Tagged: Philip Jose Farmer

Holmes Goes to Germany

The German-language edition of Philip Jose Farmer’s Sherlock Holmes und die Legende von Greystoke (The Adventure of the Peerless Peer) is now available as an ebook, featuring a new afterword by New Pulp Author Win Scott Eckert. You can pick up the ebook here. Trade paperback and hardcover editions coming soon.

WOLD NEWTON COMING ATTRACTIONS

  • Uncategorized
  • February 10, 2013

New Pulp Author Win Scott Eckert shared news on some upcoming Philip Jose Farmer releases from Titan Books.

COMING ON MARCH 12, 2013! Pre-order your copy now…

One man survived.

The great white whale with its strange passenger, and the strangled monomaniac its trailer, had dived deeply. The whaling ship was on its last, its vertical, voyage. Even the hand with the hammer and the hawk with its wing nailed to the mast were gone to the deeps, and the ocean had smoothed out the tracks of man with all the dexterity of billions of years of practice. The one man thrown from the boat swam about, knowing that he would soon go down to join his fellows.

And then the black bubble, the last gasp of the sinking ship, burst. out of the bubble the coffin-canoe of Queequeg soared, like a porpoise diving into the sky, and fell back, rolled, steadied, and then bobbed gently. The porpoise had become a black bottle containing a message of hope.

http://www.amazon.com/Wind-Whales-Ishmael-Philip-Farmer/dp/1781162972/

COMING ON JUNE 11, 2013! Now available for pre-order

Three figures moved in and out of the shadows of clouds and trees. The moon was riding high over the alpine mountain of Gramz in the Black Forest of southern Germany, only a few miles from the Swiss border. Long black clouds raced under it like lean wolves lashed by moonlight beams. Their shadow selves loped over the precipitous western side of Gramz Berg, bounding over the squat and massive stone pile of the castle on top of the mountain, writhing down the jagged slope toward the narrow sheen of the Toll River two thousand feet below.

The three figures were men toiling up the rock-strewn, pine-dotted slant. One was six feet seven inches high. He had the body of a Hercules. His bare head glinted dark-bronzish in the moonlight. If there had been more light, his eyes would have been a very light gray-green with many flecks of bright yellow.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mad-Goblin-Secrets-Nine/dp/1781162999/ref=pd_sim_b_1

TALES OF THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE, by Philip Jose Farmer and others, coming from Titan Books in October 2013!

http://www.winscotteckert.com/2013/02/countdown-to-new-philip-jose-farmer.html

Coming Soon.

PHILIP JOSE FARMER’S HADON OF ANCIENT OPAR RETURNS!

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  • January 12, 2013

Titan Books continues to re-release the Philip Jose Farmer library in January with the release of Hadon of Ancient Opar, the first of the Khokarsa Series chronicling Wold Newton’s Prehistory. Look for this title to be available in paperback and ebook on January 15th.

About Hadon of Ancient Opar:
Twelve thousand years ago the great lost city of Opar was in its prime, with its Atlantean tradition, its fabled jewels, its living goddess and Hadon, son of ancient Opar, whose claim to a throne launches him upon an enthralling and dangerous venture.

A brand-new edition of the classic novel.

A FEAST UNKNOWN – A PULP-FILLED MAIN COURSE

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  • October 6, 2012

A Feast Unknown (Secrets of the Nine #1 – Wold Newton Parallel Universe) (Memoirs of Lord Grandrith) comes out in a mere four days in the US, in both print and eBook!

The diaries of Lord Grandrith, the legendary Apeman, Lord of the Jungle and bastard son of Jack the Ripper. Blessed with unnatural long life, his power brings with it a gruesome side effect – one shared by his nemesis, the formidable Doc Caliban, Man of Bronze and Champion of Justice.

But these two titans have more in common than they could ever have imagined. Who are the dark manipulators of their destiny?

A brand-new edition of the controversial novel can be found at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Forbidden Planet, or wherever your favorite pulp fiction is sold.

THE OTHER LOG OF PHILEAS FOGG – NEW EDITION & PODCAST!

New Pulp Author Win Scott Eckert shared the following press release with All Pulp. You can read more about it here.

The Titan Books edition of The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer came out a few days ago, and here’s what people are saying:

Christopher Paul Carey: “I must say, WOW! This is the classiest production of the book that I’ve seen. I was thinking it would be nice, but it exceeds my expectations: a matte finish and raised text on the cover, high-quality paper stock, classy design work on both the interior and exterior, not to mention the new afterword and timeline by Win. I give this edition an A+.”

Art Sippo: “I just read the essay done by Win in The Other Log of Phileas Fogg Titan reprint. A terrific piece of work that actually links Philip Jose Farmer himself to the Wold Newton Universe and to many of the other characters in his stories. The detailed chronology is an extra added bonus. Great job, Win!”

The new edition also has the illustrations by Rick J. Bryant originally included in the early 1980s Tor edition, and is available in trade paperback and eBook.

Amazon 
Barnes & Noble
Forbidden Planet

If you need more info, check out my guest posts on SF Signal and the Titan Books blog for a primer on the Wold Newton Universe and a teaser excerpt of my afterword:

SF Signal
Titan Books blog 

Additionally, a couple sites have posted Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 online. Check ’em out!

Finally, Paul Spiteri and I spent an enjoyable hour discussing all of the Titan Books Wold Newton Series with Art Sippo, co-host of the Book Cave podcast. The podcast includes breaking news about previously unannounced titles coming in Titan’s Wold Newton and Grandmaster series!

For more information on Win Scott Eckert, visit his website.

Exploring The Power Of The Centipede with Chuck Miller

  • News
  • January 24, 2012
smallnewblackcentipedecreepingdawn-4892121
One of the great things about being part of the all pulp staff is the ability to read great pulp.  The Black Centipede was given to me generously by Chuck Miller, and the book is a fascinating read.  This doesn’t have a very one dimensional approach to it.  Heroes could very easily be villains, and even the staunchest villain has some heroic qualities to them.  The dark side of humanity is made commonplace, and Chuck Miller does it seamlessly.  The characters are believable and they feel human, much more so than many other stories.
 Chuck himself is a fascinating man.   I discuss with him Black Centipede, his other projects and the nature of man.
All Pulp:  Who were your writing influences growing up?
Chuck Miller:  I guess comic books would be a major one, since i’ve been reading them since literally as far back as I can remember. When I was 8 years old, I was given a copy of the Complete Sherlock Holmes, which made a huge impression on me. I’m a die-hard Holmes fan to this day. And not just the Conan Doyle stories– I really love a lot of the pastiches that have sprouted up, beginning with The Seven Per-Cent Solution and The West End Horror by Nicholas Meyer. I loved the way Meyer involved Holmes with genuine historical persons and events, and I do the same thing with the Black Centipede. In Creeping Dawn,  he has encounters with Lizzie Borden, H.P. Lovecraft, Frank Nitti, and William Randolph Hearst.
I also started reading the paperback reprints of the Shadow and Doc Savage stories when I was still a pre-teen, and those stuck with me. I very much preferred the Shadow, because he was so mysterious and had an air of the supernatural about him, though there was never any hint of the occult in any of the stories. Later on, I got into the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout, and those would become a major influence in terms of narrative voice. I was really captivated by the way Archie Goodwin’s personality came across in the writing, and I try to do the same thing myself, as best I can. Just about everything I do is in first person. I like to get really deep inside a character’s head, and I’m really not very comfortable as an omniscient third person.
There have been a huge number of influences on my writing, in terms of both style and content. Hunter S. Thompson, Philip Jose Farmer, Flannery O’Connor, William S. Burroughs, Dorothy Parker, Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick… it just goes on and on, really. I have taken a little something from each of them. And not only books, but movies and music as well. I bring in a lot of very diverse elements. It has been said that my work is very unique and original. The fact is, the Centipede is very derivative character, but he is derived from so many wide-ranging sources that he appears to be completely original.
AP:  Why pulp?
CM:  That happened sort of by accident. About 20 years ago, I came up with an idea for a comic book called  The Optimist.  It never went anywhere, but I had a huge cast of characters I had created for it, and they continued to simmer in my head after the project was finally abandoned completely back in 2001.

hopedecopy-3907056
A couple of years ago, I decided to really get serious about the writing. I’d always wanted to do it, and I was in a position where I could devote a lot of time to it, so I did. For subject matter, I went back to The Optimist. The original concept was a post-glory-days superhero saga, vaguely similar to The Watchmen. I didn’t want to do a comic book– and had nobody to draw it even if I had– so I just did it as an ordinary prose piece. The protagonist, Jack Christian, was a grown-up superhero kid sidekick whose mentor had died under dodgy circumstances 12 years earlier. Jack, a down-on-his luck alcoholic by this time, returns to the city of Zenith, where the tragedy took place. He encounters a number of retires heroes and other oddballs. Among these was the Black Centipede, who was originally intended to be a fairly minor character. I wanted him to be a genuine oddball– he is based in part on William S. Burroughs– and he was the only character cast in the mold of a traditional pulp action hero from the 30s.
So, anyhow, I wrote this novel, and the Centipede started stealing scenes. He ended up with a much bigger role. When I finished, I started promoting it myself on the web, making it available for free in hopes of attracting a publisher. It really didn’t stir up much of anything, though.
At one point a friend of mine told me she didn’t think many people would want to sit and read an entire novel online, and suggested I do some shorter pieces if I really wanted to get noticed. Since The Optimist didn’t lend itself to that, I decided to explore the past of one of the supporting characters. The Centipede was the obvious choice for this. I wrote a story set in 1957, “Wisconsin Death Trip.” I enjoyed doing it, so I went ahead and wrote a novella called Gasp, Choke, Good Lord, an homage to the EC horror comics of the 1950s, guest-starring the infamous Doctor Fredric Wertham, author of Seduction of the Innocent, and EC publisher William M. Gaines. And I posted all of this for free on a blog I put together. I created a rather elaborate history for the Centipede, which included him being not only a “real-life” crime fighter, but also the star of a highly-fictionalized pulp adventure magazine published by William Randolph Hearst.
Well, to cut a long story short, I got noticed by Tommy Hancock of pro Se Press, who was very enthusiastic about my work. After a bit of back and forth, it was decided that I should write a novel for Pro Se, which I did. That novel was Creeping Dawn: The Rise of the Black Centipede.
AP: What did writing Creeping Dawn teach you as an author?

CM: I’m not entirely sure. I guess I learned to tell a story with a specific word count. Now that it’s published, and I have read it in book form, I noticed several things I really didn’t like about it, and i have tried to avoid those while writing the next one.

heartwithlizzie-5851911
AP: One of the things that I really found fascinating with Creeping Dawn was how you write about the more monstrous parts of people.  From Lizzy’s past to William’s own acceptance of things.  You make it seem so normal.  I’m kind of jealous, but also wondering where those ideas came from.  Is this something you’ve always thought?  Or did it just fit the context of your story?

CM: All of that comes from my own life.  My mother died when I was very young, and my father just sort of went nuts after that. He deteriorated mentally and emotionally for about five years, and then ended up killing himself. And I had a front row seat for the whole thing. So I have always been conscious of this darkness in the world, that seems to be just under the surface of everything. That is somewhat analogous to what the Black Centipede refers to as the “Dark Power,” though in his fictional world, it is more literal and manifests itself in more overt ways. But, in my own life, I’ve always been aware that things and people are not really what they seem to be, not exactly. And if you look even just a little way beneath the surface, you’re apt to find a nasty surprise.

But I don’t think you have to give in to it. I think there is good in the world, too, but sometimes you have to wade through some pretty toxic sludge to find it. In “Creeping Dawn,” the young Centipede seems to believe that the darkness is the true power, the only thing worth striving to understand. But, being the kind of person he is, he doesn’t want to give himself over to it. Instead, he decides to oppose it, as a way of measuring its scope and capabilities. In the beginning, he isn’t motivated by a desire to see justice done. He is simply curious. He wants to understand the world in a way nobody else ever has. Quite a bit of hubris on his part, really.

In the second section of “Creeping Dawn,” which is set six years after his experience with Lizzie Borden, we see how he becomes a crime fighter, and how he goes about establishing himself in the city of Zenith, in a series of events that revolve around the rise of a shadowy new crime lord called Doctor Almanac. In the beginning, the Centipede is very ruthless and reckless and he ends up in trouble with the law and the press. But his cause is taken up by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Hearst is a fascinating historical figure, whose public and private life make him a great cast member for the Black Centipede series. Through some devious and underhanded maneuvering, Hearst transforms the Centipede– in the mind of the public, anyhow– from a dangerous, psychotic vigilante into a national hero. In addition to this, Hearst launches a Black Centipede pulp adventure magazine, featuring highly fictionalized accounts of our hero’s adventures. This is another example of how things appear to be a certain way, but are really something entirely different. The real Black Centipede is not the Doc Savage-style paragon the public perceives.

bloodofbluexcopy-6151069
The Centipede is a celebrity akin to Doc Savage and other classic pulp.
Nothing is black-and-white. But there is right and wrong, I believe. Sometimes it takes even a good person a long time and a lot of mistakes to make the distinction and choose one or the other. Most of my villains have some heroic qualities, and most of my heroes are criminals at heart. They do kind of believe they are somehow above the rest of society, and have a right to disregard the rules. Life is a process, a constant parade of choices. A villain can choose to be noble, a hero can choose to act deplorably.

In “Blood of the Centipede,” the next book in the series, the Centipede gets a bit of a moral compass in the form of Amelia Earhart, who has been asked by President Roosevelt to keep an eye on our hero. I don’t want to go into any more detail about that now, except to say that, as the series progresses, we will see our hero evolve in some interesting and unexpected ways.

AP: If you had to pick just one scene, what was your favorite in Creeping Dawn and why?

CM: I guess the one I had the most fun writing was the Centipede’s accidental invasion of doctor Almanac’s secret headquarters. I got a kick out of
 describing his sort of gleeful approach to lethal violence. And then, of course, that whole episode led up to his first encounter with Stan Bartowski, a Zenith police officer who becomes a friend. He’ll be an important mainstay character throughout the series. He’s also sort of a comic foil, since a lot of things the Centipede says to him sail right over his head. I put a lot of humor in the stories, and strive to strike a good balance.

AP: Can you tell us a bit of where you want to take the Black Centipede. He’s gone from supporting character to a mainstay.  Would you be happy to continue writing him or are there are other things you like to work on?

CM: I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the Centipede. He’s pretty versatile, and I have lots of plans for him. But I do have a number of other characters I want to develop into their own series. “The Incredible Adventures of Vionna Valis and Mary Jane Kelly” is one of these. http://theblackcentipede.blogspot.com/2011/09/their-first-adventure.html

It deals with a peculiar pair of “psychic detectives.” I’ve done a couple stories that I posted on my blog, but they have yet to be officially published. However, they live in the same world as the Black Centipede, and they appear briefly in the second Centipede novel. So does Doctor Unknown Junior, a very businesslike sorceress whose adventures I want to get out there one of these days.


AP: Are you working on anything else at the moment?

CM: I have something coming out in February from Pacific-Noir Press. “The Bay Phantom Chronicles Episode One: The Return of Doctor Piranha” is the first tale of the Bay Phantom, a 94-year-old, retired pulp-era masked hero based in my old home town of Mobile, Alabama. In this one, he is befriended by Janie Marie Colson, a young college student who is helping him write his memoirs. Complications arise when the Phantom’s arch-foe, 98-year-old Doctor Piranha, is released from federal prison after serving a 70-year sentence.  Piranha, of course, swore revenge– no matter how long it took…

And I am involved in the Pulp Obscura project from Pro Se and Altus Press, which will be coming out throughout 2012.

FARMER ESTATE HOLDS AUCTION SPECIAL FOR MAGICK4TERRI!

  • News
  • December 14, 2011

Seller: The Philip José Farmer Estate


Every item in the Philip José Farmer Estate Sale is now 20% off and 25% of all sales through December 15, 2011 will be donated to Magick 4 Terri!


Four days ago we announced here that 25% of all sales through December 15, 2011 would be donated to Magick 4 Terri. So far the response has been. . .underwhelming to say the least. But we think we know the problem. When you go to the Estate Sale page, the first item you see, a rare signed hardcover of A Feast Unknown costs $450, and the next book is a $100 paperback!


So we’d like to take a moment to point out that while there are very expensive books: $4,500 for The Lake Regions of Central Africa: Volumes 1 and 2 (1860) by Sir Richard Francis Burton, or $1,500 for a signed harcover first edition of Farmer’s The Fabulous Riverboat for examples, there are many affordable books as well.


There are over forty different titles under $50, many of them signed paperbacks, and other cool stuff like this:


Charles M. Doughty. Travels In Arabia Deserta. Heritage Press, 1953. Hard Cover. Near Fine hardcover in slipcase. Decorated beige linen cloth binding, pictorial endpapers, map, illustrated throughout by Edy Legrand. Introduction by T.E. Lawrence. $40.00


Nothing Burns in Hell. Advance Uncorrected Proof. Trade Paperback. Near Fine From the estate of Philip José Farmer. Advanced Uncorrected Proof in Near Fine condition. One of three author copies. These copies are NOT signed. $30.00


Dark is the Sun. Blackstone Audio, Multiple copies of this new audio book were sent to Philip José Farmer’s heirs. This unabridged audio book is 14.5 hours on 12 cds. We’re selling these for about half of the list price. Five author copies are currently available for $30 each.


There are almost another seventy titles between $50 and $100 that would make a great gift for any science fiction fan:


Forrest J Ackerman (ed), Best Science Fiction for 1973. Very Good+ Signed by Philip José Farmer on page 56. Contains a reprint of the short story “Seventy Years of Decpop.” $50.00


Byron Preiss (ed), Weird Heroes Vol 1. Very Good+ Signed by Philip José Farmer on page 194. Contains the first publication of the short story “Greatheart Silver in Showdown at Shootout.” $60.00


Robert Frazier (ed), Burning with a Vision: Poetry of Science and the Fantastic. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good+ Signed by Philip José Farmer on page 52. Contains a reprint of the poem, “The Pterodactyl.” $75.00


Fritz Leiber, Ervool. Roanoke: Chapbook. Very Good+ Pictorial wrapper. First edition. Number 158 of 200 numbered copies signed by Leiber on special limitation page. This publication was prepared for distribution at the Sixth World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, October, 1980. $75.00


Brian Ash (ed), The Visual Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Oversized Paperback. Very Good+ Signed “Property of Philip José Farmer” on the first page and signed again on page 223 at his entry on Religion and Myths. $85.00


You get the idea — and don’t forget, now everything is 20% off! — but only through December 15th.


So, do yourself, and more importantly Terri, a favor, and spend a little time browsing the list. There is bound to be something you suddenly realize you can’t live without.

HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO THE WORLDS OF PHILIP JOSE FARMER VOLUME ONE!

  • News
  • December 13, 2011

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews of All Things Pulp by Tommy Hancock

THE WORLDS OF PHILIP JOSE FARMER:PROTEAN DIMENSIONS
Edited by Michael Croteau
Written by Various
Meteor House
2010

“The world is not such a lonely place as it once was.”

This, the opening sentence to Paul Malmont’s foreword to Meteor House’s THE WORLDS OF PHILIP JOSE FARMER: PROTEAN DIMENSIONS, expresses a sentiment that many of us feel because of Philip Jose Farmer.   A man who took the stories he loved and not only wrote his own tales inspired by what he loved, but took the characters he cherished and added, molded, and in many cases breathed brand new life into them, making them viable, visible, and exciting to those of us eating up his stories like pigeons on breadcrumbs.  

PROTEAN DIMENSIONS is the perfect expression of Farmer’s impact on the world as well as proof that Farmer truly proved that we, people who enjoy fiction and academic discussion and theorizing and world building, are not alone in this world.   The book features works by Farmer as well as those inspired by him, even some who had the opportunity to work with him during his career.   Lost essays, long missing pieces of fiction, and even new tales inspired by the wonders Farmer rendered fill each page of this simply and nicely designed volume.    As previously stated, I’m not enough of an academic to criticize scholarship, but based on my experience as a historian, the work put into the essays is sufficient and successful.  The fiction is also top notch, both what Farmer produced and what he inspired.

If this review seems to be filled with adoration, then you’re reading it the right way.  But it’s as much adoration for the work that went into it as it is for the man it’s about.  I have seen no volume, except for maybe the sequel to this one and its predecessor, MYTHS FOR THE MODERN AGE, dedicated to any creator that does such a good job of pointing out the whole picture of the man, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of his work, and most assuredly putting the best people possible on paying dedication and tribute to who and what Philip Jose Farmer was.

FIVE OUT FIVE TIPS OF THE HAT.

Philip Jose Farmer: Lord Tyger

  • News
  • November 23, 2011

Win Scott Eckert has shared the following information on Lord Tyger by Philip Jose Farmer.

For immediate release:

U.K publisher Titan Books has entered into an agreement with the Estate of Philip Jose Farmer to bring a large selection of Mr. Farmer’s backlist titles back into print.

Third in Titan’s lineup is Mr. Farmer’s Lord Tyger, considered by many to be Mr. Farmer’s finest standalone novel. First published in 1970, the novel tells the tale of Ras Tyger, who is kidnapped by an insane millionare bent on recreating the famous Lord of the Jungle. Tyger is raised in a remote African valley by people he believes to be apes; heroic, and beautiful, he is master of his world. And he rules his kingdom with sex, savagery, and sublime innocence. But the laws of nature and those of man are set to collide….

Lord Tyger is currently scheduled for release in July 2012, and will be available at major outlets such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Editions will include trade paperback and digital (Kindle & Nook).

Stay tuned to this space, Mr. Farmer’s official website, and Facebook (Philip Jose Farmer | Win Scott Eckert) for information on other forthcoming titles.

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