MUSIC INSPIRED BY WOLD NEWTON!!!
Wold Newton writer and scholar John Allen Small has found inspiration from Philip Jose Farmer’s concepts on several levels. This piece of music composed by Small is entitled “Carriage Ride at Wold Newton”! Enjoy!
The Mix : What are people talking about today?
AP: Mike, thanks for sitting down with ALL PULP today and especially for
taking part in Wold Newton Days! Before we get started, how about telling
us about yourself?
MC: Let’s see if I can sketch a quick picture. I was raised by a single mom
who loved to read, and luckily for me she loved science fiction. Sadly I
didn’t take advantage of this as much as I could have. I mostly read her
Doonesbury books unless I had to do a book report. I read a few Farmer’s in
high school but it wasn’t until college, in the late 1980s, that I really
got into him. After I moved out, she got a smaller place and didn’t have
room for all her books, so I ended up with all of her science fiction;
hundreds of paperbacks and book club editions, but more Farmer than any
other author.
I never collected anything as a kid, so it’s my wife’s fault I became a
book collector. She had just finished reading a Marion Zimmer Bradley
Darkover novel, and said she wouldn’t mind having the whole series. I went
on AOL (this was the early 1990s) found a list of the titles in the series,
and then started hitting all the local bookstores trying to complete the
collection in time for her birthday. By the time if was over, going to the
bookstores had become such a habit that I didn’t want to stop. So I shifted
my focus to Farmer and hunted for any books of his I didn’t have. Things
just sort of snowballed from there.
AP: What about the work of Philip Jose Farmer appeals to you so much that
you invest your life into it? What did he bring to literature and to the
world that made him and his work stand out?
MC: The first thing that struck me about Phil was his imagination. Again, I
wasn’t all that well read back then, but he was first author to really blow
me away. When reading most books I would either think: “that’s been done
before,” or “why didn’t I think of that?” With Farmer, my response was
often, “I would have never thought of that in a million years.” The second
thing that struck me was that he seemed to know about so many different
things, especially in literature; how he would take all these different
things and mix them into his stories.
But what really got me so invested in him, was meeting him in person. I
went to one book signing of his, in Louisville in 1995. Then I started doing
a website about him, mostly because there wasn’t one out there. At the time
I really didn’t know that much about him, there were even novels he had
written I had never heard of, not to mention all the short stories,
articles, interviews, etc. I didn’t learn about those until I bought the
bibliography by Phil Stephensen-Payne and Gordon Benson Jr. Armed with that
information the website grew quickly, although for years many entries just
listed a title of a story or article because I didn’t know anything else
about it. It took years to track it all down.
Then I decided to interview him for this fledgling website. Another fan,
Craig Kimber, and I drove to Peoria and interviewed him in his home. I never
looked back from that moment. He was very friendly and gracious and only
became more so on subsequent visits to Peoria. In fact the following year he
and his wife Bette invited me to stay at their house. In 2001 Phil won the
Nebula Grand Master Award and the Peoria Public Library had a celebration in
honor of it. Bette especially, enjoyed it so much she wanted to come up with
a reason to do it again the following year. We used the 50th Anniversary of
“The Lovers” as an excuse to have another event, and that eventually led us
to hosting FarmerCons in Peoria every summer.
AP: You are a key player in the furtherance of the works of Philip Jose
Farmer, including all the work related to Wold Newton. Can you share what
your various roles are in these efforts?
MC: Apparently my fannish enthusiasm struck something with Phil and he was
willing to let me go through his files looking at material he had never
published! As much as I loved to read these stories, I knew other fans would
too, so we started selling photocopies of these unpublished stories for
pretty steep prices. When I found another batch of stories, I suggested
publishing them in a fanzine all about Phil. He and I both enjoyed this
outlet much more than selling photocopies and even though we didn’t print
more than a few hundred copies of each issue, I still feel that Farmerphile
was a huge success, I’m very proud of it. Farmerphile ran out of steam in
2009, but shortly after, due to both Phil and Bette passing away, I became
the temporary custodian of Phil’s “Magic Filing Cabinet.” So called because
every time we go through the files, we find something we somehow missed the
last dozen times we went through them. This naturally led to the anthology
The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer 1: Protean Dimension, the first in a
hopefully annual series. Each volume will contain material written by Phil
that has never been published before as well as speeches, interviews and
other material that may or may not have been published. We’re also looking
to reprint articles about Phil to help preserve his history. Finally we’re
also looking for new stories based on his characters and worlds by writers
that he has influenced. I wish I could mention some names that are lined up
for volume 2, but it’s a little early for that.
Outside of my own Farmerian projects, in running Phil’s website I do act
as somewhat of a gateway to his agent. I’ve also had dealings in one
capacity or another with most of the small presses that have published Phil
in the last decade. A few novels Phil started years ago have been completed
recently by other writers, I like to think I’ve helped each of them a little
bit. Hopefully I’m seen as someone who is knowledgeable about Phil and
willing to help with any projects his work might be involved in.
AP: Let’s talk about Wold Newton a bit. How would you describe the Wold
Newton concept and why is it important that people be aware of this grand
idea that Farmer developed and you and others are working to popularize and
continue?
MC: Of course I think Phil’s idea of taking an historical event and creating
a vast “family” surrounding it was brilliant. And it is exciting to see it’s
lasting impact as more and more writers play with the concept each year. But
I haven’t been as involved in Wold Newton specifically, as many others have.
The two main reasons for this are that I don’t seem to have the attention to
detail and memory that Win, Dennis, Art, John, Frank, and so many others
have. Also, I am no where near the writer they are. I struggled with
subjects like spelling, English and grammar in high school and I squandered
my late teens and early twenties getting an engineering degree. So writing
doesn’t come easy to me. I have been chided by many that this is no excuse,
that I could write Wold Newtonian articles and stories if I put my mind to
it. But I prefer to stay in the background, let others do the writing, while
I perhaps do the publishing and promoting.
AP: You are the guru between the PJF website and newsletter. What is your
goal with these projects?
MC: For years the website was a mirror of my collection. For example, if I
purchased a British paperback edition of Two Hawks from Earth, a scan of it
went on the website and it’s addition was “news.” Finally acquiring a rare
fanzine with an essay by Phil was always fun, and finding one that I had not
known even existed, was Big News. Of course the site also talked about any
real news, such as books being reprinted, Phil doing a book signing, the
pilot for the Riverworld series finally being aired, etc., but adding to my
collection, or at least my knowledge, was the main function of the site.
These days the news is mostly promoting new Farmer books, or even just books
that I think Farmer fans might be interested in.
AP: What is coming in the future from you and your various endeavors
concerning PJF and Wold Newton? Any publications, stories, projects you
want to plug and discuss?
MC: As I’ve mentioned briefly already, we’re working on Worlds of Philip
Jose Farmer 2. We have some great new stories by some excellent writers, an
unpublished short story by Phil, a speech or two, possibly an interview, and
more material by him. I think we have more non-fiction than in volume 1,
with several really interesting articles by widely varied contributors. That
is the big project right now. I’m also selling off many of the books from
Phil’s estate. This is a bittersweet job for me, I wish I could buy them all
for myself. Now that they are on sale for as much as 50% off, I’m tempted to
try…
AP: If you had to pick out one reason..just one sentence as to why writers
and artists of pulp today need to be aware of and maybe involved in Wold
Newton, what would that be?
MC: Philip Jose Farmer was the smartest person in the room, everything he
wrote had many levels to it; Tarzan Alive, and the Wold Newton Family are an
intriguing example of this.
AP: Thanks for your time, Mike!
MC: Thank you for the Wold Newton Days, it’s been a blast!
INTERVIEW WITH PJF EDITOR/PROMOTER/WEBSITE GURU MIKE CROTEAU!
AP: Mike, thanks for sitting down with ALL PULP today and especially for taking part in Wold Newton Days! Before we get started, how about telling us about yourself?
 |
| Mike Croteau (left) at the Wold Newton Memorial |
MC: Let’s see if I can sketch a quick picture. I was raised by a single mom who loved to read, and luckily for me she loved science fiction. Sadly I didn’t take advantage of this as much as I could have. I mostly read her Doonesbury books unless I had to do a book report. I read a few Farmer’s in high school but it wasn’t until college, in the late 1980s, that I really got into him. After I moved out, she got a smaller place and didn’t have room for all her books, so I ended up with all of her science fiction; hundreds of paperbacks and book club editions, but more Farmer than any other author.
I never collected anything as a kid, so it’s my wife’s fault I became a book collector. She had just finished reading a Marion Zimmer Bradley Darkover novel, and said she wouldn’t mind having the whole series. I went on AOL (this was the early 1990s) found a list of the titles in the series, and then started hitting all the local bookstores trying to complete the collection in time for her birthday. By the time if was over, going to the bookstores had become such a habit that I didn’t want to stop. So I shifted my focus to Farmer and hunted for any books of his I didn’t have. Things just sort of snowballed from there.
AP: What about the work of Philip Jose Farmer appeals to you so much that you invest your life into it? What did he bring to literature and to the world that made him and his work stand out?
MC: The first thing that struck me about Phil was his imagination. Again, I wasn’t all that well read back then, but he was first author to really blow me away. When reading most books I would either think: “that’s been done before,” or “why didn’t I think of that?” With Farmer, my response was often, “I would have never thought of that in a million years.” The second thing that struck me was that he seemed to know about so many different things, especially in literature; how he would take all these different things and mix them into his stories.
But what really got me so invested in him, was meeting him in person. I went to one book signing of his, in Louisville in 1995. Then I started doing a website about him, mostly because there wasn’t one out there. At the time I really didn’t know that much about him, there were even novels he had written I had never heard of, not to mention all the short stories, articles, interviews, etc. I didn’t learn about those until I bought the
bibliography by Phil Stephensen-Payne and Gordon Benson Jr. Armed with that information the website grew quickly, although for years many entries just listed a title of a story or article because I didn’t know anything else about it. It took years to track it all down.
Then I decided to interview him for this fledgling website. Another fan, Craig Kimber, and I drove to Peoria and interviewed him in his home. I never looked back from that moment. He was very friendly and gracious and only became more so on subsequent visits to Peoria. In fact the following year he and his wife Bette invited me to stay at their house. In 2001 Phil won the Nebula Grand Master Award and the Peoria Public Library had a celebration in honor of it. Bette especially, enjoyed it so much she wanted to come up with a reason to do it again the following year. We used the 50th Anniversary of “The Lovers” as an excuse to have another event, and that eventually led us to hosting FarmerCons in Peoria every summer.
AP: You are a key player in the furtherance of the works of Philip Jose Farmer, including all the work related to Wold Newton. Can you share what your various roles are in these efforts?
MC: Apparently my fannish enthusiasm struck something with Phil and he was willing to let me go through his files looking at material he had never published! As much as I loved to read these stories, I knew other fans would too, so we started selling photocopies of these unpublished stories for pretty steep prices. When I found another batch of stories, I suggested publishing them in a fanzine all about Phil. He and I both enjoyed this outlet much more than selling photocopies and even though we didn’t print more than a few hundred copies of each issue, I still feel that Farmerphile was a huge success, I’m very proud of it. Farmerphile ran out of steam in 2009, but shortly after, due to both Phil and Bette passing away, I became the temporary custodian of Phil’s “Magic Filing Cabinet.” So called because every time we go through the files, we find something we somehow missed the last dozen times we went through them. This naturally led to the anthology The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer 1: Protean Dimension, the first in a hopefully annual series. Each volume will contain material written by Phil that has never been published before as well as speeches,
interviews and other material that may or may not have been published. We’re also looking to reprint articles about Phil to help preserve his history. Finally we’re also looking for new stories based on his characters and worlds by writers that he has influenced. I wish I could mention some names that are lined up for volume 2, but it’s a little early for that.
Outside of my own Farmerian projects, in running Phil’s website I do act as somewhat of a gateway to his agent. I’ve also had dealings in one capacity or another with most of the small presses that have published Phil in the last decade. A few novels Phil started years ago have been completed recently by other writers, I like to think I’ve helped each of them a little bit. Hopefully I’m seen as someone who is knowledgeable about Phil and willing to help with any projects his work might be involved in.
AP: Let’s talk about Wold Newton a bit. How would you describe the Wold Newton concept and why is it important that people be aware of this grand idea that Farmer developed and you and others are working to popularize and continue?
MC: Of course I think Phil’s idea of taking an historical event and creating a vast “family” surrounding it was brilliant. And it is exciting to see it’s lasting impact as more and more writers play with the concept each year. But I haven’t been as involved in Wold Newton specifically, as many others have.
The two main reasons for this are that I don’t seem to have the attention to detail and memory that Win, Dennis, Art, John, Frank, and so many others have. Also, I am no where near the writer they are. I struggled with subjects like spelling, English and grammar in high school and I squandered my late teens and early twenties getting an engineering degree. So writing doesn’t come easy to me. I have been chided by many that this is no excuse, that I could write Wold Newtonian articles and stories if I put my mind to it. But I prefer to stay in the background, let others do the writing, while I perhaps do the publishing and promoting.
AP: You are the guru behind the PJF website and newsletter. What is yourgoal with these projects?
MC: For years the website was a mirror of my collection. For example, if I purchased a British paperback edition of Two Hawks from Earth, a scan of it went on the website and it’s addition was “news.” Finally acquiring a rare fanzine with an essay by Phil was always fun, and finding one that I had not known even existed, was Big News. Of course the site also talked about any real news, such as books being reprinted, Phil doing a book signing, the pilot for the Riverworld series finally being aired, etc., but adding to my
collection, or at least my knowledge, was the main function of the site. These days the news is mostly promoting new Farmer books, or even just books that I think Farmer fans might be interested in.
AP: What is coming in the future from you and your various endeavors concerning PJF and Wold Newton? Any publications, stories, projects you want to plug and discuss?
MC: As I’ve mentioned briefly already, we’re working on Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer 2. We have some great new stories by some excellent writers, an unpublished short story by Phil, a speech or two, possibly an interview, and more material by him. I think we have more non-fiction than in volume 1, with several really interesting articles by widely varied contributors. That is the big project right now. I’m also selling off many of the books from Phil’s estate. This is a bittersweet job for me, I wish I could buy them all for myself. Now that they are on sale for as much as 50% off, I’m tempted to try…
AP: If you had to pick out one reason..just one sentence as to why writers and artists of pulp today need to be aware of and maybe involved in Wold Newton, what would that be?
MC: Philip Jose Farmer was the smartest person in the room, everything he wrote had many levels to it; Tarzan Alive, and the Wold Newton Family are an intriguing example of this.
AP: Thanks for your time, Mike!
MC: Thank you for the Wold Newton Days, it’s been a blast!
AP: Mike, thanks for sitting down with ALL PULP today and especially for taking part in Wold Newton Days! Before we get started, how about telling us about yourself?
MC: Let’s see if I can sketch a quick picture. I was raised by a single mom who loved to read, and luckily for me she loved science fiction. Sadly I didn’t take advantage of this as much as I could have. I mostly read her Doonesbury books unless I had to do a book report. I read a few Farmer’s in high school but it wasn’t until college, in the late 1980s, that I really got into him. After I moved out, she got a smaller place and didn’t have room for all her books, so I ended up with all of her science fiction;
hundreds of paperbacks and book club editions, but more Farmer than any
other author.
I never collected anything as a kid, so it’s my wife’s fault I became a
book collector. She had just finished reading a Marion Zimmer Bradley
Darkover novel, and said she wouldn’t mind having the whole series. I went
on AOL (this was the early 1990s) found a list of the titles in the series,
and then started hitting all the local bookstores trying to complete the
collection in time for her birthday. By the time if was over, going to the
bookstores had become such a habit that I didn’t want to stop. So I shifted
my focus to Farmer and hunted for any books of his I didn’t have. Things
just sort of snowballed from there.
AP: What about the work of Philip Jose Farmer appeals to you so much that
you invest your life into it? What did he bring to literature and to the
world that made him and his work stand out?
MC: The first thing that struck me about Phil was his imagination. Again, I
wasn’t all that well read back then, but he was first author to really blow
me away. When reading most books I would either think: “that’s been done
before,” or “why didn’t I think of that?” With Farmer, my response was
often, “I would have never thought of that in a million years.” The second
thing that struck me was that he seemed to know about so many different
things, especially in literature; how he would take all these different
things and mix them into his stories.
But what really got me so invested in him, was meeting him in person. I
went to one book signing of his, in Louisville in 1995. Then I started doing
a website about him, mostly because there wasn’t one out there. At the time
I really didn’t know that much about him, there were even novels he had
written I had never heard of, not to mention all the short stories,
articles, interviews, etc. I didn’t learn about those until I bought the
bibliography by Phil Stephensen-Payne and Gordon Benson Jr. Armed with that
information the website grew quickly, although for years many entries just
listed a title of a story or article because I didn’t know anything else
about it. It took years to track it all down.
Then I decided to interview him for this fledgling website. Another fan,
Craig Kimber, and I drove to Peoria and interviewed him in his home. I never
looked back from that moment. He was very friendly and gracious and only
became more so on subsequent visits to Peoria. In fact the following year he
and his wife Bette invited me to stay at their house. In 2001 Phil won the
Nebula Grand Master Award and the Peoria Public Library had a celebration in
honor of it. Bette especially, enjoyed it so much she wanted to come up with
a reason to do it again the following year. We used the 50th Anniversary of
“The Lovers” as an excuse to have another event, and that eventually led us
to hosting FarmerCons in Peoria every summer.
AP: You are a key player in the furtherance of the works of Philip Jose
Farmer, including all the work related to Wold Newton. Can you share what
your various roles are in these efforts?
MC: Apparently my fannish enthusiasm struck something with Phil and he was
willing to let me go through his files looking at material he had never
published! As much as I loved to read these stories, I knew other fans would
too, so we started selling photocopies of these unpublished stories for
pretty steep prices. When I found another batch of stories, I suggested
publishing them in a fanzine all about Phil. He and I both enjoyed this
outlet much more than selling photocopies and even though we didn’t print
more than a few hundred copies of each issue, I still feel that Farmerphile
was a huge success, I’m very proud of it. Farmerphile ran out of steam in
2009, but shortly after, due to both Phil and Bette passing away, I became
the temporary custodian of Phil’s “Magic Filing Cabinet.” So called because
every time we go through the files, we find something we somehow missed the
last dozen times we went through them. This naturally led to the anthology
The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer 1: Protean Dimension, the first in a
hopefully annual series. Each volume will contain material written by Phil
that has never been published before as well as speeches, interviews and
other material that may or may not have been published. We’re also looking
to reprint articles about Phil to help preserve his history. Finally we’re
also looking for new stories based on his characters and worlds by writers
that he has influenced. I wish I could mention some names that are lined up
for volume 2, but it’s a little early for that.
Outside of my own Farmerian projects, in running Phil’s website I do act
as somewhat of a gateway to his agent. I’ve also had dealings in one
capacity or another with most of the small presses that have published Phil
in the last decade. A few novels Phil started years ago have been completed
recently by other writers, I like to think I’ve helped each of them a little
bit. Hopefully I’m seen as someone who is knowledgeable about Phil and
willing to help with any projects his work might be involved in.
AP: Let’s talk about Wold Newton a bit. How would you describe the Wold
Newton concept and why is it important that people be aware of this grand
idea that Farmer developed and you and others are working to popularize and
continue?
MC: Of course I think Phil’s idea of taking an historical event and creating
a vast “family” surrounding it was brilliant. And it is exciting to see it’s
lasting impact as more and more writers play with the concept each year. But
I haven’t been as involved in Wold Newton specifically, as many others have.
The two main reasons for this are that I don’t seem to have the attention to
detail and memory that Win, Dennis, Art, John, Frank, and so many others
have. Also, I am no where near the writer they are. I struggled with
subjects like spelling, English and grammar in high school and I squandered
my late teens and early twenties getting an engineering degree. So writing
doesn’t come easy to me. I have been chided by many that this is no excuse,
that I could write Wold Newtonian articles and stories if I put my mind to
it. But I prefer to stay in the background, let others do the writing, while
I perhaps do the publishing and promoting.
AP: You are the guru between the PJF website and newsletter. What is your
goal with these projects?
MC: For years the website was a mirror of my collection. For example, if I
purchased a British paperback edition of Two Hawks from Earth, a scan of it
went on the website and it’s addition was “news.” Finally acquiring a rare
fanzine with an essay by Phil was always fun, and finding one that I had not
known even existed, was Big News. Of course the site also talked about any
real news, such as books being reprinted, Phil doing a book signing, the
pilot for the Riverworld series finally being aired, etc., but adding to my
collection, or at least my knowledge, was the main function of the site.
These days the news is mostly promoting new Farmer books, or even just books
that I think Farmer fans might be interested in.
AP: What is coming in the future from you and your various endeavors
concerning PJF and Wold Newton? Any publications, stories, projects you
want to plug and discuss?
MC: As I’ve mentioned briefly already, we’re working on Worlds of Philip
Jose Farmer 2. We have some great new stories by some excellent writers, an
unpublished short story by Phil, a speech or two, possibly an interview, and
more material by him. I think we have more non-fiction than in volume 1,
with several really interesting articles by widely varied contributors. That
is the big project right now. I’m also selling off many of the books from
Phil’s estate. This is a bittersweet job for me, I wish I could buy them all
for myself. Now that they are on sale for as much as 50% off, I’m tempted to
try…
AP: If you had to pick out one reason..just one sentence as to why writers
and artists of pulp today need to be aware of and maybe involved in Wold
Newton, what would that be?
MC: Philip Jose Farmer was the smartest person in the room, everything he
wrote had many levels to it; Tarzan Alive, and the Wold Newton Family are an
intriguing example of this.
AP: Thanks for your time, Mike!
MC: Thank you for the Wold Newton Days, it’s been a blast!
Win Scott Eckert © 2008-2010
Farmerphile no. 11
Paul Spiteri and Win Scott Eckert, eds., Michael Croteau, publisher, January 2008
Trunks and Branches: The Wold Newton Family
by Win Scott Eckert
Long time Farmerphile readers will recall the first issue in which I reviewed the origins
of Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Family, covered the Wold Newton meteor strike in 1795
which exposed nearby coach passengers to ionized radiation, and discussed Phil’s genealogical
researches into the amazing descendents of those coach passengers, a group of supermen and
superwomen known collectively as the “Wold Newton Family” (“A Nova of Genetic Splendor,”
Farmerphile no. 1, July 2005).
Phil also included extraordinary characters who pre-date the meteor strike under the
umbrella of the Wold Newton Family, adding them as antecedents of the coach passengers. One
such is Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane. Another character who Phil included in the extended
Family, but is not directly descended from the coach passengers, is H. Rider Haggard’s famous
hunter, Allan Quatermain.
Some better-known characters in Phil’s Wold Newton Family, as outlined in Tarzan
Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, include Captain Blood (another pre-meteor strike
ancestor); The Scarlet Pimpernel (present at meteor strike); Fitzwilliam Darcy and his wife,
Elizabeth Bennet (present at meteor strike); Harry Flashman; Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis
Professor Moriarty (aka Captain Nemo); Phileas Fogg; The Time Traveler; A.J. Raffles;
Professor Challenger; Arsène Lupin; Richard Hannay; Bulldog Drummond; the evil Fu Manchu
and his adversary, Sir Denis Nayland Smith; G-8; The Shadow; Sam Spade; The Spider; Nero
Wolfe; Mr. Moto; The Avenger; Philip Marlowe; James Bond; Lew Archer; and Travis McGee.
Adding characters to the Wold Newton Family is an entertaining exercise. It is also a
messy and creative process; the criteria are not nearly as clear-cut as when determining whether
a crossover story is valid for purposes of Wold Newton Universe continuity.
First and foremost, one must ensure that the addition to the Family is directly descended
from at least one carriage passenger Phil identified as being present at the meteor strike. For me,
more often than not, this means making a graphic family tree to ensure I’m not missing anything.
Also pay attention to the timelines of the characters, ensuring that it makes chronological
sense to hook them together as parents and children. One should look for genetic traits in
common, such as many of the Family members’ trademark gray eyes, and yet not fall into the
trap of only including characters with gray eyes, or hanging the entire genealogical connection
on gray eyes.
For instance, Chuck Loridans identified one of The Avenger’s aides, Nellie Gray, as a
daughter of Tarzan (“The Daughters of Greystoke,” Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José
Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe, MonkeyBrain Books, 2005). He was careful to make his
identification on a variety of factors: Nellie’s gray eyes; her physical prowess, such as the ability
to swing through the jungle from tree to tree; and Phil’s theory that characters’ biographers use
code names as subtle clues to character’s real identities. In this case, the last name Gray was a
clue connecting Nellie to the Greystokes. While Loridans was careful, a critique of his theory
was not, attempting to debunk it because Nellie was described as having blue eyes. In Nellie’s
first appearances in the Avenger pulps, she was described as having gray eyes. Only later did
they change to blue. Loridans did his homework in expanding the Wold Newton Family.
Another guideline in adding members to the Family is avoiding oversimplification. For
instance, William S. Baring-Gould theorized that Nero Wolfe was the son of Sherlock Holmes
(Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street and Nero Wolfe of West 35th Street). This theory has been
criticized on the basis that Wolfe must, instead, be the son of Sherlock Holmes’ brother,
Mycroft, since both Nero Wolfe and Mycroft Holmes are fat. In this oversimplification, fat
characters can only be the children of other fat characters. The logical conclusion is that Sherlock
and Mycroft Holmes cannot be brothers. But they are—that relationship comes from the original
stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The lesson here is that different phenotypes—tall and lanky,
stocky and fat, etc.—are certainly possible, and should not be the sole basis for disqualifying a
candidate from membership in the Family or in a particular line.
Perhaps the grossest oversimplification when adding Family members is placing all
characters with the same last name in the same branch of the Family, without regard to any other
qualifying characteristics. One can imagine this trap is magnified a thousand-fold with very
common last names, such as Smith. I faced this dilemma when expanding on the relatives of Sir
Denis Nayland Smith (the hero of Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu series), who Phil originally
identified as a nephew of Sherlock Holmes.
In “Who’s Going to Take Over the World When I’m Gone?” (Myths), I addressed the
conundrum by adding other Smiths from the works by Conan Doyle, thus expanding the
thematic connection Phil began. I also chose Smith characters who were detectives or secret
agents (like Nayland Smith), or had connections to Egyptology and archaeology, common
themes in the Fu Manchu books. Some of Nayland Smith’s more prominent relatives include
Dashiell Hammett’s hardboiled detective, the Continental Op; Algernon Heathcote “Smitty”
Smith from the Avenger pulps; and Professor Horatio Smith, from the 1941 Leslie Howard film
Pimpernel Smith. In my expansion of the Family tree, and as implied by the film’s title, Horatio
Smith is also descended from Sir Percy Blakeney, The Scarlet Pimpernel, whom Phil identified
as one of the carriage passengers at the Wold Newton meteor strike.
With some of this background in mind, what follows is an overview of other character
additions to the Wold Newton Family, focusing on descendents of those irradiated at the meteor
strike, without going into exacting detail on the precise line of descent.
Dennis E. Power can claim the first genealogical post-Farmerian speculation on the
internet. He added the famous detective Charlie Chan to the Family as the son of Fu Manchu,
who was, according to Phil, the son of the prolific Sir William Clayton. William Clayton was the
son of one of those irradiated at Wold Newton. Chan fits in well in the Family by balancing out
the yellow peril stereotype perpetuated by his father. The essay incorporating Chan was revised
for publication in Myths for the Modern Age as “Asian Detectives in the Wold Newton Family.”
Power also added John Henry as the son of Sir William Clayton and Bafia, a female
Waziri slave who accompanied Clayton on his African expedition. Here, Power blended the
Wold Newton Family with American folklore and provided a basis for incorporating African-
American characters such as Jim from Tom Sawyer. This addition also linked the Caucasian
descendents of Long John Silver, as described in Phil’s Greatheart Silver, with those descended
from Long John Silver’s wife, whom Robert Louis Stevenson described as an old woman of
African descent. Power’s article on this branch of the Family, “The Wold Wold West: Hammer
of Freedom—The Henrys,” is at his website, The Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History < http://www.pjfarmer.com/secret/secret.htm>.
In addition, Power added Rudyard Kipling’s Mowgli as a half-brother to Tarzan, in an
essay adroitly reconciling Phil’s novels The Adventure of the Peerless Peer and The Adventure of
the Three Madmen (“Jungle Brothers, or, Secrets of the Jungle Lords,” Myths). He also
proposed, on his website, that Leslie Charteris’ modern Robin Hood, The Saint (Simon
Templar), is the son of E.W. Hornung’s gentleman thief, A.J. Raffles, and thus is part of the
Wold Newton Family.
Rick Lai added John Buchan’s Andrew Lumley (The Power-House) and Dominick
Medina (The Three Hostages) as members of Professor Moriarty’s family. Lai was also first to
propose an additional person at the Wold Newton meteor event, a young medical student named
Sebastian Noel. Noel went on to father Dr. James Noel, a master criminal seen in “The Suicide
Club” from R.L. Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights. Lai also related Dr. Noel to the Moriartys. All
of these additions to the Family are in Lai’s essay “The Secret History of Captain Nemo”
(Myths).
In addition to Nellie Gray, Chuck Loridans’ identified another daughter of Tarzan.
Nellie’s mother was the love of Tarzan’s life, Jane Porter, but during one of Tarzan’s infamous
amnesiac blackouts, he succumbed to the wiles of La of Opar. Their daughter was orphaned, and
eventually became the criminal-turned-secret agent Modesty Blaise (“The Daughters of
Greystoke,” Myths).
Brad Mengel’s favorite contribution to the Wold Newton Family is Detective Robert
Goren from the television series Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Mengel proposes that Goren is
the great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes (“Watching the Detectives, or, The Sherlock Holmes
Family Tree,” Myths). Mengel has also proposed that Robert B. Parker’s Boston P.I., Spenser, is
the nephew of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe (“The Land Family,” The Wold Newton
Chronicles website < http://www.pjfarmer.com/chronicles/index.htm>).
One of Wold Newton researcher Matthew Baugh’s favorite characters is Myra Reldon, an
agent of The Shadow who often poses as a Chinese woman named Ming Dwan. I included her as
a granddaughter of Fu Manchu in “Who’s Going to Take Over the World When I’m Gone?”
(Myths). In the same essay I postulated that two of James Bond’s adversaries, Dr. No and Ernst
Stavro Blofeld, were Wold Newton Family members. Dr. No was the grandson of the
aforementioned Dr. James Noel. Dr. No’s maternal grandfather was Fo-Hi, from Sax Rohmer’s
The Golden Scorpion. Blofeld was the great-great grandson of Sir William Clayton.
Cheryl Huttner built upon a small clue in Phil’s family tree to add occult detective Jules
de Grandin, and while she was at it also managed to include Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian
sleuth Hercule Poirot (“Name of a Thousand Blue Demons,” Myths).
Mark Brown, in a short piece in Myths, added a notable female detective to the Family,
Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone, as a daughter of Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer (“D is for
Daughter, F is for Father,” Myths). Additionally, Brown’s “A Look at the Wimsey Family” (The
Wold Newton Universe website
Bolan to the Family as a son of the pulp hero The Spider (Richard Wentworth) and Nita Van
Sloan.
Expansions of the Wold Newton Family are not restricted to non-fiction articles. Chris
Roberson’s story “Penumbra” (Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 1: The Modern Babylon, Black
Coat Press, 2005), expertly hinted that The Batman might be The Shadow’s son. Another story in
Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 1, my own “The Vanishing Devil,” added martial arts expert
Shang Chi as a grandson of Doc Ardan (Doc Savage), albeit in an unusual way. The original
Marvel Comics Shang Chi stories had already established him as Fu Manchu’s son.
Jean-Marc Lofficier, noted French SF and comics writer, and editor of the Tales of the
Shadowmen series, also maintains the French Wold Newton Universe website < http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/wnu1.htm>, which adds innumerable French characters to the
Wold Newton Family tree. It expands the family trees of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin and
detective M. Lecoq (both of whom Phil included in the Family, at least by implication), and adds
other popular French characters such as the arch-villain Fantômas and the detective Jules
Maigret.
Without a doubt, the greatest challenge facing Wold Newton researchers is determining
Philip José Farmer’s exact place in the Wold Newton Family. In fact, Phil, in his Myths back
cover quote, extended this proposal: “I’m just waiting for them to prove that I am also part of the
extended family.”
I believe we will be taking him up on his friendly invitation soon.
WIN SCOTT ECKERT CLIMBS THE WOLD NEWTON FAMILY TREE!
Win Scott Eckert © 2008-2010
Farmerphile no. 11
Paul Spiteri and Win Scott Eckert, eds., Michael Croteau, publisher, January 2008
Trunks and Branches: The Wold Newton Family
by Win Scott Eckert
Long time Farmerphile readers will recall the first issue in which I reviewed the origins of Philip José Farmerâs Wold Newton Family, covered the Wold Newton meteor strike in 1795 which exposed nearby coach passengers to ionized radiation, and discussed Philâs genealogical researches into the amazing descendents of those coach passengers, a group of supermen and superwomen known collectively as the âWold Newton Familyâ (âA Nova of Genetic Splendor,â Farmerphile no. 1, July 2005).
Phil also included extraordinary characters who pre-date the meteor strike under the umbrella of the Wold Newton Family, adding them as antecedents of the coach passengers. One such is Robert E. Howardâs Solomon Kane. Another character who Phil included in the extended Family, but is not directly descended from the coach passengers, is H. Rider Haggardâs famous hunter, Allan Quatermain.
Some better-known characters in Philâs Wold Newton Family, as outlined in Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, include Captain Blood (another pre-meteor strike ancestor); The Scarlet Pimpernel (present at meteor strike); Fitzwilliam Darcy and his wife, Elizabeth Bennet (present at meteor strike); Harry Flashman; Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Professor Moriarty (aka Captain Nemo); Phileas Fogg; The Time Traveler; A.J. Raffles; Professor Challenger; Arsène Lupin; Richard Hannay; Bulldog Drummond; the evil Fu Manchu and his adversary, Sir Denis Nayland Smith; G-8; The Shadow; Sam Spade; The Spider; Nero Wolfe; Mr. Moto; The Avenger; Philip Marlowe; James Bond; Lew Archer; and Travis McGee.
Adding characters to the Wold Newton Family is an entertaining exercise. It is also a messy and creative process; the criteria are not nearly as clear-cut as when determining whether a crossover story is valid for purposes of Wold Newton Universe continuity.
First and foremost, one must ensure that the addition to the Family is directly descended from at least one carriage passenger Phil identified as being present at the meteor strike. For me, more often than not, this means making a graphic family tree to ensure Iâm not missing anything.
Also pay attention to the timelines of the characters, ensuring that it makes chronological sense to hook them together as parents and children. One should look for genetic traits in common, such as many of the Family membersâ trademark gray eyes, and yet not fall into the trap of only including characters with gray eyes, or hanging the entire genealogical connection on gray eyes.
For instance, Chuck Loridans identified one of The Avengerâs aides, Nellie Gray, as a daughter of Tarzan (âThe Daughters of Greystoke,â Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmerâs Wold Newton Universe, MonkeyBrain Books, 2005). He was careful to make his identification on a variety of factors: Nellieâs gray eyes; her physical prowess, such as the ability to swing through the jungle from tree to tree; and Philâs theory that charactersâ biographers use code names as subtle clues to characterâs real identities. In this case, the last name Gray was a clue connecting Nellie to the Greystokes. While Loridans was careful, a critique of his theory was not, attempting to debunk it because Nellie was described as having blue eyes. In Nellieâs first appearances in the Avenger pulps, she was described as having gray eyes. Only later did they change to blue. Loridans did his homework in expanding the Wold Newton Family.
Another guideline in adding members to the Family is avoiding oversimplification. For instance, William S. Baring-Gould theorized that Nero Wolfe was the son of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street and Nero Wolfe of West 35th Street). This theory has been criticized on the basis that Wolfe must, instead, be the son of Sherlock Holmesâ brother, Mycroft, since both Nero Wolfe and Mycroft Holmes are fat. In this oversimplification, fat characters can only be the children of other fat characters. The logical conclusion is that Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes cannot be brothers. But they areâthat relationship comes from the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The lesson here is that different phenotypesâtall and lanky,
stocky and fat, etc.âare certainly possible, and should not be the sole basis for disqualifying a candidate from membership in the Family or in a particular line.
Perhaps the grossest oversimplification when adding Family members is placing all characters with the same last name in the same branch of the Family, without regard to any other qualifying characteristics. One can imagine this trap is magnified a thousand-fold with very common last names, such as Smith. I faced this dilemma when expanding on the relatives of Sir Denis Nayland Smith (the hero of Sax Rohmerâs Fu Manchu series), who Phil originally identified as a nephew of Sherlock Holmes.
In âWhoâs Going to Take Over the World When Iâm Gone?â (Myths), I addressed the conundrum by adding other Smiths from the works by Conan Doyle, thus expanding the thematic connection Phil began. I also chose Smith characters who were detectives or secret agents (like Nayland Smith), or had connections to Egyptology and archaeology, common themes in the Fu Manchu books. Some of Nayland Smithâs more prominent relatives include Dashiell Hammettâs hardboiled detective, the Continental Op; Algernon Heathcote âSmittyâ Smith from the Avenger pulps; and Professor Horatio Smith, from the 1941 Leslie Howard film Pimpernel Smith. In my expansion of the Family tree, and as implied by the filmâs title, Horatio
Smith is also descended from Sir Percy Blakeney, The Scarlet Pimpernel, whom Phil identified as one of the carriage passengers at the Wold Newton meteor strike.
With some of this background in mind, what follows is an overview of other character additions to the Wold Newton Family, focusing on descendents of those irradiated at the meteor strike, without going into exacting detail on the precise line of descent.
Dennis E. Power can claim the first genealogical post-Farmerian speculation on the internet. He added the famous detective Charlie Chan to the Family as the son of Fu Manchu, who was, according to Phil, the son of the prolific Sir William Clayton. William Clayton was the son of one of those irradiated at Wold Newton. Chan fits in well in the Family by balancing out the yellow peril stereotype perpetuated by his father. The essay incorporating Chan was revised for publication in Myths for the Modern Age as âAsian Detectives in the Wold Newton Family.â
Power also added John Henry as the son of Sir William Clayton and Bafia, a female Waziri slave who accompanied Clayton on his African expedition. Here, Power blended the Wold Newton Family with American folklore and provided a basis for incorporating African-American characters such as Jim from Tom Sawyer. This addition also linked the Caucasian descendents of Long John Silver, as described in Philâs Greatheart Silver, with those descended from Long John Silver’s wife, whom Robert Louis Stevenson described as an old woman of African descent. Powerâs article on this branch of the Family, âThe Wold Wold West: Hammer of FreedomâThe Henrys,â is at his website, The Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History http://www.pjfarmer.com/secret/secret.htm.
In addition, Power added Rudyard Kiplingâs Mowgli as a half-brother to Tarzan, in an essay adroitly reconciling Philâs novels The Adventure of the Peerless Peer and The Adventure of the Three Madmen (âJungle Brothers, or, Secrets of the Jungle Lords,â Myths). He also proposed, on his website, that Leslie Charterisâ modern Robin Hood, The Saint (Simon Templar), is the son of E.W. Hornungâs gentleman thief, A.J. Raffles, and thus is part of the Wold Newton Family.
Rick Lai added John Buchanâs Andrew Lumley (The Power-House) and Dominick Medina (The Three Hostages) as members of Professor Moriartyâs family. Lai was also first to propose an additional person at the Wold Newton meteor event, a young medical student named Sebastian Noel. Noel went on to father Dr. James Noel, a master criminal seen in âThe Suicide Clubâ from R.L. Stevenson’s New Arabian Nights. Lai also related Dr. Noel to the Moriartys. All of these additions to the Family are in Laiâs essay âThe Secret History of Captain Nemoâ (Myths).
In addition to Nellie Gray, Chuck Loridansâ identified another daughter of Tarzan. Nellieâs mother was the love of Tarzanâs life, Jane Porter, but during one of Tarzanâs infamous amnesiac blackouts, he succumbed to the wiles of La of Opar. Their daughter was orphaned, and eventually became the criminal-turned-secret agent Modesty Blaise (âThe Daughters of Greystoke,â Myths).
Brad Mengelâs favorite contribution to the Wold Newton Family is Detective Robert Goren from the television series Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Mengel proposes that Goren is the great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes (âWatching the Detectives, or, The Sherlock Holmes Family Tree,â Myths). Mengel has also proposed that Robert B. Parkerâs Boston P.I., Spenser, is the nephew of Raymond Chandlerâs Philip Marlowe (âThe Land Family,â The Wold Newton Chronicles website http://www.pjfarmer.com/chronicles/index.htm).
One of Wold Newton researcher Matthew Baughâs favorite characters is Myra Reldon, an agent of The Shadow who often poses as a Chinese woman named Ming Dwan. I included her as a granddaughter of Fu Manchu in âWhoâs Going to Take Over the World When Iâm Gone?â (Myths). In the same essay I postulated that two of James Bondâs adversaries, Dr. No and Ernst Stavro Blofeld, were Wold Newton Family members. Dr. No was the grandson of the aforementioned Dr. James Noel. Dr. Noâs maternal grandfather was Fo-Hi, from Sax Rohmer’s The Golden Scorpion. Blofeld was the great-great grandson of Sir William Clayton.
Cheryl Huttner built upon a small clue in Philâs family tree to add occult detective Jules de Grandin, and while she was at it also managed to include Agatha Christieâs famous Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot (âName of a Thousand Blue Demons,â Myths).
Mark Brown, in a short piece in Myths, added a notable female detective to the Family, Sue Graftonâs Kinsey Millhone, as a daughter of Ross MacDonaldâs Lew Archer (âD is for Daughter, F is for Father,â Myths). Additionally, Brownâs âA Look at the Wimsey Familyâ (The Wold Newton Universe website
Expansions of the Wold Newton Family are not restricted to non-fiction articles. Chris Robersonâs story âPenumbraâ (Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 1: The Modern Babylon, Black Coat Press, 2005), expertly hinted that The Batman might be The Shadowâs son. Another story in Tales of the Shadowmen, Volume 1, my own âThe Vanishing Devil,â added martial arts expert Shang Chi as a grandson of Doc Ardan (Doc Savage), albeit in an unusual way. The original Marvel Comics Shang Chi stories had already established him as Fu Manchuâs son. Jean-Marc Lofficier, noted French SF and comics writer, and editor of the Tales of the
Shadowmen series, also maintains the French Wold Newton Universe website http://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/wnu1.htm, which adds innumerable French characters to the Wold Newton Family tree. It expands the family trees of gentleman thief Arsène Lupin and detective M. Lecoq (both of whom Phil included in the Family, at least by implication), and adds other popular French characters such as the arch-villain Fantômas and the detective Jules Maigret.
Without a doubt, the greatest challenge facing Wold Newton researchers is determining Philip José Farmerâs exact place in the Wold Newton Family. In fact, Phil, in his Myths back cover quote, extended this proposal: âIâm just waiting for them to prove that I am also part of the extended family.â
I believe we will be taking him up on his friendly invitation soon.
WOLD NEWTON WRITERS/SCHOLARS AT THE METEOR SITE!!
Per Win Scott Eckert-
Here is a pic of me (left), Paul Spiteri (middle) and Mike Croteau (right) at the Wold Newton monument erected by Edward Topham in 1799 (the monument that has the inscription which was in the first article of mine you posted today). This is the exact spot where the meteor struck. Topham’s country house, the Wold Cottage, is about half a mile away. The Wold Cottage is now a Bed & Breakfast, and we (Lisa and I) stayed there overnight with the Spiteris and the Croteaus during a two-week England/France vacation. The pic was taken in July 2009.
Here also is a pic of the monument by itself.
My Travels through the Wold Wide Web
By Dennis E. Power
My excursions into the mythology of the Wold Newton family began, like Philip José Farmer, through the pulps. However in my case it was he paperback reprints of Tarzan, Doc Savage and the Shadow. I must have been around eight when I was watching a Johnny Weismuller movie on television. When my father walked into the room he laughed at what I was watching. He commented, “That isn’t Tarzan.” A couple of days later he handed me a 1964 Whitman edition of Tarzan of the Apes. I remember that it was a new book so the stores must have still been carrying them in 1968. Once I had devoured that I bugged my parents for more Tarzan books. At that time Ballantine was still publishing their reprints so I was able to buy half of them and get the rest out of the library. Tarzan introduced me to the wider world of Burroughs and to adventure fiction in general. My father had small collection of science fiction paperbacks which included five or six Doc Savage novels and two Shadow novels. I also became hooked on Doc Savage and began collecting what paperbacks of his I could find.
My first exposure to the works of Philip José Farmer came from reading either A Private Cosmos, which was the third in his World of Tiers or The Fabulous Riverboat, the second in his Riverworld series. I remember really liking A Private Cosmos and while was intrigued by The Fabulous Riverboat, at 12, I was befuddled by it. Shortly after that I read Dare and Lord Tyger.
I was always a bit of an omnivorous reader but my two favorite subjects were science fiction/adventure fiction and history. I really enjoyed biographies and one day while perusing the biography section of the local library I found the first edition hardback of Tarzan Alive, which must have been out only a few months at that time. I grabbed it, thinking to myself that it was a good thing no one else had noticed this great book. Already familiar with most of the Tarzan books by that time it was a treat for Mr. Farmer to show how Burroughs had exaggerated some of the details of the books but had been fairly faithful to how it really happened. When I finished the book I was convinced for a time anyway, that Tarzan was indeed a real person. Especially since the book had been in the biography section of the library. It wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t true, would it? I was less convinced about the family tree but since I had already read some of Michael Harrison’s books about Sherlock Holmes, I thought maybe parts of the family tree were real.
However as I began to look up various members of the family tree and read their exploits, I knew that he had tricked me, but in a good way. One of the benefits of having read Tarzan Alive was that it introduced me to a wealth of literary figures that I knew nothing about, such as Professor Challenger, Wolf Larsen, A. J. Raffles, Alan Quatermain and the works of Sabatini, Austen, George MacDonald Fraser.
A couple of years later when I saw Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life on Walgreens bookrack I snatched it up. In addition to literary works such as Raintree County
Venus on the Half Shell was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager and I passed it around to a lot of my friends. It was years before I learned that it had actually been written by Philip José Farmer.
From the ages of 13 to 17, I was really fascinated by the concept of the Wold Newton family and such books like The Adventure of the Peerless Peer and The Other Log of Phileas Fogg only spurred my enthusiasm. Using graph paper I created a master family tree that incorporated both of the family trees in Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life and added on material found in The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and the The Lavalite World. Once that was done, I began expanding the tree on my own. I created extensive family trees adding in a mixture of fictional and historical gunslingers, criminals. I also added Asian characters such as Charlie Chan, characters from the James Bond novels, Mark Twain’s characters and characters from blaxploitation films. Inspired by Vincent McHugh’s Caleb Catlum’s America America
When I first got onto the internet back in 1997 once of the first things I did was search for anything Wold Newton related. Although I did not find anything I kept trying. If Win Eckert had anything up at that time I did not find it. This was in the pre-Google dark ages.
Eventually I found I did find Win Eckert’s An Expansion of Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton . At that time it consisted of a rather short crossover chronology, a couple of articles by Lou Mougin and a humongous graphic was a collage of several pulp cover scans. That graphic took forever to load in those days of 28.8 modems. I became a very frequent visitor to the site but was kind of disappointed that although the chronology grew a bit, there was a distinct lack of articles. Despite having created several Wold Newton derived genealogies in the eighties, I was not currently doing any Wold Newton related stuff but rather was currently involved in creating my El Head character and so was working exclusively on that. However it bugged me that no one was writing any articles about the Wold Newton family like was in Tarzan Alive or the Doc Savage biography.
So after a great deal of trepidation, I sent Win a rather long email about my theory to incorporate Charlie Chan into the Wold Newton Family. I did not hear from him for some time, so I figured he thought the idea had no merit. One day out of the blue his email popped up with a request for me to turn the theory into an article. This became the Asian Detectives in the Wold Newton Universe article , which I believe was the first to delve into Wold Newton speculative genealogy on his site.
I kept working on El Head stories but kept coming back to Win’s page. I saw that other people had also begun putting up articles and Win’s chronology had grown to incorporate the Highlander type Immortals, Star Trek, the X-Files and things like that. After my Asian Detectives article had appeared Mark Brown had submitted From Pygmalion to Casablanca and a couple of other speculative articles to Win’s site.
Around that time the film The Wild Wild West came out, I began to wonder how to reconcile the film with the television series. I thought of my old genealogy which I had created over twenty years before. By cannibalizing my Wold Newton family tree and incorporating some of the mythology that Farmer had created when he wrote The Other Log of Phileas Fogg I began writing The Wild Wild West article which blossomed into a Wold Wold West article which not only reconciled the Wild Wild West film and television show but it also incorporated many of the Western characters that had been in my Wold Newton Family Tree. As I was working on the Wold Wold West article I began to think on how to reconcile the existence of Star Trek, the Highlander Immortals, X-Files and what not with the Capelleans and the World of Tiers series. This lead to an Aliens Among Us article. In creating the two articles, to help me keep things straight I used Win’s The Wold Newton Universe Crossover Chronology and added in my own stuff which lead to the creation of The Revised Wold Newton Crossover Chronology Crossover Chronology
I submitted the articles to Win. He replied that he really enjoyed them but that at that time he was not going to have the time to put articles on his website. He said that one of his other contributors was planning on creating an ancillary site and suggested I do so as well. He also thought because of the length of the articles and the revised chronology that it would be a good start for a new site. We worked out the details which would distinguish his work from mine. Since my site was intended to be a sort of look behind the history on Win’s site, I called it The Secret History of the Wold Newton Universe. I have since shortened slightly to The Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History.
It was about this time that Win invited me to join a Wold Newton email group. The email group was eventually transmogrified into a Wold Newton e-group, the latest version of which is simply called Wold Newton Family
Shortly after I put my site up I was joined by another site, The Wold Newton Chronicles < http://www.pjfarmer.com/chronicles/index.ht> site Mark Brown. One of his first articles on that site was The Magnificent Gordons,
After Win’s Mark’s and my sites had been up for a while, Jess Nevins created Jess Nevins’ Wold Newton site, <http://ratmmjess.tripod.com/wold.html> where he posted his own Wold Newton speculation. A bit later Jean Marc Lofficier created the French Wold Newton site which provided a Gallic-centric version of the Wold Newton Universe.
Mark, Win’s and my sites were on three different servers for a while. Eventually Mike Croteau and Rick Beaulieu offered to host our three sites on the www.pjfarmer.com domain, where the Official Philip José Farmer homepage is hosted. Our sites were chosen because there was some cross referencing between the three, creating an informal “consensus” Wold Newton Universe. This cross referencing came about in a couple of different ways. One way was that various authors had articles posted on two or three of the sites. For example Win has articles posted on his site and the Chronicles site. I have articles posted on my site and Win’s site. Brad Mengel and Art Bollman have articles posted on all three sites.
Another manner in which this cross fertilization took place was in the process of article creation. Mark, Win and I provided each other, and article writers who followed, with feedback and suggestions as they created their articles. This was either through the public message board or in private emails. For instance, Matthew Baugh, Mark Brown and I helped Win with The Amazing Lanes, his first foray into speculative genealogy. I also remember providing feedback and suggestions to Jess Nevins, Brad Mengel, Chuck Loridans, Art Bollman, Matthew Baugh, David Kennedy and a few others.
Another form of the cross fertilization took place in the form of what could be termed spring boarding, that is one piece leading either to another’s creation or providing the impetus for the article to be created. Mark Brown’s The Magnificent Gordons spring boarded from my Wold Wold article. I think Mark had previously been working on a Gordon’s genealogy but when my article appeared; he had something else to link it two. Another example is John Small’s Kiss of the Vampire. John took an email I had written speculating on the connection between Lady Rawhide and Vampirella and turned it into a gem of an article. Another of couple springboards was Win’s
Amazing Lane
’s article which led to my series of articles about the Jekyll and Hyde family and Peter Coogan’s John Carter is Phra the Phoenician which led to John Carter: Torn from Phoenician Dreams and the subsequent articles in our John Carter series.
This cross pollination between our sites led to the creation of the book Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe, Monkeybrain books, November 2005. This volume articles from Philip José Farmer and articles from each of the owners of the three www.pjfarmer.com hosted sites, and I believe at least one article from each of the sites from other contributors. These articles were revised and expanded for print publication.
Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton
I do however remain hopeful that their will be a renaissance from a new generation of Wold Newton researchers who will write new articles and create their own sites.
DENNIS E. POWER AND THE WOLD WIDE WEB!
My Travels through the Wold Wide Web
By Dennis E. Power
My excursions into the mythology of the Wold Newton family began, like Philip José Farmer, through the pulps. However in my case it was he paperback reprints of Tarzan, Doc Savage and the Shadow. I must have been around eight when I was watching a Johnny Weismuller movie on television. When my father walked into the room he laughed at what I was watching. He commented, “That isn’t Tarzan.” A couple of days later he handed me a 1964 Whitman edition of Tarzan of the Apes. I remember that it was a new book so the stores must have still been carrying them in 1968. Once I had devoured that I bugged my parents for more Tarzan books. At that time Ballantine was still publishing their reprints so I was able to buy half of them and get the rest out of the library. Tarzan introduced me to the wider world of Burroughs and to adventure fiction in general. My father had small collection of science fiction paperbacks which included five or six Doc Savage novels and two Shadow novels. I also became hooked on Doc Savage and began collecting what paperbacks of his I could find.
My first exposure to the works of Philip José Farmer came from reading either A Private Cosmos, which was the third in his World of Tiers or The Fabulous Riverboat, the second in his Riverworld series. I remember really liking A Private Cosmos and while was intrigued by The Fabulous Riverboat, at 12, I was befuddled by it. Shortly after that I read Dare and Lord Tyger.
I was always a bit of an omnivorous reader but my two favorite subjects were science fiction/adventure fiction and history. I really enjoyed biographies and one day while perusing the biography section of the local library I found the first edition hardback of Tarzan Alive, which must have been out only a few months at that time. I grabbed it, thinking to myself that it was a good thing no one else had noticed this great book. Already familiar with most of the Tarzan books by that time it was a treat for Mr. Farmer to show how Burroughs had exaggerated some of the details of the books but had been fairly faithful to how it really happened. When I finished the book I was convinced for a time anyway, that Tarzan was indeed a real person. Especially since the book had been in the biography section of the library. It wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t true, would it? I was less convinced about the family tree but since I had already read some of Michael Harrison’s books about Sherlock Holmes, I thought maybe parts of the family tree were real.
However as I began to look up various members of the family tree and read their exploits, I knew that he had tricked me, but in a good way. One of the benefits of having read Tarzan Alive was that it introduced me to a wealth of literary figures that I knew nothing about, such as Professor Challenger, Wolf Larsen, A. J. Raffles, Alan Quatermain and the works of Sabatini, Austen, George MacDonald Fraser.
A couple of years later when I saw Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life on Walgreens bookrack I snatched it up. In addition to literary works such as
Venus on the Half Shell was one of my favorite books when I was a teenager and I passed it around to a lot of my friends. It was years before I learned that it had actually been written by Philip José Farmer.
From the ages of 13 to 17, I was really fascinated by the concept of the Wold Newton family and such books like The Adventure of the Peerless Peer and The Other Log of Phileas Fogg only spurred my enthusiasm. Using graph paper I created a master family tree that incorporated both of the family trees in Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life and added on material found in The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and the The Lavalite World. Once that was done, I began expanding the tree on my own. I created extensive family trees adding in a mixture of fictional and historical gunslingers, criminals. I also added Asian characters such as Charlie Chan, characters from the James Bond novels, Mark Twain’s characters and characters from blaxploitation films. Inspired by Vincent McHugh’s Caleb Catlum’s
When I first got onto the internet back in 1997 once of the first things I did was search for anything Wold Newton related. Although I did not find anything I kept trying. If Win Eckert had anything up at that time I did not find it. This was in the pre-Google dark ages.
Eventually I found I did find Win Eckert’s An Expansion of Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton . At that time it consisted of a rather short crossover chronology, a couple of articles by Lou Mougin and a humongous graphic was a collage of several pulp cover scans. That graphic took forever to load in those days of 28.8 modems. I became a very frequent visitor to the site but was kind of disappointed that although the chronology grew a bit, there was a distinct lack of articles. Despite having created several Wold Newton derived genealogies in the eighties, I was not currently doing any Wold Newton related stuff but rather was currently involved in creating my El Head character and so was working exclusively on that. However it bugged me that no one was writing any articles about the Wold Newton family like was in Tarzan Alive or the Doc Savage biography.
So after a great deal of trepidation, I sent Win a rather long email about my theory to incorporate Charlie Chan into the Wold Newton Family. I did not hear from him for some time, so I figured he thought the idea had no merit. One day out of the blue his email popped up with a request for me to turn the theory into an article. This became the Asian Detectives in the Wold Newton Universe article , which I believe was the first to delve into Wold Newton speculative genealogy on his site.
I kept working on El Head stories but kept coming back to Win’s page. I saw that other people had also begun putting up articles and Win’s chronology had grown to incorporate the Highlander type Immortals, Star Trek, the X-Files and things like that. After my Asian Detectives article had appeared Mark Brown had submitted From Pygmalion to
Around that time the film The Wild Wild West came out, I began to wonder how to reconcile the film with the television series. I thought of my old genealogy which I had created over twenty years before. By cannibalizing my Wold Newton family tree and incorporating some of the mythology that Farmer had created when he wrote The Other Log of Phileas Fogg I began writing The Wild Wild West article which blossomed into a Wold Wold West article which not only reconciled the Wild Wild West film and television show but it also incorporated many of the Western characters that had been in my Wold Newton Family Tree. As I was working on the Wold Wold West article I began to think on how to reconcile the existence of Star Trek, the Highlander Immortals, X-Files and what not with the Capelleans and the World of Tiers series. This lead to an Aliens Among Us article. In creating the two articles, to help me keep things straight I used Win’s The Wold Newton Universe Crossover Chronology and added in my own stuff which lead to the creation of The Revised Wold Newton Crossover Chronology Crossover Chronology
I submitted the articles to Win. He replied that he really enjoyed them but that at that time he was not going to have the time to put articles on his website. He said that one of his other contributors was planning on creating an ancillary site and suggested I do so as well. He also thought because of the length of the articles and the revised chronology that it would be a good start for a new site. We worked out the details which would distinguish his work from mine. Since my site was intended to be a sort of look behind the history on Win’s site, I called it The Secret History of the Wold Newton Universe. I have since shortened slightly to The Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History.
It was about this time that Win invited me to join a Wold Newton email group. The email group was eventually transmogrified into a Wold Newton e-group, the latest version of which is simply called Wold Newton Family
Shortly after I put my site up I was joined by another site, The Wold Newton Chronicles < http://www.pjfarmer.com/chronicles/index.ht> site Mark Brown. One of his first articles on that site was The Magnificent Gordons,
After Win’s Mark’s and my sites had been up for a while, Jess Nevins created Jess Nevins’ Wold Newton site, <http://ratmmjess.tripod.com/wold.html> where he posted his own Wold Newton speculation. A bit later Jean Marc Lofficier created the French Wold Newton site which provided a Gallic-centric version of the Wold Newton Universe.
Mark, Win’s and my sites were on three different servers for a while. Eventually Mike Croteau and Rick Beaulieu offered to host our three sites on the www.pjfarmer.com domain, where the Official Philip José Farmer homepage is hosted. Our sites were chosen because there was some cross referencing between the three, creating an informal “consensus” Wold Newton Universe. This cross referencing came about in a couple of different ways. One way was that various authors had articles posted on two or three of the sites. For example Win has articles posted on his site and the Chronicles site. I have articles posted on my site and Win’s site. Brad Mengel and Art Bollman have articles posted on all three sites.
Another manner in which this cross fertilization took place was in the process of article creation. Mark, Win and I provided each other, and article writers who followed, with feedback and suggestions as they created their articles. This was either through the public message board or in private emails. For instance, Matthew Baugh, Mark Brown and I helped Win with The Amazing Lanes, his first foray into speculative genealogy. I also remember providing feedback and suggestions to Jess Nevins, Brad Mengel, Chuck Loridans, Art Bollman, Matthew Baugh, David Kennedy and a few others.
Another form of the cross fertilization took place in the form of what could be termed spring boarding, that is one piece leading either to another’s creation or providing the impetus for the article to be created. Mark Brown’s The Magnificent Gordons spring boarded from my Wold Wold article. I think Mark had previously been working on a Gordon’s genealogy but when my article appeared; he had something else to link it two. Another example is John Small’s Kiss of the Vampire. John took an email I had written speculating on the connection between Lady Rawhide and Vampirella and turned it into a gem of an article. Another of couple springboards was Win’s Amazing Lane’s article which led to my series of articles about the Jekyll and Hyde family and Peter Coogan’s John Carter is Phra the Phoenician which led to John Carter: Torn from Phoenician Dreams and the subsequent articles in our John Carter series.
This cross pollination between our sites led to the creation of the book Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe, Monkeybrain books, November 2005. This volume articles from Philip José Farmer and articles from each of the owners of the three www.pjfarmer.com hosted sites, and I believe at least one article from each of the sites from other contributors. These articles were revised and expanded for print publication.
Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton
I do however remain hopeful that their will be a renaissance from a new generation of Wold Newton researchers who will write new articles and create their own sites.
WOLD NEWTON LIVES IN TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN 7!!
TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN 7: FEMME FATALES from Black Coat Press
http://www.blackcoatpress.com/talesshadowmen07.htm
US$22.95/GBP 14.99 – 6×9 tpb, 324 p. – ISBN-13: 978-1-935558-44-6
Contents:
Matt Haley: My Femmes Fatales (portfolio)
Xavier Mauméjean: My Femmes Fatales (foreword)
Roberto Lionel Barreiro: Secrets starring Jean Valjean, Zorro.
Matthew Baugh: What Rough Beast starring Hugo Danner, Judex, Sâr Dubnotal.
Thom Brannan: What Doesn’t Die starring Dr. Omega, The Bride of Frankenstein.
Matthew Dennion: Faces of Fear starring Judex, Freddy Krueger.
Win Scott Eckert: Nadine’s Invitation starring Lady Blakeney, The Black Coats.
Emmanuel Gorlier: Fiat Lux! starring The Nyctalope, The Invaders.
Micah Harris: Slouching Towards Camulodunum starring Becky Sharp, Sâr Dubnotal.
Travis Hiltz: The Robots of Metropolis starring Dr. Omega, Rotwang.
Paul Hugli: Death to the Heretic! starring Bruce Wayne, Indiana Jones, The Nyctalope.
Rick Lai: Will There Be Sunlight? starring John Sunlight, The Black Coats.
Jean-Marc Lofficier: The Sincerest Form of Flattery starring Diabolik, Fantômas.David McDonnell: Big Little Man starring Dr. Loveless, Nurse Ratched.
Brad Mengel: The Apprentice starring The Saint, Malko Linge.
Sharan Newman: The Beast Without starring Catherine Levendeur, Bisclavret.
Neil Penswick: Legacy of Evil starring Fu Manchu, Le Poisson Chinois.
Pete Rawlik: The Masquerade in Exile starring Herbert West, Christine Daae.
Frank Schildiner: The Tiny Destroyer starring Jean Kariven, Kato.
Stuart Shiffman: Grim Days starring Lord Peter, Colonel Haki.
Bradley H. Sinor: The Screeching of Two Ravens starring Captain Blood, Milady.
Michel Stéphan: The Three Lives of Maddalena starring Victor Frankenstein, Carmilla.
David L. Vineyard: The Mysterious Island of Dr. Antekirtt starring Bob Morane, Bernard Prince, The Nyctalope.
Brian Stableford: The Necromancers of London starring Gregory Temple, Victor Frankenstein, Count Szandor.
This seventh volume of the only international anthology devoted to paying homage to the world’s most fantastic heroes from popular literature spotlights the females of the species: beautiful, deadly, tragic, accursed, enticing… all gathered here for an amazing collection of new adventures…
Tremble as Christine Daae meets Herbert West the Reanimator and Dr. Loveless Nurse Ratched! Experience thrills as Milady tries to outwit Captain Blood and Lady Blakeney the Black Coats! Watch in awe as Becky Sharp foils the designs of Sâr Dubnotal and Amelia Peabody those of mad King Tut! Wonder as the Bride of Frankenstein challenges the power of Dr. Omega and the vampire countess Marcian Gregoryi that of Victor Frankenstein and the Illuminati! Also starring Carmilla! Catherine Levendeur! Rosa Klebb! Fah Lo Suee! And the Eyes Without A Face!
With a foreword by Xavier Mauméjean and a portfolio by Matt Haley.
