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Pat Wildman #1
The Evil in Pemberley House
For over thirty years, readers have marveled at Philip José Farmer's inventive integration of popular fiction and literature's most beloved characters, in a mythical web known as the Wold Newton Family. First described in the fictional biographies Tarzan Alive: The Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Farmer expanded his Wold Newton mythos in novels such as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, Time s Last Gift, Hadon of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, The Dark Heart of Time: A Tarzan Novel, and Escape from Loki: Doc Savage's First Adventure.
The Evil in Pemberley House, an addition to the Wold Newton cycle, plays with the Gothic horror tradition. Patricia Wildman, the daughter of the world-renowned adventurer and crimefighter of the 1930s and '40s, Dr. James Clarke "Doc" Wildman, is all alone in the world when she inherits the family estate in Derbyshire, England old, dark, and supposedly haunted.
But Farmer, characteristically, turns convention on its ear. Is the ghost real, or a clever sham? In Patricia Wildman, Farmer creates an introspective character who struggles to reconcile the supernatural with her rational scientific upbringing, while also attempting to work through unresolved feelings about her late parents. He sets the action at Pemberley from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and ingrains the various mysteries in the Canon of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
The Evil in Pemberley House is a darkly erotic novel with broad appeal to readers of pulp and popular literature, particularly followers of Doc Savage, Sherlockians, and fans of Farmer's own celebrated Wold Newton Family.
The Evil in Pemberley House, an addition to the Wold Newton cycle, plays with the Gothic horror tradition. Patricia Wildman, the daughter of the world-renowned adventurer and crimefighter of the 1930s and '40s, Dr. James Clarke "Doc" Wildman, is all alone in the world when she inherits the family estate in Derbyshire, England old, dark, and supposedly haunted.
But Farmer, characteristically, turns convention on its ear. Is the ghost real, or a clever sham? In Patricia Wildman, Farmer creates an introspective character who struggles to reconcile the supernatural with her rational scientific upbringing, while also attempting to work through unresolved feelings about her late parents. He sets the action at Pemberley from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and ingrains the various mysteries in the Canon of the Sherlock Holmes stories.
The Evil in Pemberley House is a darkly erotic novel with broad appeal to readers of pulp and popular literature, particularly followers of Doc Savage, Sherlockians, and fans of Farmer's own celebrated Wold Newton Family.
212 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2009
About the author
Philip José Farmer
607 books902 followersPhilip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, but spent much of his life in Peoria, Illinois.
Farmer is best known for his Riverworld series and the earlier World of Tiers series. He is noted for his use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for and reworking of the lore of legendary pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters.
Farmer is best known for his Riverworld series and the earlier World of Tiers series. He is noted for his use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for and reworking of the lore of legendary pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 28, 2025
One good reason why I picked up this book ( published in 2009) is that it is a story by the late Philip Jose Farmer (who died in 2009), but it remained unfinished. Win Scott Eckert finished the story--if I understand correctly, and with the permission of Farmer before he died. PJF has long been one of my favorite authors and I'm particularly interested in his Wold Newton Family cycle, in which he finds connections between many of the popular heroes of our time.
In this story, a young American woman named Patricia Wildman inherits an old family estate in England. Pemberley House was once the home of the Darcys, featured in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." We learn that Patricia is the daughter of a man who was a famous crimefighter of the 1930s. His name was Dr. James Clarke "Doc" Wildman who was also known as "Doc Savage" in the "pulps" (the pulp magazines, especially of the 30s). After arriving in England, Patricia learns that the house is haunted-of course. And more than that, she encounters strange and suspicious characters living in the house and in the area. The situation is one that challenges Patricia's rationalism as she seeks to understand if the ghost is real-or some kind of deception. She also faces danger, which the training she received from her father gives her a fighting chance to survive...It's Gothic horror meets pulp action adventure. Win Scott Eckert did a fantastic job with this story and character!
In this story, a young American woman named Patricia Wildman inherits an old family estate in England. Pemberley House was once the home of the Darcys, featured in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." We learn that Patricia is the daughter of a man who was a famous crimefighter of the 1930s. His name was Dr. James Clarke "Doc" Wildman who was also known as "Doc Savage" in the "pulps" (the pulp magazines, especially of the 30s). After arriving in England, Patricia learns that the house is haunted-of course. And more than that, she encounters strange and suspicious characters living in the house and in the area. The situation is one that challenges Patricia's rationalism as she seeks to understand if the ghost is real-or some kind of deception. She also faces danger, which the training she received from her father gives her a fighting chance to survive...It's Gothic horror meets pulp action adventure. Win Scott Eckert did a fantastic job with this story and character!
May 1, 2018
My love/hate relationship with Philip Jose Farmer continues!
First of all, I REALLY wanted to like this book. A story that pays homage to classic pulp fiction? Count me in! Ironically, that is where this book falls apart. It spends so much time trying to tie all of its events and characters together with pulp, literary, and historical characters (such as Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, and Jane Austen), that it will stop the story dead in its tracks just to give you page after page about how someone is related to someone else. And it does this A LOT.
Another problem is that, for a book based on pulp fiction, only about 9% of it is actual action (and I read this on Kindle, so I actually took note of this). Nothing happens, nothing happens, ghost sex (oh Farmer, you scamp!), nothing happens, and then BAM-a big action scene that is over before you even know it and then the book ends.
usually I can polish off a novel in a day, but this short book took me almost a month to read because I just had for force myself to plod through it.
I was so excited about this book before I read it that I bought its sequel at the same time, so I will definitely be reading it sometime soon (and it wasn't co-authored by Farmer, as he died and went to bizarre sex heaven before it was written).
First of all, I REALLY wanted to like this book. A story that pays homage to classic pulp fiction? Count me in! Ironically, that is where this book falls apart. It spends so much time trying to tie all of its events and characters together with pulp, literary, and historical characters (such as Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, and Jane Austen), that it will stop the story dead in its tracks just to give you page after page about how someone is related to someone else. And it does this A LOT.
Another problem is that, for a book based on pulp fiction, only about 9% of it is actual action (and I read this on Kindle, so I actually took note of this). Nothing happens, nothing happens, ghost sex (oh Farmer, you scamp!), nothing happens, and then BAM-a big action scene that is over before you even know it and then the book ends.
usually I can polish off a novel in a day, but this short book took me almost a month to read because I just had for force myself to plod through it.
I was so excited about this book before I read it that I bought its sequel at the same time, so I will definitely be reading it sometime soon (and it wasn't co-authored by Farmer, as he died and went to bizarre sex heaven before it was written).
August 12, 2021
Good story but a few too many instances where the flow of the plot was interrupted by attempts to demonstrate the larger Wold Newton family tree. While I do enjoy the idea behind Wold Newton and the connections between prominent heroes like Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Shadow, and thousands more, it shouldn't interfere with the story to such a large extent.
Here, Patricia Wildman, daughter of Doc Savage (Wildman) is in line to inherit the Pemberley estate (from the classic novel Pride & Prejudice) but must contend with a legend of a ghost that haunts the estate for three days each year around the time of her death.
Here, Patricia Wildman, daughter of Doc Savage (Wildman) is in line to inherit the Pemberley estate (from the classic novel Pride & Prejudice) but must contend with a legend of a ghost that haunts the estate for three days each year around the time of her death.
September 11, 2010
When I first opened this book, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Prior to this I had only read a chapter or two of a Farmer book. I have learned from friends that he was skilled at combining religious and sexual themes with science-fiction and fantasy. But beyond that, I am a newbie to the Wold Newton Universe.
The story begins in America where we are introduced to Patricia Wildman, the heroine of this story. She is not an average woman, by far. She had a very unusual upbringing. She was educated and trained by the best tutors – in subjects from science to martial arts and more. She traveled to the farthest reaches of the world as a young child. She rarely had any interaction with people of her own age, but that only seemed to enrich her and deepen her magnetism. Though she is only 22, she has the wisdom of a much older woman. Her beauty is captivating, men and women alike are awed by her presence.
Patricia experiences great loss as a young woman. First she loses her Mother and Father in a plane crash above the arctic circle. While she grieved the loss of her Mother, it was her Father’s death that hit her hardest. She loved her Mother, but not in the same way she loved her Father. He would be the man whom Patricia used as a measuring stick for relationships with other men. She managed to find love in Denis Verner, a man who worked in the clinic her Father started. Unfortunately, it isn’t long before she loses him tragically. An orphan and a widow at 22, Patricia wasn’t sure how she would go on. That is why when she receives a letter from an attorney that she is next in line to inherit Pemberley House in England – she agrees to make the trip to England.
Not long after her arrival peculiar things begin to happen. Strangers seem to recognize her, poachers take her and hold her captive in a tower, and her devious cousin tells her the story of a ghost named Bess who haunts Pemberly house — and this is all on the first night of her arrival in Lambton. Patricia is thrown into a mystery that is more than a century old. With lascivious cousins who follow her every move, and a bitter old dowager on her case – will Patricia ever learn the truth behind the evil that lies in Pemberley house?
When I first started this book it reminded me a good deal of a V.C. Andrews novel with its incestuous implications. While it is rich in history and quite detailed, there were times where I felt as if the authors were name dropping a bit too much. I remarked at one point that it was similar to reading the Bible – so and so begat so and so, who begat so and so and on and on. It took me out of the story a time or two. Eventually those initial concerns fell to the wayside. As the book progressed the story deepened and the mysteries kept me wanting to turn the page.
Final Thoughts:
This book surprised me. When I first began reading it, I wasn’t sure I would like it. This is a very adult book – there are explicit sexual scenes and if you are uncomfortable with such things you may not like it. However, I would suggest you give it a chance. I don’t generally like erotica, but I didn’t find it overly gratuitous in this book. By the end of the story I was on the edge of my seat and cheering Patricia on. This story is complex and action-packed- all the way to the very last page. The mysteries of Pemberley House and its occupants are compelling to say the least. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Mysteries, Gothic Romance, or Paranormal stories. I also suggest fans of Pride and Prejudice and Shelock Holmes check this one out. If you enjoy Farmer and the Wold Newton Universe – it is a must have!
(For the full review including links and images go here: http://sheneverslept.com/newsandrevie... )
The story begins in America where we are introduced to Patricia Wildman, the heroine of this story. She is not an average woman, by far. She had a very unusual upbringing. She was educated and trained by the best tutors – in subjects from science to martial arts and more. She traveled to the farthest reaches of the world as a young child. She rarely had any interaction with people of her own age, but that only seemed to enrich her and deepen her magnetism. Though she is only 22, she has the wisdom of a much older woman. Her beauty is captivating, men and women alike are awed by her presence.
Patricia experiences great loss as a young woman. First she loses her Mother and Father in a plane crash above the arctic circle. While she grieved the loss of her Mother, it was her Father’s death that hit her hardest. She loved her Mother, but not in the same way she loved her Father. He would be the man whom Patricia used as a measuring stick for relationships with other men. She managed to find love in Denis Verner, a man who worked in the clinic her Father started. Unfortunately, it isn’t long before she loses him tragically. An orphan and a widow at 22, Patricia wasn’t sure how she would go on. That is why when she receives a letter from an attorney that she is next in line to inherit Pemberley House in England – she agrees to make the trip to England.
Not long after her arrival peculiar things begin to happen. Strangers seem to recognize her, poachers take her and hold her captive in a tower, and her devious cousin tells her the story of a ghost named Bess who haunts Pemberly house — and this is all on the first night of her arrival in Lambton. Patricia is thrown into a mystery that is more than a century old. With lascivious cousins who follow her every move, and a bitter old dowager on her case – will Patricia ever learn the truth behind the evil that lies in Pemberley house?
When I first started this book it reminded me a good deal of a V.C. Andrews novel with its incestuous implications. While it is rich in history and quite detailed, there were times where I felt as if the authors were name dropping a bit too much. I remarked at one point that it was similar to reading the Bible – so and so begat so and so, who begat so and so and on and on. It took me out of the story a time or two. Eventually those initial concerns fell to the wayside. As the book progressed the story deepened and the mysteries kept me wanting to turn the page.
Final Thoughts:
This book surprised me. When I first began reading it, I wasn’t sure I would like it. This is a very adult book – there are explicit sexual scenes and if you are uncomfortable with such things you may not like it. However, I would suggest you give it a chance. I don’t generally like erotica, but I didn’t find it overly gratuitous in this book. By the end of the story I was on the edge of my seat and cheering Patricia on. This story is complex and action-packed- all the way to the very last page. The mysteries of Pemberley House and its occupants are compelling to say the least. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Mysteries, Gothic Romance, or Paranormal stories. I also suggest fans of Pride and Prejudice and Shelock Holmes check this one out. If you enjoy Farmer and the Wold Newton Universe – it is a must have!
(For the full review including links and images go here: http://sheneverslept.com/newsandrevie... )
February 12, 2016
I'll admit that when it comes to the depth and breadth of character interconnectedness that is The Wold-Newton Universe, I am nowhere near as well-versed as Win Scott Eckert, Denis Powers, Rick Lai and the folks who have spent countless years building upon the basis laid down by Philip Jose Farmer in books like Tarzan Alive, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, and such works. I like to think I'm a slightly above-average fan, though -- I enjoy picking out the little mentions here and there that indicate how a new piece of fiction might be linked to the classics (such as the veiled reference to Indiana Jones in the first Gabriel Hunt adventure; or the fact that Shannon Rutherford on LOST might actually be distantly related to Tarzan's mother).
As he says in his author's notes, Win Eckert got the chance to meet Mr. Farmer, and to dig through old files looking for pieces of interest for the Farmerphile fan magazine, and came across the unfinished manuscript for The Evil in Pemberley House. And Farmer agreed to let Eckert finish the manuscript and submit it for publication.
The Evil in Pemberley House is pure classic Farmer, connecting the daughter of Doc Savage to a curse that stretches back through the Darcy family of Austen's Pride and Prejudice and even further back from there. There are connections to Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, The Shadow, The Avenger, and a variety of other pulp-and-earlier classic adventure tales, including of course Doc Savage himself. I don't think I picked up every single cross-literary name-drop, but I enjoyed the hell out of trying to.
Also in classic Farmer mode: every one of these characters has a libido -- an active libido. Farmer, after all, is credited with finally showing super-heroes as fully functioning beings, including bathroom breaks and sex .... lots of sex. By today's standards, the actual descriptions of sex are pretty tame. Eckert rightfully resisted the urge to "beef up" the sex scenes to match what today's readers might find shocking; and because of that, the scenes that are meant to be erotic actually are erotic -- the old "less is more" adage in full effect. (And, I should add, not every sex scene is meant to be erotic, especially the very first one).
The story is the classic Gothic literature setup: young woman is the sole remaining heir to a large, and possibly haunted, estate. Is the house really haunted, or are other people trying to scare her off? That is the crux of Farmer's story, as developed and completely by Eckert. The authors go out of their way to walk that line through the story that the creators of Savage and Holmes usually walked in their heroes' tales: there's always a plausible non-supernatural explanation for everything, but it is left up to the reader to decide in the end what was really happening.
In true collaborative form, you can't really tell where Farmer's original ms and Eckert's later work start and end, which I think is a testament to Eckert's ability as a writer. There are people with questionable motives all around the heroine, Patricia Wildman, and another fun part of the book is figuring who (if anyone) actually has her best interests at heart.
I highly recommend The Evil in Pemberley House to anyone who is a fan of gothic lit, pulp adventure, or a good old fashioned mystery. I'm very glad this was rescued from the depths of Farmer's files and that Subterranean Press agreed to publish it.
As he says in his author's notes, Win Eckert got the chance to meet Mr. Farmer, and to dig through old files looking for pieces of interest for the Farmerphile fan magazine, and came across the unfinished manuscript for The Evil in Pemberley House. And Farmer agreed to let Eckert finish the manuscript and submit it for publication.
The Evil in Pemberley House is pure classic Farmer, connecting the daughter of Doc Savage to a curse that stretches back through the Darcy family of Austen's Pride and Prejudice and even further back from there. There are connections to Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, The Shadow, The Avenger, and a variety of other pulp-and-earlier classic adventure tales, including of course Doc Savage himself. I don't think I picked up every single cross-literary name-drop, but I enjoyed the hell out of trying to.
Also in classic Farmer mode: every one of these characters has a libido -- an active libido. Farmer, after all, is credited with finally showing super-heroes as fully functioning beings, including bathroom breaks and sex .... lots of sex. By today's standards, the actual descriptions of sex are pretty tame. Eckert rightfully resisted the urge to "beef up" the sex scenes to match what today's readers might find shocking; and because of that, the scenes that are meant to be erotic actually are erotic -- the old "less is more" adage in full effect. (And, I should add, not every sex scene is meant to be erotic, especially the very first one).
The story is the classic Gothic literature setup: young woman is the sole remaining heir to a large, and possibly haunted, estate. Is the house really haunted, or are other people trying to scare her off? That is the crux of Farmer's story, as developed and completely by Eckert. The authors go out of their way to walk that line through the story that the creators of Savage and Holmes usually walked in their heroes' tales: there's always a plausible non-supernatural explanation for everything, but it is left up to the reader to decide in the end what was really happening.
In true collaborative form, you can't really tell where Farmer's original ms and Eckert's later work start and end, which I think is a testament to Eckert's ability as a writer. There are people with questionable motives all around the heroine, Patricia Wildman, and another fun part of the book is figuring who (if anyone) actually has her best interests at heart.
I highly recommend The Evil in Pemberley House to anyone who is a fan of gothic lit, pulp adventure, or a good old fashioned mystery. I'm very glad this was rescued from the depths of Farmer's files and that Subterranean Press agreed to publish it.
February 12, 2019
All I can say is, wow. This is not the Doc Savage novels I'm used to. But then again, it's not Doc, but his daughter. I was nicely surprised.
February 20, 2019
[CAUTION: MILD SPOILERS] You've got to be kidding me. I didn't think I'd be able to finish this homage to the Doc Savage series (is a really cheesy homage called a fromage?) after I'd read the first 30 pages or so, but it did get slightly better when the leering let up and the mystery started. Still, it's a silly tale, full of creepy psychological hangups, preposterous happenstance, and gratuitous couplings. I give it an extra star just for the full-out lunacy of the climactic fight scene, which features air guns, girls punching girls, numerous dead bodies, and our naked protagonist maneuvering through a forest in the rain by swinging (I think) through the treetops, a skill her father taught her. Bottom line: I can't recommend The Evil in Pemberly House, unless you're eleven, it's 1974, and you just found this book under the sofa in your Uncle Leonard's guest room. Careful, though. Some of the pages are stuck together.
September 24, 2013
Mr. Eckert did a seamless job of finishing the work of one of my all time favorite authors, P. J. Farmer.
I became COMPLETELY absorbed in to the story and have a huge crush on the main character, Patricia Wildman.
I would love to see sequels written about her. She could stand shoulder to shoulder with butt-kicking women like, Modesty Blaise, Emma Peel and Buffy Summers!
Looking for a great adventure with thrills, chills, terror, action and intelligent humor? Then GET THIS BOOK!!!!!!
I became COMPLETELY absorbed in to the story and have a huge crush on the main character, Patricia Wildman.
I would love to see sequels written about her. She could stand shoulder to shoulder with butt-kicking women like, Modesty Blaise, Emma Peel and Buffy Summers!
Looking for a great adventure with thrills, chills, terror, action and intelligent humor? Then GET THIS BOOK!!!!!!
August 29, 2013
Farmer occasionally writes a good book but this isn't one of them.
September 15, 2016
A fun read, gloriously pulp, richly allusive to Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan...and Pride and Prejudice.
June 26, 2024
“Is everyone in this house a fucking pervert?!”
My first dip into the outright bonkers waters of the Wold Newton Theory does not disappoint whatsoever.
A little backstory, so there is this page on FB who actually makes it less of a hellscape to use. Charltonposting, which at one time was really funny and in-jokey memes about The Question and Blue Beetle. It was wonderful. But then in the last two years or so, the curator of the page has gotten increasingly deep into Doc Savage, The Shadow, and a bunch of other pulp heroes they apparently had some connection with during adolescence but is super into now.
Enter PJF.
Over the last few months, Farmer’s prose works have been getting a lovingly delivered piss take as the curator is now into the meat of the Wold Newton canon and they just seem…frankly like MY kinda books. Meaning they are filled with overly complicated, bordering on fan wanky lore, increasingly improbable action sequences, and interspersed with jaw droppingly weird character beats. Also fucking. Like an uncomfortable amount of fucking.
Which in turn led me to tracking crazy lots of paperbacks on eBay and ferreting through my local library for anything and everything Farmer. Which FINALLY brings me back to Pemberley House and the Kinda Pat Savage who stars in it!
Now I TOO was very much a Doc Savage kid (like Britta, I was nostalgic even as young idiot) and I read his comics and the few paperbacks I could find and I REALLY loved Pat, Doc’s cousin/ward who was basically, both in narrative and design, a gender swapped Doc who could now go on adventures as his second with Monk, Ham and the boys or could sustain her own adventures (which one of the recent Dynamite Comics reboots did and was very fun).
So naturally I’m gonna jump feet first into a story that’s about a Kinda Pat Savage inheriting the house from Pride & Prejudice which also may or may not be haunted by a ghost that only comes around every few years.
This book is…sorta that. At least at its spine, that’s what’s gonna get rubes like me in the door, right? Certainly worked on me! But what I was NOT expecting was a novel that’s mostly about Pat trying to work through some deep rooted psychosexual trauma involving seeing her mom (the daughter of Lupin) and her dad (just one of many Doc Savage’s) doing it on a bear skin rug? That she also uses as the impulse toward queer sex she’s having? That ALSO is stoked further by like…every single character in this novel talking TO HER FACE about how much they want to fuck her?
Just…totally, totally insane.
But as a Wold Newton experience, especially a first one, I think it kinda sings! You’ve got a ton of Austen, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, The Great Train Robbery, and a whole heap of pulp bullshit stacked throughout. Truly shouted in delight at the “Kent Allard” who trained young Pat to “walk in the shadows”. As did I love all the Tarzan references throughout, stemming out of Farmer’s primary WN works, Tarzan Alive and His Apocalyptic Life (two books I am just DYING to read).
It’s weird, I don’t know if can fully recommend this to ANYbody without like an extensive download on just what the fuck is going on here. I read it myself and I still didn’t even catch half the references or shoutouts that I thought I did. And the “she breasted boobily” language and tonality of it all kept me from taking it completely seriously when I should have.
But at the same time, I had real deal fun with it? And it makes me want to read basically every Wold Newton work ever (even the really smutty ones).
Maybe that makes me the sicko.
I can live with that.
My first dip into the outright bonkers waters of the Wold Newton Theory does not disappoint whatsoever.
A little backstory, so there is this page on FB who actually makes it less of a hellscape to use. Charltonposting, which at one time was really funny and in-jokey memes about The Question and Blue Beetle. It was wonderful. But then in the last two years or so, the curator of the page has gotten increasingly deep into Doc Savage, The Shadow, and a bunch of other pulp heroes they apparently had some connection with during adolescence but is super into now.
Enter PJF.
Over the last few months, Farmer’s prose works have been getting a lovingly delivered piss take as the curator is now into the meat of the Wold Newton canon and they just seem…frankly like MY kinda books. Meaning they are filled with overly complicated, bordering on fan wanky lore, increasingly improbable action sequences, and interspersed with jaw droppingly weird character beats. Also fucking. Like an uncomfortable amount of fucking.
Which in turn led me to tracking crazy lots of paperbacks on eBay and ferreting through my local library for anything and everything Farmer. Which FINALLY brings me back to Pemberley House and the Kinda Pat Savage who stars in it!
Now I TOO was very much a Doc Savage kid (like Britta, I was nostalgic even as young idiot) and I read his comics and the few paperbacks I could find and I REALLY loved Pat, Doc’s cousin/ward who was basically, both in narrative and design, a gender swapped Doc who could now go on adventures as his second with Monk, Ham and the boys or could sustain her own adventures (which one of the recent Dynamite Comics reboots did and was very fun).
So naturally I’m gonna jump feet first into a story that’s about a Kinda Pat Savage inheriting the house from Pride & Prejudice which also may or may not be haunted by a ghost that only comes around every few years.
This book is…sorta that. At least at its spine, that’s what’s gonna get rubes like me in the door, right? Certainly worked on me! But what I was NOT expecting was a novel that’s mostly about Pat trying to work through some deep rooted psychosexual trauma involving seeing her mom (the daughter of Lupin) and her dad (just one of many Doc Savage’s) doing it on a bear skin rug? That she also uses as the impulse toward queer sex she’s having? That ALSO is stoked further by like…every single character in this novel talking TO HER FACE about how much they want to fuck her?
Just…totally, totally insane.
But as a Wold Newton experience, especially a first one, I think it kinda sings! You’ve got a ton of Austen, Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, The Great Train Robbery, and a whole heap of pulp bullshit stacked throughout. Truly shouted in delight at the “Kent Allard” who trained young Pat to “walk in the shadows”. As did I love all the Tarzan references throughout, stemming out of Farmer’s primary WN works, Tarzan Alive and His Apocalyptic Life (two books I am just DYING to read).
It’s weird, I don’t know if can fully recommend this to ANYbody without like an extensive download on just what the fuck is going on here. I read it myself and I still didn’t even catch half the references or shoutouts that I thought I did. And the “she breasted boobily” language and tonality of it all kept me from taking it completely seriously when I should have.
But at the same time, I had real deal fun with it? And it makes me want to read basically every Wold Newton work ever (even the really smutty ones).
Maybe that makes me the sicko.
I can live with that.
August 28, 2018
Pat Wildman, the daughter of Doc Wildman, aka Doc Savage, apparently distinct from the Pat Savage who was Doc's cousin, undergoes a gothic-erotic adventure in the English estate previously the home of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. My younger self would have loved this more than my present self, who found the eroticism forced and the genealogy confusing. Farmer's Tarzan Alive was just barely plausible: an attempt to uncover the real Tarzan based on research into Burke's Peerage. Farmer went so far as to claim to have interviewed "the real Lord Greystoke." This kind of pseudo-biography is a descendent of Baring-Gould's Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. Moving on to Doc Savage in His Apocalyptic Life, Farmer linked even more pulp and literary heroes into his faux genealogy, and didn't make much effort to pretend it was all real. Since then the so-called Wold-Newton family has expanded endlessly. Not everyone's cup of tea, certainly.
How much of this is real Farmer and how much is Win Scott Eckert isn't too clear. There is Farmer's original outline included in the book, but I am unclear if Farmer's contribution goes beyond this. Not great Farmer, but worth reading if you are a Farmer completist and don't mind pulp heroes from the 30s cavorting around like porn stars of the 70s.
How much of this is real Farmer and how much is Win Scott Eckert isn't too clear. There is Farmer's original outline included in the book, but I am unclear if Farmer's contribution goes beyond this. Not great Farmer, but worth reading if you are a Farmer completist and don't mind pulp heroes from the 30s cavorting around like porn stars of the 70s.
February 9, 2023
Farmer, Philip Jose - The Evil In Pemberley House
What a pile of poo. At least mercifully brief at 200 pages.
American girl - distant relative of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam D’arcy - inherits famed country manor.
The house apparently has a ghost who haunts the master/mistress three midnights every year.
Other relatives in the family tree include Lord Greystoke (AKA: the Jungle Lord), as well as the Duke of Holdernesse, so Holmes is involved - or at least his notes are consulted. Oh, and the family doctor is Dr Augustus Moran, grandson of Colonel Sebastian Moran.
Far be it from me to omit, this is also a bodice ripper, and there are several passages of stripping, whipping and squeezing.
This read like very bad fan fiction to me, yet I must confess, other readers adored it.
The mystery aspect was poorly developed.
What a pile of poo. At least mercifully brief at 200 pages.
American girl - distant relative of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam D’arcy - inherits famed country manor.
The house apparently has a ghost who haunts the master/mistress three midnights every year.
Other relatives in the family tree include Lord Greystoke (AKA: the Jungle Lord), as well as the Duke of Holdernesse, so Holmes is involved - or at least his notes are consulted. Oh, and the family doctor is Dr Augustus Moran, grandson of Colonel Sebastian Moran.
Far be it from me to omit, this is also a bodice ripper, and there are several passages of stripping, whipping and squeezing.
This read like very bad fan fiction to me, yet I must confess, other readers adored it.
The mystery aspect was poorly developed.
April 26, 2018
What do you get when you cross a REALLY bad porno with an episode of Scooby Doo?? - This book. The constant sexual scenarios was tedious at best and horribly unrealistic. It felt like the book was written by a 60 year old virgin, who has no idea what actual sexual situations are like. It was one eye rolling scene after another.
If you are in junior high? You LOVE this book. If you are not in junior high? You HATE this book. Shifty plot, lame ending, poorly written. You've been warned.
July 19, 2014
I'm not sure what to say about this. I love the idea of the Wold Newton family, but I suspect this was not where I should have started.
This is a Gothic-ish pastiche, with suitable cover. But the heroine is completely unconvincing; nothing about her interior life rang true for a woman. The author seems really heavily invested in the idea of female bodies as awkward, so the heroine is constantly stuffing her breasts back into her clothing or being bizarrely aware of them in a way a woman just...wouldn't, not by the time she'd had breasts for a few years. It was very much a man's idea of what it must feel like to be a woman.
Also, the cod-Freudian thing was amusing the first couple of times, but grew increasingly tedious thereafter. Yes, I get it: the heroine can't stop thinking about her amazing father's amazing penis, because she walked in on an honest-to-goodness "primal scene" and in her world Freud was actually literally correct about women. It's funny as a concept but got a little grating in the execution.
This is a Gothic-ish pastiche, with suitable cover. But the heroine is completely unconvincing; nothing about her interior life rang true for a woman. The author seems really heavily invested in the idea of female bodies as awkward, so the heroine is constantly stuffing her breasts back into her clothing or being bizarrely aware of them in a way a woman just...wouldn't, not by the time she'd had breasts for a few years. It was very much a man's idea of what it must feel like to be a woman.
Also, the cod-Freudian thing was amusing the first couple of times, but grew increasingly tedious thereafter. Yes, I get it: the heroine can't stop thinking about her amazing father's amazing penis, because she walked in on an honest-to-goodness "primal scene" and in her world Freud was actually literally correct about women. It's funny as a concept but got a little grating in the execution.
October 11, 2014
It has been a l...o...n...g time since I had read something so steamy! This is simultaneously, a Holmesian pastiche, a Wold Newton tale, a ghost story (Or is it? I am still not sure), and a proper adventure of our protagonist Patricia Wildman. The story is told in a gripping manner, with the tautness remaining undisturbed throughout the narrative. But (and it's a BIG But!) the adventures of our heroine, real and imaginary, physical and metaphysical, are the elements that take this book to a level that's, even by the norms of PJF, frankly shocking! I enjoyed the stuff, but had it been brought out in the 70-s (when Farmer was composing such mind-blowing pieces), in all probability it would have been banned. Nevertheless, now that we have got this classic (with a sequel-hook at its end) we should pleasure ourselves, shouldn't we? Recommended.
April 12, 2016
The author tries too hard to be clever in drowning the reader with info-dumping. You get pages and pages of information connecting a whole plethora of classic characters from Tarzan to Sherlock Holmes and sadly that manages to take you away from the main plot. And although I don't mind explicit sexual scenes (Farmer's Image of the beast and Blown are still a few of my favourites) I don't see how the erotica adds anything worthwhile in this one. I have to admit that I couldn't manage to finish this book, it was simply too boring.
September 10, 2016
Pat Wildman: The Beginning of a New Era
I totally enjoyed this book. Pat Wildman is quite the intriguing character. There was also much insight into the history of Doc Savage, Tarzan, Sherlock and many others whom I did not know we're tied together. Looking forward reading more of Pat Wildman.....and all of the Wold family adventures.
I totally enjoyed this book. Pat Wildman is quite the intriguing character. There was also much insight into the history of Doc Savage, Tarzan, Sherlock and many others whom I did not know we're tied together. Looking forward reading more of Pat Wildman.....and all of the Wold family adventures.
March 25, 2016
Quick read with plenty of references to other works to enjoy along the way.
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