The Book of Philip José Farmer

by Philip José Farmer, Leslie A. Fiedler (Essay)

It is impossible to characterize Philip José Farmer's writings in any simple way. He has written straight science fiction which has won reader applause. He has written avant-garde meaning-within-meaning fiction which has captured awards. He has written novels different from any science fiction before or since and has won a Hugo for them.
How can you pin this science fiction genius down? The answer may be here in this book. Here you will find Farmer's own selection of what pleases him — and what pleases him is sure to cover the tastes of every reader.
Here's love on other worlds, here's alien horrors, here's the unexpected future. Here, too, are stories that defy easy classification. And to top off the cake here is Farmer's remarkable interview with Tarzan, his revelation of the real literary career of Kilgore Trout and Leslie Fiedler's uncensored essay on — Philip José Farmer.

Contents:
- Foreword
- My Sister's Brother (1960, variant of Open to Me, My Sister)
- Skinburn (1972)
- The Alley Man (1959)
- Father's in the Basement (1972)
- Toward the Beloved City (1972)
- Polytropical Paramyths
- Totem and Taboo (1954)
- Don't Wash the Carats (1968)
- The Sumerian Oath (1972)
- The Voice of the Sonar in My Vermiform Appendix (1971)
- Brass and Gold (1971)
- Only Who Can Make a Tree? (1971)
- An Exclusive Interview with Lord Greystoke (1972)
- Sexual Implications of the Charge of the Light Brigade (1967)
- The Obscure Life and Hard Times of Kilgore Trout (1971)
- Thanks for the Feast: Notes on Philip José Farmer (1972) by Leslie A. Fiedler

Front cover illustration by Jack Gaughan

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Collections, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction, Anthologies

239 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1973

About the author

Philip 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.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

DAW Collectors #63

Cover Artist: Jack Gaughan

Name: Farmer, Philip José, Birthplace: North Terre Haute, Indiana, USA, (26 January 1918 -25 February 2009)

Alternate Names: Harry 'Bunny' Manders, Jeanette Rastignac, Jonathan Swift Somers, III, Leo Queequeg Tincroder, Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor, Kilgore Trout

vi - Foreword (The Book of Philip José Farmer)
007 - My Sister's Brother • (1960) (variant of Open to Me, My Sister)
059 - Skinburn • [Wold Newton] • (1972)
074 •- The Alley Man • (1959)
119 - Father's in the Basement • (1972)
126 - Toward the Beloved City • (1972)
149 - Polytropical Paramyths
151 - Totem and Taboo • (1954)
158 - Don't Wash the Carats • (1968)
162 - The Sumerian Oath • (1972)
168 - The Voice of the Sonar in My Vermiform Appendix • (1971)
177 - Brass and Gold (or Horse and Zeppelin in Beverly Hills) • (1971)
189 - Only Who Can Make a Tree? • (1971)
201 - An Exclusive Interview with Lord Greystoke • [Tarzan] • (1972)l Implications of the Charge of the Lght Brigade • (1967)
218 - The Obscure Life and Hard Times of Kilgore Trout: A Skirmish in Biography • (1971)
232 - Thanks for the Feast
233 •-Notes on Philip José Farmer • (1972) • essay by Leslie A. Fiedler (variant of Getting into the Task of Now Pornography)

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories by Philip Jose Farmer was curated by himself and published in 1973. As one of the first 100 titles of DAW Dooks, the first editions of it are collectible items. Each story is introduced by Farmer in a short essay. I found the collection to definitively represent the span of Farmer’s shorter works, and his writing career beyond his well-known Riverworld novels. However, the fiction itself is mediocre, with a few outstanding exceptions – “My Sister’s Brother” and “Toward the Beloved City”. The collection as a whole won 9th place for Locus Award 1974 in anthology/collection category.

My Sister’s Brother (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1960, as “Open to Me, My Sister”). Farmer’s introduction explains how hard it was to sell this story. In it, the lone survivor on the surface of Mars, a moderately religious man, sets out to find what happened to his missing shipmates, and he encounters a complex system of life-forms, that he cannot help but anthropomorphize. But as he becomes sexually attracted, the biological differences come foremost in a horrific way. It isn’t that I think Cardigan Lane’s perspective is a good one, but that I highly respect that Farmer addressed it. The story was a finalist for 1961 Hugo for best short fiction. Rating 5/5.

Skinburn (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1972). Kent Lane is experiencing inexplicable erotic stimulation from sunlight, among other things. He is called back into the service of the intelligence agency CACO, but the enemy agency SKIZO seems to have unlimited ability to interfere. It is a story of preposterous conspiracies, that I do not think can be taken seriously, and yet isn’t actually funny. Rating 2/5.

The Alley Man (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1959). Paley, also known as The Old Man, is an outrageously ugly man who lives with two women he abuses. They speak with some sort of implausible accent that allegedly comes from the Great Smoky Mountains. A young college researcher named Dorothy pays Paley to observe his life of picking trash in alleys. He claims to be the last surviving Neanderthal, and the story poses this as possibly true. He also has a mystical influence on human women that renders them unable to resist his sexual assaults. It seems clear from Farmer’s introductory comments, that he considers rape to be just a more primal version of sexual intercourse. This story is crap, but somehow was a finalist for 1960 Hugo for best short fiction. Rating 1/5.

Father’s in the Basement (Orbit 11, edited by Damon Knight in 1972). A young girl stays home from school, and uses her talents to help her father write his magnum opus in the basement. Rating 3/5.

Toward the Beloved City (Signs and Wonders, edited by Roger Elwood in 1972). Some four years prior to the story, the end-times events of the biblical Book of Revelations have come to pass. Surviving bands of feral Christians are traveling, following divine direction, from around the world to the Beloved City. While hunting food, Kelvin meets a woman who seeks to join his band, but then poses a different interpretation of events. When the basis for determining truth is purely faith and involves decisions about the acts of an omnipotent force of Good and an omnipotent force of Evil, a rational choice is not possible. Complex levels of divine deception always remain a possibility. Rating 4/5.

Polytropical Paramyths. At about 2/3, the book changes from a straight-up collection of polished stories to a set of less conventional writings. First among those are six short works, that Farmer labels as polytropical paramyths. To me, they seem like unfinished concept pieces, with a low bar for realism, and random mid-century cultural references (like The Three Stooges), similar in some ways to the works of Kurt Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout. They were, however, published independently in genre magazines and original anthologies of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Included are “Totem and Taboo”, “Don’t Wash the Carats”, “The Sumerian Oath”, “The Voice of the Sonar in my Vermiform Appendix”, “Brass and Gold”, and “Only Who Can Make a Tree?” Rating 3/5.

Fictional Biographies. Farmer often used famous characters from the works of others in his own fiction, especially those who have become so well-known as to engender uncertainty in the general public as to their fictitiousness. In this collection, he includes a fictional interview between him and Edgar Rice Burrough’s Lord Greystoke (Tarzan), and a fictional biography of Kurt Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout. Undoubtedly, Farmer used them in his research in preparation for publication of his original Tarzan novels and one original Kilgore Trout novel. I found them to be curiosities, but not particularly interesting. Rating 2/5.

Miscellaneous. Farmer also included an excerpt from his award-winning novella “Riders of the Purple Wage”. I feel he should have either included the whole thing, or dropped this excerpt. He also included a commentary on himself written by Leslie Fiedler on April 1, 1972, that principally lauds Farmer’s introduction of sex into the subgenre of science fiction. I felt these were a waste of my time. Rating 1/5.

[Paulo "paper books only" · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book finish this month and what a suprise.
This is a collection of short stories, novelas and other stuff. The OTher stuff was not to my liking to be honest (polytropical paramyths) but the short stories before were.

The first story "My Sister Brother is a story about a man in Mars meeting aliens for the first time and his interaction with them and vice versa. Very interesting and very cool analysis on how humanity would view them. Knowing that humanity can't even handle one another, how am I suppose to feel confident when facing aliens? I really like his descriptions of the alien and how truly alien they are.
The second story was Skinburn that was a sci-fi detective story. Quite interesting then we've got Alley Man which only reading but it's the last remaining pre-historic man alive, Father's in the Basement is a horroresque, gothic story & Toward the Beloved City is a sci-fi and Christian end of times blending story.

Philip tried to put a story of different background (horror, fantasy, sci-fi etc) all in the same anthology. He was a very prolific writer which dabble in any genre and that's commendable. As I said, the other stories were not to my liking and the pseudo-biography was not as well.

I don't read extracts of other novels and those I skip. Overall a good anthology.

6/10

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, here's an anthology of work by Philip Jose Farmer, noted and notorious science-fiction provocateur who died in February after a long life that produced many children and many more grandchildren.

Science fiction is not my bag. Well, certain kinds of sci-fi. I like Bradbury, I like Ballard, I like Burroughs. Don't get me wrong - I *respect* the great sci-fi authors, but you can't really pay me good money to read any space operas or hard sf.

But I kinda like Farmer. I dig the fact that he was the first sci-fi writer to grapple with the idea of sex, and that it would be and should be an important consideration in conceptions of the future. I love his bibliomania and love of pulp aesthetics. He's a fun writer, and writes in a lot of different styles, so this sampler is something of a mixed bag.

There's some of his "fake biography stuff" here - interviews or essays on fictional characters like Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan (a Farmer touchstone character if ever there was one) and Kurt Vonnegut's Kilogre Trout - that eventually led to the enthralling, frustrating, both wonderful and embarrassing Wold-Newton concept (wiki it, but be prepared to immerse yourself - no one did it as good as its creator, unfortunately.). There are some cute Joycean/Freudian short pieces he calls "paramyths", kind of like vaudeville sketches with resonant figures ("The Sumerian Oath", with a secret conspiracy of Doctors revealed to be manufacturing disease since ancient Babylonia, is particularly good, with many many pop-cult doctors getting referenced, from Kildare to Mabuse and Caligari). "Only Who Can Make A Tree" is also pretty cute, envisioning the three stooges as genetic scientists who later get turned into walking trees - really!). There's a western ("Uproar In Acheron") and even a Lovecraft homage ("The Freshman", which is better than I expected it to be, and not merely the excuse for cute name dropping that I feared). There's another short horror tale - "Father's In The Basement" (which Farmer claims is a Gothic tale, but I beg to differ) and even a bit of religious sci-fi in "Toward The Beloved City", in which the last surviving Christians (after the horrors of the Book of Revelations have laid waste unto the earth) squabble and nearly descend into murderous paranoia (it kept my interest, but only just, and the ending was meh). And, of course, there's sex - alien sex in "My Sister's Brother" (which is a pretty good example of the kind of sci-fi I don't like, in which the story stops for a lesson in alien biology, and yet it still has a fairly moving ending in its condemnation of the violence that males are prone to commit), sex with a machine (saying more would give it away) in "Skinburn" (which is kind of like a sci-fi detective story and was probably read by a young William Gibson) and libido as metaphorical allegory in "The Last Rise of Nick Adams". This last story, pretty much a shaggy dog tale, is interesting for Farmer's thinly veiled sketches of various sci-fi writers at a convention - both the old guard (L. Ron Hubbard is referenced and possibly A. E. Van Vogt or Hugo Gernsback, hard to say) and the young-ish (J.G. Ballard and William S. Burroughs both get fairly scathing caricatures but, shrug, I like them both more than most of the sci-fi I've read). Finally, there is the long-ish "The Alley Man" which is a hell of a fun story about an ugly, brutish but charismatic junk-man who may be the last surviving member of a neanderthal tribe. Or maybe not. The ending of "The Alley Man" might have been a bit underwhelming (if appropriately poetic and dramatic) but there's so many ideas packed into this one it was a gas to read.

So, there you go. This is probably not a good sampler of Farmer's key work - in fact, it's almost an anti-sampler, as it strives to show the vast range of stuff that he wrote (his infamous initial foray into alien sex, "Mother", is nowhere to be seen, for example) but I liked it for precisely that reason. In THE BOOK OF you get to see Farmer as the imaginative, cockeyed oddball throwing ideas onto the page regardless of what genre they fall into. Much more interesting for me, personally.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very nice collection of Farmer's short stories. This collection spans most of the range of his writings from the semi-soft porn to the SiFi. As usual Farmer weaves religion and sex through his works. The gem of this collection is Farmer's "inwterview" with Lord Greystoke (Tarzan). If you are looking to sample this very prolific writer's work then this is a great book to start with. recommended

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two observations:
1. I tried Riverworld some years ago while I was at the height of my Science Fiction obsession and I found it tedious. It also feels like that book terminated my interest in hard science fiction so thoroughly that this is the first P.J. Farmer book I've picked up since.
2. One of my students - with whom I struck up a friendship that lasted years past the class - was Farmer's grandson, and they clearly had an excellent and warm relationship. For that reason I have always felt a little guilty about not trying Farmer again.

That's how we end up here.

Sigh.

Because Farmer is often lauded for is pioneering incorporation of theme of religion and sexuality it's only fair to point out that his perspective on both is very much rooted in a post-WWII culture where religion was quite literally sacrosanct, and anything about sex was seen as daring. With that in mind, these short stories, for all their posturing, feel like they were written largely to shock the reader and sold to publishers looking to sell on notoriety. This may have made Farmer a Master in the eyes of his readers and peers, but he has aged out. This is most painfully apparent in the first story in this collection, "My Sister's Brother" which shoehorns a vapid and juvenile sexual attraction into what should have been a challenging first encounter narrative. Imagine that you are stranded on Mars, alone and barely recovered from a near death experience. Your rescuer is utterly alien in form and manner, and has a symbiotic worm companion.
But, you know it's been a while since you had any strange so... we come to this passage:

"His aversion was not much lessened by a close scrutiny of her as she took a shower in a cubicle set in the wall. She was about five feet tall and slim as a woman should be slim, with delicate bones beneath rounded flesh. Her legs were human: in nylons and high heels they would have been exciting - other things being equal. However, if her shoes had been toeless, her feet would have caused great comment. They had four toes."

This utterly horrific and overly-detailed relation of the male gaze reveals a lot about Farmer, an impression not lessened by the bizarre sexual obsession our hero develops for this alien where he regularly checks to see if she has the appropriate orifice to match his equipment.
Let's just unpack what is happening in this story.
Our very religious and highly trained Rocket Man is supposed to be rescuing his crew mates, and failing that he should be returning to Earth ASAP. He spends a few hours driving Mars buggy before falling into Martian quicksand, before being saved by Four-Toes. Now there is nothing in the description of the alien that suggests 'she' is anything other than vaguely humanoid in appearance or behavior - something our hero even acknowledges:

"...when he opened his eyes, he saw here for what she was. No woman. No man. What? It? No. The impulse was to think her, she, was too strong.

This was the point where Rocket Man wrote off his crew mates as goners, normatively gendered an alien biped to Earth Global Standard (circa 1950) because it just felt right, and then developed an immediate sexual obsession with 'her', and then refused to leave Mars without his pet alien. Most of the rest of the story is about this creep ogling the alien, pleading with it to love him as he loves 'her', being repulsed in those moments where 'she' is obviously alien. This lasts right up to a very awful and violent conclusion that defines this jerk as a classic obsessive abuser, which would have been alright maybe if it wasn't clear that Farmer was selling this guy as a relatable hero, as normal.
Ugh. Just, ugh.
None of Farmer's other stories helped change my opinion of him as a low-medium production writer with unshakable normative opinions. Like a lot of Sci-Fi writers of this period, he wasn't exploring ideas so much as selling you his boring fantasies.

Okay, no longer feel badly about avoiding reading more P.J. Farmer anymore.

[Phil Giunta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Philip Jose Farmer was one of the most prolific writers of imaginative literature during the heyday of SF and speculative fiction beginning in the early 1950s. Although some may argue that he was overshadowed by his peers—Bradbury, Clarke, Ellison, Heinlein, and others—Farmer was no less a master craftsman in his field, creating such legendary series as Riverworld and World of Tiers.

Some of his most famous stories include Riders of the Purple Wage, "Uproar in Acheron," "Father in the Basement," and hundreds more. Farmer also wrote works based on Tarzan and Doc Savage and wrote a few novels under the pseudonym of Kilgore Trout, a character found in three of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. Farmer was often considered controversial, even pornographic, for his “shocking” alternative perspectives on sex and religion.

The Book of Philip Jose Farmer is a collection of the writer’s work, compiled by Farmer himself, in an effort to provide a sample of his breadth as a storyteller from SF and horror to fantasy and satire. My favorites included:

“Skinburn” – To the bewilderment of several doctors, private detective Kent Lane suffers from sunburn the moment he is exposed to even the weakest daylight. More, Lane is under surveillance by the Feds, but each time he is arrested, strange events transpires that permit Lane to be released from custody...

“The Alley Man” – a college student spends time with a deformed, delusional trash collector and his two harlots as part of a sociology study that swiftly goes awry.

“Father in the Basement” – an eleven-year-old girl employs her supernatural ability to help her father work around the clock for days to complete the first draft of his novel. He wanted it to be his final act, after all.

“Don’t Wash the Carats” – Expecting to remove a brain tumor from an unnamed patient, surgeons remove… a 127-carat diamond!

“Only Who Can Make a Tree?” – Three wacky scientists—Mough, Lorenzo, and Kerls—compete for the heart of their gorgeous colleague, Doctor Legzenbreins. Finally, she confronts them with a challenge. One of them must be willing to marry her insane daughter, Desdemona. Only then will she consider one of the “survivors” as a potential spouse…

“Uproar in Acheron” – A traveling medicine man named Grandtoul trundles into the old west town of Acheron claiming the ability to resurrect the recently dead. To prove this, he uses technology in his wagon to resurrect a young man who was shot dead moments before Grandtoul arrived. The miracle worker then offers to go to the local cemetery and do the same…

“Toward the Beloved City” – After the apocalypse—during which the hosts of Heaven supposedly defeated the Antichrist—a group of desperate and devoted Christians undertake a pilgrimage from the U.S. to the Middle East in search of the Holy City. Along the way, their leader, Kevin Norris, meets another survivor, Dana Webster. Claiming to be a fellow Christian, Webster nonetheless proceeds to question what they have been taught, which brings her under suspicion from the rest of Kelvin’s group, especially Anna Silvich, who is intent on killing Webster for her blasphemy.

[Raj · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is a showcase of some of Farmer's work, each with a brief introduction from the author. Despite being a big fan of the early Riverworld books, I'm still not entirely sure what to make of Farmer. I enjoyed some of the stories here, and found others not to my taste. In the former category, I include My Sister's Brother, about a Human who encounters a very Human-like alien on Mars and has to deal with his emotions. This was probably my favourite story in the book, dealing with difficult themes in a mature, if sometimes hard to bear, way. On the opposite pole is The Alley Man, in which a researcher from a University spends time with a man who claims to be the last Neanderthal on earth, as he goes about his business, picking up litter from alley ways. I don't know why this story didn't gel for me, but I didn't enjoy it when I encountered it elsewhere, and I mostly just skipped it here.

Elsewhere in the book are a collection of what Farmer calls "Polytropical Paramyths". These are all very short and tend to be written in a mythological style and are often quite fun. The book concludes with an interview with Lord Graystoke (aka Tarzan), a segment from Farmer's famous story Riders of the Purple Wage and a short fictional biography of Kilgore Trout (who would later go on to give his name to the Glasgow SF/F fan group, fact fans).

[Fx Smeets · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's no way I can put less than the maximum to any book by Farmer. Even when the style is not there, the unmistakable smell of dirty twist he leaves behind him places him way above any living science fiction writer I can think of (bar, perhaps, James Morrow and Ursula Le Guin). Does anyone know where to find the complete collection of his works ?

[Betty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sure most of this stuff was cutting edge at the time, but a lot of it seems pretty dated now. Seems like his male characters were always beating on the women...about the only story I liked and remembered was the one about the Neaderthal...

[Matthew Reads Junk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly weird, which was always a plus. I had read his Riverworld series but wasn't that impressed by it, but these short stories had Philip K Dick style twists and a nice hint of weirdness. Only half the book is short stories, the rest is essays and fillers.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love him or hate him ( I love him) you can never say that a PJF story is predictable or boring.

Nice solid anthology that gives you an overview of his work. Stories are all over the spectrum from sci-fi, to fantasy to pulp.
Good stuff.

[Norman Howe]

Science-Fiction

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to "Towards the Beloved City".