when it fell from the top of the Empire State Building, the symbol of modern mankind's power over nature. It showcased movie-making techniques which quickened the imaginations of creators like Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen and countless others who either saw it when it was first released or during one of its many re-releases. It's been filmed again and again and very recently too, but despite all the improvements in tricking the eyes of moviegoers it has never been equaled in its ability to prick the heart. It's a great movie made by people who knew how to make a movie. But did the events captured so eloquently on screen in King Kong actually happen?

Philip Jose Farmer says yes to that question in his short story "After King Kong Fell". It's a tender tale of a grandfather named Tim Howler tells his impressionable granddaughter the true story of King Kong after the pair watch it on television together. It turns out he was thirteen and the events dramatized on film actually happened the year before the film was made and released and he was in NYC with is parents visiting his Uncle and his favorite Aunt. He was in the theater when Kong broke free and began is rampage through NYC and ultimately climbed to the top of the Empire State Building. His fall brought special tragedy to young Howler, and an unsettling understanding of human nature. 

I'd heard of the story long before I got to read it despite the fact it's been collected many many times over the years since its first publication in Roger Elwood's Omega anthology in 1973. I likely read it the first time in Tales of the Wold Newton Universe from Titan books. The story falls into the Wold Newton fold because after King's tragic descent two mysterious characters are seen by our narrator. One is a mysterious man with flashing eyes and profound nose with a companion named Margot. The other is a bronze giant of a man who dashes to the site of Kong's crushed body riding atop the running boards of a car filled with his five associates. These details give the story a bit of spice but don't in any way detract from its considerable emotional power. 

I read the story most recently in The Big Book of Adventure Stories edited by Otto Penzler. This is a fantastic anthology brimming with stunning classic tales including the full novel Tarzan the Terrible. Here's a handy link to see all the many other collections this story has appeared in. 

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