Advance Team Tuesday: A long, rambling bit about science fiction authors, Philip Jose Farmer in particular

You know, even though "The Advance Team" is, at least mostly (partly?) a science fiction graphic novel, I have to confess I haven't read a whole lot of science fiction in my life.

These days, it's mostly nonfiction, and back when most teens are plowing through volumes of sci-fi*, I was either (a) on a big Stephen King kick, prompted by seeing "Christine" in the theater and having a friend tell me "the book is much better." (Spoiler alert: He was right), or (b) embarking on my never-ending mission to read every damn movie book that's ever been published, initiated (at least in part) by Stephen King's "Danse Macabre," which is still one of the best books about horror you're going to find.
(Though, and please forgive this unrelated, cranky, nerdish digression, but King is completely wrong on at least two points in "Danse Macabre": 1. "Cat People" is one of the great horror movies (scratch that -- great movies) of all time, and the fact that King can't see past the studio sets to the wonder that lies beneath is his problem, not the film's. 2. King loves "Robot Monster" but claims that Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space" is some sort of cheap, exploitative movie. He's got things exactly backwards. "Robot Monster" is fun, but it's a no-budget quickie cash-in directed by
Anyway, I did manage to read some science fiction during those formative years -- nothing too out of the ordinary, but I definitely had my favorites. In the next few installments of "Advance Team Tuesdays," I'll be spotlighting a few, with plenty of annoying digressions like the one above along the way. This week, the focus falls on the late, great Philip Jose Farmer
I wrote briefly about Farmer when he died back in 2009 (see that blog entry here), and mentioned that of all the science fiction epics I never read -- Asimov's "Foundation" books, "Dune," anything else you can name -- I did devour Farmer's multi-volume "Riverworld" series, where everyone who ever lived gets reborn on a giant planet encircled by a colossal river. It was wild, goofy, off-the-wall stuff, and Farmer knew how to keep things moving at a fast clip.

Geek that I was (aka am), I preferred his obsessively geeky books devoted to proving that Tarzan and Doc Savage were actual people, and I really liked his short story "After King Kong Fell" (read it here), where he tells "the real story" of the death of the big ape, complete with cameos from Doc Savage and the Shadow and (typically for Farmer) a couple of oddball sexual angles involving Kong, Fay Wray and the twist ending of the story.

I also have to give credit for Farmer providing a backwards introduction to my love of the Beats with his short story "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod," which retold the story of Tarzan (created, of course, by Edgar Rice Burroughs) in the vernacular of William Burroughs. Get it? I didn't get it much back then, having read neither Tarzan nor William Burroughs (I didn't even know what "the nod" was), but I knew there was something about that writing style I liked. It would be years before I actually read "Naked Lunch," but looking back, I'd say Farmer captured the tone as good as anyone has.
Farmer did a lot of that sort of thing, writing short pastiches as if he were (a) another author or (b) a fictional character who happened to be a writer. Probably his most elaborate gag along these lines was "Venus on the Half Shell," a short novel supposedly written by none other than Kilgore Trout, who appears in "Breakfast of Champions," "Slaughterhouse Five" and other novels by Kurt Vonnegut. "Venus on the Half Shell" was a title mentioned in Vonnegut's book "God Bless You, Mister Rosewater," but Farmer created an entire narrative out of those five words and somehow convinced Dell to print the thing (after it ran as a two-parter in a magazine). Vonnegut was apparently not amused, especially because everyone seemed to assume that he'd written it.

It was reprinted with Farmer's name prominently displayed, but the edition you really want (assuming you like these sort of pop culture jokes -- obviously I do) is the original paperback with "Kilgore Trout" listed as the only author, complete with a photo of him (Farmer in a beard and hat) on the back cover.

Next week, here at Advance Team Tuesdays, we'll discuss another sci-fi* author from my misspent, formative years, Mr. Harlan Ellison, a man I (a) actually met one and (b) had a long conversation with. Tune in, won't you?
And in the meantime, why not start pestering your local bookseller or comic book shop owner about "The Advance Team," the Tor Forge science fiction graphic novel by artist German Torres and me that these entries are, after all, designed to hype? It doesn't hit the stores until next spring, but it's never too early to start building buzz, right?
* I only used the term "sci-fi" because I know it drives Harlan Ellison craaaaaaaazy.