The longdogs are flattened by the heat, as is your crumbling host, and walking them at the moment is like dragging bricks on a piece of string. So, O best beloveds, we make a quick and chaotic rush to the front line in the middle of much industry. Cathulhu, a feline RPG and fiction anthology campaign that’s over in around twenty four hours, in case you fancy it; a full review ofLavie Tidhar’sThe Bookman, which is only eighteen months late, and hasty home news. Cutting edge!
The hasty home news: Old greydog is at the final stages of completing his novel The Assassin’s Coin, about which more some other time, but it is due out from IFD Publishing in October. The ODQ Presents anthology of longer supernatural fiction has gone for formatting (preparing the galleys for a last proofing and so on), and should be out in August from Ulthar Press. A second expanded edition of greydog’s A Persistence of Geraniums collection is also coming in the Autumn, and the anthology Hell’s Empire is due November or December 2018. It’s a bit of a busy time.
Firstly, we wanted to mention Cathulhu: Tails of Valor and Terror – a collection of adventures for the Cathulhu Role Playing Game, with a companion short story collection of Cat horror stories, both from Golden Goblin Press.
‘From The Cats of Ulthar to those owned by Delapore in The Rats in the Walls, cats have held a special place of honor in the heart of H.P. Lovecraft. They are deeply embedded into the lore of the Cthulhu Mythos. We hope you’ll join us on our journey into the world of Cathulhu, cats battling mythos horrors. Cathulhu – Velvet Paws on Cthulhu’s Trail is a horror role playing game by Sixtystone Press, an offshoot of the Call of Cthulhu RPG where the players portray cats investigating the Cthulhu Mythos.’
This Kickstarter ends at teatime, by British clocks, on Sunday 29th July, so you have only a day or so to check it out – there’s loads more information on the writers and the scenarios on the campaign page below. It looks fun.
Meanwhile, in the fantasy and steampunk world, one of our intrepid reviewers, Matt Willis, kindly picked up something which kept slipping through our gnarled fingers. Other reviews have varied from describing the book as a wonderfully vivid alternate history of a Britain ruled by giant lizards to finding the plot over-packed and occasionally confusing. Let’s see what Matt made of it…
The Bookman, Lavie Tidhar
Angry Robot, 2016 (reissue)
Review by Matt Willis
“When his beloved is killed in a terrorist atrocity committed by the sinister Bookman, young poet Orphan becomes enmeshed in a web of secrets and lies. His quest to uncover the truth takes him from the hidden catacombs of a London on the brink of revolution, through pirate-infested seas, to the mysterious island that may hold the secret to the origin, not only of the shadowy Bookman, but of Orphan himself…”
This is the first in Lavie Tidhar’s Bookman Histories trilogy, originally published in 2010 but reissued by Angry Robot a couple of years ago. If you like your steampunk tropes coming at you thick and fast, you won’t go far wrong with The Bookman. Whether or not it’s technically steampunk is open to question, but the aesthetic is slap-bang in that territory – ‘Babbage Machines’ abound, alongside sophisticated automata, ‘baruch-landau’ steam cars, space guns and Edwardian Martian probes. A seedy London demi-monde gives way to fantastical Verne-esque landscapes.
The richness of the world is seen no less in its cast, where real historical figures rub shoulders with minor and major characters from dozens of novels, plays and poems – in some cases leading to the bizarre situation of authors interacting with characters they created. Not to mention the fact that some of those figures with familiar names appear in a distinctly unfamiliar form… Characters created by Conan Doyle mix with those from Thomas Hughes and the paranoid fantasies of David Icke, and they with real life actors, writers, astronomers-Royal, celebrity recipe-book creators and body-snatchers, in a world where pods of whales swim in the Thames and the ruling class is distinctly scaly.
All in all, the worldbuilding of The Bookman is a glorious mishmash, a gothic cathedral of a book drawing its influences from as many quarters as possible and wearing them proudly for all to see. I feel as though I failed to pick up half of the references, and as a student of English and American literature and a long-time fan of SF, weird fiction and historical fiction, I feel that is saying something. Not that you need to be completely familiar with everything from Wells to Wilde to follow the book, far from it, but the dramatic scenery will undoubtedly give an extra reward to those whose reading tastes are prolific and catholic.
This is no prose ‘League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’, mind you. While The Bookman is undoubtedly an adventure, and a rollicking one at that, it’s a bit more than the stitched together carcass of 19th century scientific romances and animated with a galvanic charge. The narrative is nuanced and has plenty to say about the nature of the differences between us, between man and machine, of authority and security, myth and reality. It is unashamedly postmodernist (I mean that in the proper sense of the word, not in the conspiracy-fantasist, Jordan Peterson sense) but it does not lack heart.
Although it’s perhaps in that heart that The Bookman finds its one aspect that lacks nuance – Orphan, the central character. This is not necessarily a shortcoming – he is something of an Everyman onto which readers can impose themselves, and indeed, an absence onto which agencies in the book can impose their agendas. He has one straightforward goal, which is to recover his lost love, Lucy, and around him labyrinthine conspiracies, plots and counter-plots swirl. The narrative will constantly keep the reader guessing as to who is on whose side and if those distinctions have any real meaning. Not to mention who or what The Bookman is, and what he wants. It’s also unclear until the end not just what the broad outcome will be, but which outcome we might want to take place. Perhaps under those circumstances it’s entirely appropriate that Orphan’s greatest flaw is passivity in the face of the vast machinery driving events (or perhaps occasionally a surfeit of earnestness). A metaphor throughout the book is a game of chess, and Orphan is frequently, to his annoyance, likened to a pawn. It’s an irony that he turns out to be quite a different piece.
The reissued edition has an additional story – ‘A Murder In The Cathedral!’ – placed after the main narrative concludes, which is self-contained but takes place during the period of the book itself. The reason for presenting this episode separately becomes clear on reading it. There are moments of humour in The Bookman, and generally it stays just on the right side of taking itself too seriously, but ‘A Murder In The Cathedral!’ is far more light-hearted and satirical in tone. Here we meet a phalanx of late-19th century scribes all journeying to Paris for Le Convention du Monde, where they vie for the (Victor) Hugo awards. It’s amusing and sharp, and would have seemed very out of place in the main narrative, not to mention slowing the pace to a crawl. As it is, it’s a fine Easter Egg for the dedicated reader. The Bookman itself is a delightful read and highly recommended. I suspect, had it only included more longdogs, it could have been written especially for a greydogtales’ audience.
Do return in a few days, when The Assassin’s Coin’ will have gone to the publisher and we have a bit more time. We might even get a proper Lurchers for Beginners post done this Summer!
Deluged under projects, news and reviews, we interrupt this broadcast to mention a few weird things circling overhead at the moment – such as Maniac Gods by Rich Hawkins; a review of Ed Erdelac’sTerovolas, to mark a new release of his; a historical novel concerning William the Conqueror; a brand new horror anthology from Crystal Lake, and a sale about to start at a small press. Yes, it’s one of our Mid-Week Medleys, but on the wrong day. Huzzah!
by francois vaillancourt, from crystal lake’s ‘lost highways’ – see later below
It’s admittedly a bit of a boys bash today, author-wise, but that’s how the dice fell (only J A Ironside of the ‘Oath & Crown’ saga holds the female fort below). However, we’re going to be covering the forthcoming debut novel from Gwendolyn Kiste, The Rust Maidens, later in the summer, and work from lots of other stonking women writers. We just need to read faster.
DISEASE & DISORDER IN DEVON
And in quite a few other lovely English places as well. We interviewed the rare, nocturnal West Country author Rich Hawkins on greydogtales a while back, but he kept writing despite that experience. Rich, known for his bleak landscapes of threat, horror and infection, has a new novella out, Maniac Gods. This is his latest incursion into the realm of cosmic horror and the Weird, where gods and monsters lurk in the thin places and await the call of their disciples.
From the British Fantasy Award nominated writer of BLACK STAR BLACK SUN and THE LAST PLAGUE…
One rainy night in Penbrook, Albie Samways’ family disappeared along with the rest of the village’s population, spirited away by unknown forces. In those abandoned streets and houses he encountered hellish creatures, madness and death, ending in a confrontation with the sadistic Doctor Ridings and his cultists.
He barely made it out alive.
Five years later, he lives in a squalid bedsit, miserable and heartbroken, suffering from nightmares and visions of monstrous things. He mourns. He mourns for his daughter, Milly, most of all.
Then one day she returns. However she is not the same girl he once knew, and tells him about terrible places, thin places, where gods and monsters reside in the darkness, waiting to enter our world.
But there is worse to come. Doctor Ridings and his followers are back, and they have plans for her. Horrific plans of black magic and sacrifice.
With no other option, Albie and Milly are forced to go on the run, beginning an epic chase across the country. He is all that stands between the monsters and his little girl.’
If you think fiction is weird and scary, try real history. Last year saw the release of the first part of ‘Oath and Crown’, a two book set covering the build up to the Norman invasion of England in 1066 and the event itself, led by Guillaume the Bastard, often called William the Conqueror.
An Argument of Blood (Penmore Press 2017) set the scene for the fate of England. Now writers Matt Willis and J A Ironsideare back with the guile and bloodshed of the consequences, in their new novel entitled A Black Matter for the King. Not fantasy, but as gripping as most imagined dynastic struggles (and better than some of those, let’s be honest).
‘The ambitions of two powerful men will decide the fates of rival cultures in a single battle at Hastings that will change England, Europe, and the world in this compelling conclusion to the ‘Oath & Crown’ series on the life and battles of William the Conqueror.’
Edward M Erdelac has re-released the first collection of his popular Merkabah Rider tales, with extra material.
‘A Hasidic gunslinger tracks the renegade teacher who betrayed his mystic Jewish order of astral travelers across the demon haunted American Southwest of 1879.
‘In this acclaimed first volume, four sequential novellas and one bonus short story chronicle the weird adventures of THE MERKABAH RIDER. This new edition includes the previously uncollected tale ‘The Shomer Express’. On a midnight train crossing the desert, a corpse turns up desecrated. Someone stalking the cars has assumed its shape, and only The Rider can stop it.’
As we were talking of Ed’s work, and had Matt ‘A Black Matter for the King’ Willis with us, we had Matt review Ed’s earlier Weird West book Terovolas for greydogtales as well. Good trick, eh?
Terovolas, by Edward M Erdelac
JournalStone, 2012
“I was somewhat familiar with Ed M Erdelac through his exciting and fun John Conquer stories published in Occult Detective Quarterly. These are a combination of Blaxploitation tropes and the supernatural and thoroughly enjoyable, so I was very happy to receive a review copy of that author’s Terovolas, which throws together characters from Bram Stoker’s Dracula against a different supernatural (or is it?) antagonist in a Western setting. Here’s the blurb:
The personal papers of the enigmatic Professor Abraham Van Helsing are collected and presented for the first time by his longtime colleague and defender, Dr. John Seward. Texas, 1891 Following the defeat of Count Dracula, Abraham Van Helsing – suffering from violent recurring fantasies – checks himself into Jack Seward’s Purfleet Asylum. Once discharged, he volunteers to return the ashes and personal effects of the late Quincey P. Morris (the American adventurer who died in battle with the nefarious Count) home to the Morris family ranch in Sorefoot, Texas. Van Helsing arrives to find Quincey’s brother, Cole Morris, embroiled in an escalating land dispute with a group of neighboring Norwegian ranchers led by the enigmatic Sig Skoll. When cattle and men start turning up slaughtered, the locals suspect a wild animal, but Van Helsing thinks a preternatural culprit is afoot. Is a shapeshifter stalking the Texas plains, or are the phantasms of his previously disordered mind returning? The intrepid professor must decide soon, for the life of Skoll’s beautiful new bride may hang in the balance.
“The danger in writing this kind of novel is that it comes off as a pastiche, feeling more like a caricature of the influencing elements than fully inhabiting them. I needn’t have worried, as Terovolas transports the Dracula ‘universe’ to the American Old West with care and respect and I felt instantly immersed in the world Erdelac paints. The voice of Van Helsing, with all his self-doubt and eccentricity was utterly convincing, and the Professor was surrounded by a cast of sympathetically drawn and authentic characters that could have come straight out of any Alan Le May or Zane Grey novel. These included a stoic rancher struggling to emerge from the shadow of his father and brother (Dracula’s Quincy P Morris), a nervy newspaperman, a world-weary Tonkawa native American, a mysterious and threatening Nordic newcomer, and his even more mysterious bride, the titular Callisto Terovolas.
“The narrative style of Dracula is also transported, which is to say a variation on the traditional epistolary format wherein the narrative is composed of a series of accounts written by the protagonists. This leaves no hiding place when it comes to command of the voice of a range of characters, but I found that each of the journal entries, letters and occasional editorial notes fitted together seamlessly and kept me fully engaged with the world of the novel.
“Something is preying on local livestock, and then local people. At the same time, the arrival of Sigmund Skoll with a group of taciturn ‘Norgies’ upsets the balance of the community in Sorefoot, Texas, where Van Helsing has travelled to bring the mortal remains of Quincy Morris back to the family home. Are the two factors connected? Is the cause of the slaughter supernatural or something more concrete (if no less threatening)? Is Van Helsing’s damaged mind up to the challenge? Or is his presence making a bad situation worse?
“Without giving too much away, Erdelac adeptly keeps the reader guessing as to the nature of the threat until the final denouement, and presents that rare thing, a worthy sequel to Dracula – though Terovolas is far more than simply a follow-up to Bram Stoker’s 1987 novel. I highly recommend Terovolas to anyone who enjoys their fiction fast-paced, amid thoroughly authentic historical settings. with a dash or more of weird.”
AUTHOR-Y NOTE: Ed Erdelac’s character John Conquer returns soon in the brand new ODQ Presents anthology, coming out over summer 2018, and Matt Willis provides the opening tale for the Hell’s Empire anthology, due later this year.
…AND WEIRD RIDES IN THE WEST
Finally for books today, out on 20th July is a new anthology from Crystal Lake Publishing – Lost Highways, edited by D Alexander Ward.
‘The highways, byways and backroads of America are teeming day and night with regular folks. Moms and dads making long commutes. Teenagers headed to the beach. Bands on their way to the next gig. Truckers pulling long hauls. Families driving cross country to visit their kin.
‘But there are others, too. The desperate and the lost. The cruel and the criminal.
‘Theirs is a world of roadside honky-tonks, truck stops, motels, and the empty miles between destinations. The unseen spaces. And there are even stranger things. Places that aren’t on any map. Wayfaring terrors and haunted legends about which seasoned and road-weary travelers only whisper.
‘But those are just stories. Aren’t they? Find out for yourself as you get behind the wheel with some of today’s finest authors of the dark and horrific as they bring you these harrowing tales from the road. Tales that could only be spawned by the endless miles of America’s lost highways.’
doungjai gam & Ed Kurtz — “Crossroads of Opportunity”
Matt Hayward — “Where the Wild Winds Blow”
Joe R. Lansdale — “Not from Detroit”
Kristi DeMeester — “A Life That is Not Mine”
Robert Ford — “Mr. Hugsy”
Lisa Kröger — “Swamp Dog”
Orrin Grey — “No Exit”
Michael Bailey — “The Long White Line”
Kelli Owen — “Jim’s Meats”
Bracken MacLeod — “Back Seat”
Jess Landry — “The Heart Stops at the End of Laurel Lane”
Jonathan Janz — “Titan, Tyger”
Nick Kolakowski — “Your Pound of Flesh”
Richard Thomas — “Requital”
Damien Angelica Walters — “That Pilgrims’ Hands Do Touch”
And as we slam this together we note that there’s a sale on at Gehenna and Hinnom, from 20th to 27th July 2018, allowing you to delve into their weird fiction magazine and other publications on the cheap. Which is always good.
What is a Sherlock Holmes story, what is pastiche, and was Watson a secret agent of the Freemasons*? Is writing new Holmes stories restrictive or liberating, and if you add the supernatural or steam airships, should you be shot? Today we venture into our sideline of classic detective fiction (which is often very weird in its own right), and talk to author Hugh Ashton, who has been there in the trenches.
Sharp-eared listeners – assuming they are not dark elves or Vulcans – will have noticed that the old greydogJohn Linwood Grant writes Holmesian fiction. And he has a tendency to go for the canon (with occasional, very slight diversions). That is to say, rooting stories firmly in the timeline, settings and characterisations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories.
Later this year should see the publication of greydog’s ‘The Musgrave Burden’, a substantial canonical sequel to ‘The Musgrave Ritual’ which looks at the possible interpretations and consequences of the original without ever breaking the rules. Also, ‘The Curious Case of the Two Coptic Patriarchs’, based on historical events and a mention in Conan Doyle’s ‘The Retired Colourman’ (in Beyond the Canon from Belanger Books, and the MX Book of Untold Tales respectively).
Completing these tales put us in mind of another writer, Hugh Ashton, who has also Holmesed (amongst other literary ventures) so we thought it might be interesting to chat to Hugh about the whole business. And it was, so here we go…
*No, he probably wasn’t.
AN INTERVIEW WITH HUGH ASHTON
hugh ashton
Hugh Ashton left the UK in 1988 for Japan on a two-year contract. Twenty-eight years later he returned with a Japanese wife. While in Japan, he started writing fiction seriously (he was already writing instruction manuals and the like, which some might classify as fiction).
His alternative history book, Beneath Gray Skies, looked at a world where the American Civil War was not fought, but the Confederacy continued to exist until the 1920s, when it formed an alliance with Germany’s National Socialist German Worker’s Party. One review of this suggested that the author (described as a “flaming liberal”) be burned in effigy and pay-per-view tickets sold to help solve the US national debt.
Later titles included At the Sharpe End, a thriller set in 2008 Tokyo, and Red Wheels Turning, another alternative history book set in pre-revolutionary Russia, before he signed a deal with Inknbeans Press of California and started to produce Sherlock Holmes adventures (and many other books, including children’s stories about Sherlock Ferret and his friend Watson Mouse who battle the nefarious Moriarty Magpie) until the death of the founder of Inknbeans in December 2017 and the closure of the publisher. He is now published by j-views Publishing, having returned to live in Lichfield, Staffordshire in July 2016. He keeps no lurchers, or indeed any pets, other than a potted palm, which never needs to go walkies, and is impeccably house-trained.
greydog: Thanks for joining us, Hugh. Just as a general introduction, how did you get into writing Sherlock Holmes stories in the first place?
hugh: I was in Japan on January 2, 2012, playing Cluedo with a friend and his daughters, and someone made the remark “We all know about Sherlock Holmes’ smarter older brother, Mycroft, but what about his smarter younger sister?” So when I got home, I thought about this, and wrote ‘The Odessa Business’, basically finishing this short story in one day. I put it up on Smashwords, followed soon afterwards by ‘The Mystery of the Missing Matchbox’ (the case of Isadora Persano, the well-known duellist and journalist, who was found stark staring mad with a matchbox on the table in front of him containing a remarkable worm, said to be unknown to science).
These were well-liked, and my then publisher, Inknbeans Press, asked me to write another one, and Inknbeans would then put it out as a book of three stories. From start to publication the whole thing took less than a month – the paperback was on sale on Amazon before the end of January. I have a friend who’s published by Simon & Schuster – it takes 18 months between manuscript submission and publication. Since then I’ve written two Holmes novellas and about 30 more Holmes shorts of about 8,000 words each. They’ve been very well received.
greydog:The terminology of post-Conan Doyle Holmes stories is complex. Homage, tribute, parody, fan-fiction, pastiche and so on. Many who write the more hard-core, more canonical pieces would, we suppose, accept ‘pastiche’. Where do you stand on this?
hugh: I’ll settle for ‘pastiche’. It annoyed me when I first put out my stories, but I’ve since come to accept it. Quite a few reviews have hailed me as “today’s Arthur Conan Doyle” and said my pastiches are indistinguishable from the real thing. I beg to differ. Every time I feel I have a nice turn of phrase, I go back to the Canon, and find the Doyle work to be rather different. But I do flatter myself that I write in a style which doesn’t jar with the originals, and which is factually accurate with regard to places and real people, and the society within which Holmes operates.
greydog:Do you favour the Cerebral Holmes – ‘His shirt cuffs tell us everything’ – or the Action Holmes – ‘Quickly, your revolver, Watson’- in your own work?
hugh: I like the cerebral Holmes, but I introduce action as well. I try not to turn Holmes into a Bulldog Drummond or Richard Hannay, though – he is much more than either of these, and he has some delightful character flaws which make him so much more fun to write about than a square-jawed Boys’ Own Paper hero, even when he is fighting for his life. I like Holmes working for the government, using his skills to defeat the beastly Hun’s foul tricks, or the Fenians and Home Rule, or the Okhrana versus the anarchists in London. I have an interest in that period, as well as the Royal Navy in the early 20th century, so the Navy makes its appearance at times.
I never forget the saying that “Other detectives have cases; Sherlock Holmes has adventures”. I also attempt to slip in little quotable quotes – though I’ve not yet come up with anything as good as the curious behaviour of the dog in the night, or “that is what you may expect to see when I follow you”.
greydog:And do you find the existing canon at all restrictive for a writer?
hugh: Actually, I think that ACD left us with just enough there to add to the Canon, and more importantly, to add to the characters of both Holmes and Watson, without breaking the chain of continuity. Of course we can go off at tangents and turn them into a gay couple, or make the seven per cent solution a little stronger (it’s one of the more frequent myths about Holmes from those who haven’t read the Canon – “Wasn’t he a drug addict?”) or turn Watson into a cartoonish comic, but that’s not my approach.
Playing the Great Game (i.e., working on the assumption that Holmes and Watson actually existed and ACD was no more than Watson’s literary agent), I would claim that Watson’s Canonical adventures were intended as advertising for Holmes’ services. They therefore tend to downplay Watson’s role in the adventures, and to obfuscate some of Holmes’ methods. There is just enough hinted there to imply that the truth is a little stranger and more complex than Watson cared to put in print, and there may well be some details that are not intended for contemporary consumption. Hence the appeal of the Untolds (those stories mentioned in the Canon but never told), which allow us to get a more rounded picture of the occupants of 221b.
I expand the characters, building firmly on the foundation of the originals, listening to Jeremy Brett speak my words as I write. One of my favourite reviews of my first Holmes book came from Philip Jones, the world’s leading pastiche archivist and cataloguer. He wrote “These stories are deceptive. They look like familiar Canonical tales and yet they are more personal and, in some ways, more satisfying. The reader is taken more into the lives of Holmes and Watson than in the published tales. Both men seem more real and more interesting as people than they do in the Canonical tales. Holmes and Watson bicker and argue and are alive and human. The surrounding world also seems more `up close and personal’ than that presented in the Canon. … This is a human world and the detectives are also people.” So I am free to make my Watson a little more of a person than in the Canon and to describe the Holmes/Watson relationship a little more fully, including some squabbling and bickering, but without the absurdity of the RDJ (Robert Downey Jr)/Jude Law characters.
greydog:Given that Conan Doyle became an ardent – and sometimes credulous – spiritualist, do you think it odd for the Great Detective to conclude that the supernatural is none of his business, if it exists at all?
hugh: Definitely odd, yes. But when you read some of ACD’s other material, there is a semi-mystical element there. He did write some ghost/paranormal stories, which are not great, but there are hints of some supernatural forces in the historical romances (White Company and Sir Nigel). I suppose we can psychoanalyse ACD in Jungian terms and see Holmes as his rational animus, and the away with the fairies side as his emotional anima, but that’s just slapping labels on things, and doesn’t really explain anything, does it?
One thing I do share with Conan Doyle, by the way, is the wish that people would start to read and recognise my non-Sherlock Holmes work. I don’t necessarily want a knighthood for writing a war history, but I would like it to be known that my other work is imaginative and pretty well-written. I’ve ventured into the historical and thriller genres, like ACD, and there is a non-material (I hesitate to call it paranormal or spiritual) aspect to some of my other stories.
greydog:We quite like the idea of Holmes as Doyle’s rational animus. How far away from the canonical material is too far – steampunk, Lovecraftian, horror, Holmes in Space etc.? All have been tried, with wildly varying degree of success.
hugh: I would say that such material involves the adventures of a detective who shares the same name as Sherlock Holmes. This also applies to the BBC SHERLOCK (though I did enjoy the first two seasons, the third was silly, and I couldn’t be bothered to watch the fourth) and especially to the RDJ adventures – great steampunk action movies – and nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes. Though I confess that it would be interesting to see Holmes in contact with one of his contemporaries – I have sometimes thought of introducing him to Dorrington (the criminal detective – by which I mean he is a criminal – by Arthur Morrison). I’d also be interested to have him meet Carnacki (William Hope Hodgson).
greydog: If you were able to rewrite and re-interpret any one story in the existing canon, which would you go for? Or would that be sacrilegious?
hugh: Sacred cows make the best hamburger, don’t they? Actually, I have rewritten, to a large extent, The Red-Headed League, by telling it from the point of view of “the fourth smartest man in London”, John Clay. It formed the final episode in his autobiography, and I make it clear that Clay was never a murderer, or even a violent criminal. I also introduce Clay as a minor protagonist in other Holmes stories – after all, in the Canon, Holmes is well aware of the existence of John Clay, and of his reputation.
greydog:Which of your Holmes stories would you recommend as an introduction to your approach?
hugh: I like The Darlington Substitution – it’s a novella, and it owes a lot to The Hound of the Baskervilles in its general approach, without, I hope, being too derivative. My other longer Holmes story, The Death of Cardinal Tosca, involves quite a lot of intricate late 19th-century politics. Both books involve Holmes the thinker, as well as Holmes the man of action.
I also like “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Hand of Glory” in The Last Notes from the Dispatch-Box of John H. Watson M.D. It takes Holmes and Watson to the Midlands, and it is a Canonical tale, though somewhat grisly and ghoulish, as of course are a couple of the Canon. I also like my second-ever adventure, “The Missing Matchbox”, in Tales from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D.
greydog:Finally, anything in the pipeline you’d care to share?
hugh: Since the death of my editor (who was more than just an editor and publisher, and her death hit me very hard on a personal level), I’ve been busy with the republication of my existing books, as well as helping others with their books, and I haven’t had enough time to write much. I am, however, engaged in the account of how Sherlock Holmes battled against Baron Maupertuis, and I really must resurrect my alternative history set in the Intervention in Russia post-Bolshevik Revolution. It’s been on the go on and off for about five years. I’m also getting into writing shorter pieces (less than 1,000 words), which is always an interesting exercise, and our local writing group is producing a thriller – each person producing one chapter. I have the job of killing off red herrings and stitching together the different parts.
greydog: Many thanks for joining us today. Where can readers find you?
hugh:Hugh@j-views.biz will reach me – right now I have no blog or book site, but www.j-views.biz advertises my book production services (I do my own covers and book interiors, which often get favourable mentions in reviews). I am also quite noisy on Facebook and sometimes on Twitter.
Most of these books below are available as ebook and paperback, but some are currently only in one format. Look for Hugh Ashton on Amazon. You should find me quite easily there or on Smashwords. If all else fails, order my books from your local bookstore – I don’t create my paperbacks through Amazon, so it should be possible for them to order them.
Sherlock Holmes Titles
Tales from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D.
More from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D.
Secrets from the Deed Box of John H. Watson M.D.
The Case of the Trepoff Murder
The Bradfield Push
The Darlington Substitution
Notes from the Dispatch-Box of John H. Watson M.D.
Further Notes from the Dispatch-Box of John H. Watson M.D.
The Death of Cardinal Tosca
The Last Notes from the Dispatch-Box of John H. Watson M.D.
Without My Boswell
1894
Some Singular Cases of Mr. Sherlock Holmes
The Adventure of Vanaprastha
The Lichfield Murder
General titles
Tales of Old Japanese
The Untime
The Untime Revisited
The Untime & The Untime Revisited (paperback)
Balance of Powers
Leo’s Luck
Beneath Gray Skies
Red Wheels Turning
At the Sharpe End
Angels Unawares
Titles for Children
Sherlock Ferret and the Missing Necklace
Sherlock Ferret and the Multiplying Masterpieces
Sherlock Ferret and the Poisoned Pond
Sherlock Ferret and the Phantom Photographer
The Adventures of Sherlock Ferret (hard cover)
And there we must close – back as soon as possible with book-type news, a review or two, and our usual witterings on lurchers and life, probably…
We’re back into the saddle with a huge Wold Newtonian Special. Not Yorkshire myths this time, but details of a treasure house of books and articles on the writings of Philip José Farmer (1918 – 2009) – including a special interview with Michael Croteau, publisher/editor for the massive PJF Centennial Collection, recent publications and comments on his fiction themes, his Wold Newton universe, non-fiction writing, and so much more.
Dave Brzeski, one of our intrepid reviewers, dared to travel up the River, across the Tiers and grasp the Flesh of it all (which is a pointless set of references unless you read PJF, but there you go)…
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER
by Dave Brzeski
I have recently been accused of being a bit too fanboyish in my book reviews. It’s a fair comment I think. I have no particular interest in writing scathing hatchet job reviews of books I really dislike. If I can’t find anything much positive to say, I’d honestly prefer to say nothing. Thus, I only tend to review books and authors I know I’ll enjoy. I’ve been a huge Philip José Farmer fan since the early to mid seventies, so I make no apology for the overwhelmingly positive nature of the words that follow.
THE PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER CENTENNIAL COLLECTION (METEOR HOUSE)
I had an opening in mind for this piece, even before opening the book. The thing is, Joe R. Lansdale somehow conspired to say exactly the same thing in his introduction, so I’m simply going to quote him…
“Philip José Farmer is my favorite science fiction writer, but to brand him with that moniker, would eliminate so many things that he wrote that weren’t truly science fiction. Still, in Phil’s case, I think calling him a science fiction writer, and seeing him as one of its true geniuses, is not altogether incorrect. He worked best with those tools.”
I’ve reviewed a few books over the last few years by Farmer, and/or those who have followed him, so I was very pleased to be presented with an advance pdf copy of this huge book. Pleased and somewhat daunted if I’m honest. Normally, when reviewing a collection, anthology or magazine I would read each and every story, making notes as I go. Clearly this would not really work for a 940 page collection of previously published material. I would imagine that most of the purchasers of this mighty tome will be established fans and will likely have already read a good part of the material contained within, albeit I certainly hope that more than a few interested PJF virgins might take the plunge and use it as a starting point for an inevitable Philip José Farmer book collection.
It occurred to me that it might pay dividends to ask the publisher/editor, Michael Croteau some (im)pertinent questions about how the book came to be…
MICHAEL CROTEAU INTERVIEWED
philip josé farmer
brzeski:Firstly, please tell me a little about how you discovered PJF’s work…
croteau: My mother is a voracious reader, and she had a pretty large Farmer collection when I was a kid. The first book of his I read, in middle school I believe, was the Science Fiction Book Club omnibus, The World of Tiers Volume 1, with the great Boris Vallejo cover. I followed that up with Volume 2 of course, Time’s Last Gift, The Stone God Awakens, and The Fabulous Riverboat (yes, I read the first two Riverworld novels out of order, I didn’t know any better at the time!).
brzeski: When/where did you first meet PJF?
croteau: In September 1995 Phil was the guest of honor at RiverCon XX in Louisville, Kentucky. I traveled there from Atlanta, Georgia, to get my collection of books signed. Since there was a long line of fans we could each only get two books signed at a time. I went through the line over and over again with my box of hardcovers, until I was the only one left. I managed to get all my hardcovers signed, but alas, my box of paperbacks was still up in my hotel room.
The following year, after trying to contact Phil through several publishers, I finally called him on the phone and told him I had created this thing called a “webpage” about him on this other thing called the “internet.” I printed it out and mailed it to him asking if I had missed any of his books or stories (I had, but he didn’t answer that question). Instead, to my chagrin, he sent the printout back to me covered in red pen corrections! Not the most auspicious introduction.
brzeski: But things got better from there?
croteau: Yes, I kept in touch with him as I added to the website. In 1997 I visited him at his home in Peoria, Illinois, along with another fan, Craig Kimber, and we interviewed him for the site. In 1998 I visited again to scan book covers from his collection and he and his wife Bette invited me to spend the night at their home.
brzeski: How did you get started as a contributor to works about PJF and how did Meteor House come about?
croteau:As I continued to visit him, he let me look through his files and I found a lot of material that had never been published. Many of these stories we were able to finally publish in the huge collection of rarities, Pearls From Peoria (Paul Spiteri, Ed.), but I kept finding more material each time I went through the files (thus we named it the “Magic Filing Cabinet”).
So I started the fanzine, Farmerphile: the Magazine of Philip José Farmer with the help of Paul Spiteri, Christopher Paul Carey, Win Scott Eckert, and Keith Howell. Each issue included previously unpublished fiction and non-fiction by Phil, as well as articles about him by his fans and fellow science fiction writers. We even serialized the novel, Up From the Bottomless Pit across the first ten issues.
Farmerphile ran from July 2005 through January 2009, ending just before Phil passed away in February of that year. After a year had passed we started to get restless and in 2010 we launched Meteor House with our first book, The Worlds of Philip José Farmer, Volume 1. The main difference between Farmerphile, and the Worlds series, is that we were now authorized to publish new fiction set in Phil’s worlds and using his characters. We’ve done four volumes in the series, reprinted several of Phil’s novels, and published new novellas set in his worlds by other writers.
brzeski:It’s hardly surprising that The Philip José Farmer Centennial Collection is a huge book, not much under 1000 pages. It can’t have been easy deciding what to include and what to leave out. How did you go about making your selections?
croteau: It was a very long process. I started working on this book about two years ago, trying to decide what to include and even how to order the contents.
brzeski: Is there anything you’d dearly love to have included, but couldn’t for some reason?
croteau: Throughout Phil’s career several short excerpts from his longer works have been published. Two of the better-known ones are “Sexual Implications of the Charge of the Light Brigade” (from “Riders of the Purple Wage”), and “My Father the Ripper” (from A Feast Unknown). With these as inspiration I wanted to showcase some work from Phil’s novels in this collection and have included three new excerpts: “Kickaha’s Escape” from A Private Cosmos, “Plane Talking” from A Barnstormer in Oz, and “Casting Turtles” from Nothing Burns in Hell. I wish we could have chosen excerpts from many more of his novels.
brzeski:There was obviously limited scope for collecting material that the long-standing PJF fan hadn’t previously seen, especially regarding the fiction. How did you balance showcasing PJF at his very best with the possibility of including stuff many fans will not have read before?
croteau: Since Pearls From Peoria already collects most of his rarest works, and last year we published the rather large collection, The Best of Farmerphile, which included more rare material, we felt it unnecessary to worry about works that fans may not have seen before. Meteor House looked at this collection as a career retrospective and we tried to show as many different facets of his work as possible. That’s why, along with his very best fiction, you will also find articles he wrote for fanzines, speeches he gave at conventions, and even stories that sat in the Magic Filing Cabinet for decades before we published them in Farmerphile
the paperback version
Many thanks to Michael Croteau for joining us on greydogtales.
The Centennial Collection is usefully divided into sections for each decade, from the 1940s, through to the 2000s, with an informative intro by Michael Croteau for each section.
The 1940s actually includes within its introduction, young Philip Farmer’s first published short story, written at the tender age of ten. His early journalistic ambitions are amply illustrated with a report on the trip he made on behalf of his school, Bradley Polytechnical Institute in Peoria, to present bandleader, Fred Waring with a ceremonial Cherokee headdress, as a thank-you for writing the fight song for the Bradley Braves. “Bradley Brave Sees New York” was published in The Bradley Tech school paper.
We get to the real meat of this section, though, with his first professional sale, a story which would have sold to the Saturday Evening Post, but for his refusal to compromise over their requested removal of a specific scene, which led to him selling it to the lower-paying Adventure magazine instead. “O’Brien and Obrenov” is as classic an example of the trademark PJF humour as you’ll find anywhere. I couldn’t help but agree with Farmer about the Saturday Evening Post’s requested change. It would have ruined the story.
The 1950s: Since that first sale in 1946, Philip José Farmer didn’t make another sale until 1952. In fact he hadn’t even attempted to sell any science fiction yet. His first story in the genre was “The Lovers”, which first appeared in the August 1952 issue of Startling Stories. Familiar as I was with “The Lovers”, and the impact it made on the genre, I was a bit taken aback here—“The Lovers” was his very first attempt at science fiction? Of course, the version I, and I suspect most others are familiar with is the expanded book version, which was first published in 1961. I was certainly aware of the original novella, but don’t think I’d ever taken the time to read it before, so this, at least was something new to me.
The decision to go for Farmer’s best and most important work is illustrated by the inclusion of stories like “Sail On! Sail On!”, which is one of his most reprinted stories. There’s a good reason for that; it’s a true classic. As well as other ground breaking fiction, we have some of the articles Farmer wrote for the fanzines, including “The Tin Woodman Slams the Door” which was the very piece that was responsible for my picking up and reading L. Frank Baum’s OZ books. This was to be a common element of my relationship with Philip José Farmer—all the other books he caused me to purchase.
Sadly, we also get the story of how an unscrupulous publisher cost Farmer his house and the world the novel, Owe for the Flesh—at least in that version.
a classic ace cover, from the copy we still have in the magic loft
The 1960s was a huge decade for Farmer. Classic series such as Riverworld and The World of Tiers had their beginnings, and both are represented here. Classic shorter works include the Hugo Award winning “Riders of the Purple Wage” and “The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod”, which was Farmer’s idea of what the Tarzan stories would have been like, had they been written by William Burroughs rather than Edgar Rice Burroughs. The latter was one of many sales Farmer made to adult magazines. Another excerpt, “My Father the Ripper”, taken from A Feast Unknown is a further example of this more “adult” work Farmer was quickly becoming known for.
There’s less non-fiction in this section than in the previous, but we do get an amusing report Farmer wrote of his visit to the 1969 International Film Festival in Rio. This rueful opening paragraph from the piece will, I’m sure, reflect the experience of many authors as to their place in the media pecking order…
“The Rio airport is hot, sticky, and noisy. We’re standing in line, waiting to board the plane for New York, wondering if this evening, a nightmare (though comic at times), will ever end. Brazilians crowd around Jonathan Harris, the Mr. Smith of Lost in Space to worship and to get his autograph. Behind the worshippers are Bester, Clarke, Ellison, Farmer, Harrison, Moskowitz, and Van Vogt, none of whom are recognized. So people do knot themselves around the lead character in a sillyass space opera. This is natural, I tell myself. One picture worth ten thousand words.”
The 1970s continued to provide us with lots of Farmerian riches. More Riverworld, more World of Tiers… and no less than three books that owed much to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan. The short story, “The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World” which began the critically acclaimed Dayworld series is also to be found here.
Few people would claim writer’s block could ever be a positive thing, but in Farmer’s case it was that very problem that led to his re-imaginings of so many classic characters not of his own creation. An integral part of these excursions into the worlds of other authors was The Wold Newton Family. Beginning with a number of articles on Tarzan, including an “interview” with the real Lord Greystoke, which is reprinted in this section, Farmer began his influential fictional biographies – Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, alongside which came “Wold Newton” stories and novels. One such is the classic “After King Kong Fell”, a long time favourite of mine which I was very happy to see in this collection. Also included are non-fiction pieces on “Writing Doc’s Biography” and Sherlock Holmes, not to mention an interesting story featuring A.J. Raffles and the Great Detective himself.
Another idea Farmer loved to play with was that of fictional authors and their works. “Osiris on Crutches,” which Farmer originally credited as having been co-written with Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor is one example included here. Farmer finally conquered his writer’s block in the latter part of the decade and this is represented by the inclusion of a rare horror story—“The Freshman”.
The final offering for this decade is an interesting and valuable essay on “Creating Artificial Worlds”, which I suspect will still be as useful to budding and experienced authors alike as it was when it was first published.
The 1980s is where pickings get a little slimmer for this collection. Farmer was concentrating on novels, which left fewer short stories to make selections from. A few classics are included, however, such as “The Long Wet Dream of Rip van Winkle”. We have an excerpt from the novel, A Barnstormer in Oz, which represented something of a dream come true for Farmer, as he’d always wanted to write an Oz novel. There’s more non-fiction in the shape of essays and convention speeches, which are actually some of the more interesting reads in this collection for someone, like myself, who is perhaps a little over-familiar with much of the content.
We are also told of yet another case of Hollywood’s lack of regards for writers, in the case of Farmer’s having wasted two years working on an unused treatment for a sequel to Fantastic Voyage.
The 1990s again offers only a handful of short stories. Amongst others this collection includes “Evil, Be My Good”, which was Farmer’s take on the Frankenstein concept. We have another novel excerpt—this time from Farmer’s first and only attempt at a noir crime novel, Nothing Burns in Hell. Non fiction includes “Why I Write” and an interesting piece on his friendship with Robert Bloch.
The 2000s was always going to be even sparser than the previous two decades, as Farmer officially retired from writing in 1999—that’s what I’m guessing most people would assume in any case. I’m pleased to report that this is, in fact, not the case. You will remember that Michael Croteau, in his interview above, made mention of the “Magic Filing Cabinet”, a treasure trove of previously unseen, unpublished material from Farmer’s files. This was the main source of Pearls From Peoria, a huge collection of rarities, published by Subterranean Press in 2006. Not only that, as more material came to light, it became the genesis of the fifteen issue run of the fanzine, Farmerphile: the Magazine of Philip José Farmer. This final section contains no less than eight of those rarities.
Finally, the book is completed with an extensive bibliography of Farmer’s works by Zacharias L.A. Nuninga.
If I have one complaint about this collection—and it’s obviously not a serious one—it’s in the sheer number of times a mention of a particular work in one of Michael Croteau’s intros made me look for that particular story in the contents page, only to find that one wasn’t in the book. Thankfully, I had every one of them somewhere else, but others may wonder if this was an intentional move on Mr Croteau’s part to encourage readers to seek out and purchase the books in question.
THE BEST OF FARMERPHILE: THE MAGAZINE OF PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER (METEOR HOUSE)
This book has actually been out about a year now, but it’s important enough a collection to be worth talking about here. It’s exactly what it says on the tin—a collection of the best material from the 15 issue run of the fanzine, Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer. It’s a pretty big book, albeit at a “mere” 580 pages or so, it’s nowhere near as huge as the Philip José Farmer Centennial Collection.
There is, it can’t be denied, some small crossover of material between the two books, mainly in the selection of rare Farmer fiction, but I wouldn’t consider there to be enough duplication to seriously worry most potential purchasers.
The first thing that struck me was the material that wasn’t included. The first ten Issues of the magazine serialised the unpublished novel Up From the Bottomless Pit, which would obviously have made this a much bigger book. Apart from the greatly increased page count, I suspect the publication of Up From the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories by Subterranean Press in 2007 had some bearing on the matter. Sadly that book is now out of print and the Kindle edition is unavailable outside the USA.
Bette Farmer had a regular column in the fanzine and all of her entertaining reminiscences are reprinted in the first section, “Nonfiction by Regular Contributors”, under the blanket title of “The Roller Coaster Ride With Phil Farmer”. Fascinating anecdotes told in a warm, humorous style, they are a genuine pleasure to read. It rather led me to wonder if there is anyone in Farmer’s immediate family who isn’t a talented writer.
I would have been truly astonished had Win Scott Eckert’s Creative Mythology essays not been heavily represented here, and of course they are. I can’t deny that when I read these pieces I sometimes feel the need for paper & pencil to construct some sort of flow chart to get all the genealogical information, and various alternate identities of various characters a bit clearer in my head. I wonder if anyone has ever considered approaching Pete Frame with the idea of trying to create one of those family trees like the ones he so famously made to chart the history of various rock bands? I could imagine it as a huge wall poster. I’d certainly buy a copy!
Win Scott Eckert is by no means the only creative mythographer to have essays collected in this book. Dennis E. Power, Paul Spiteri and Christopher Paul Carey all have material in this section, along with a few pieces by Farmer’s nephew, Danny Adams—another member of the clan with serious writing chops! There’s certainly enough scholarly material here to make this book an essential companion to Myths for the Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe (2005), edited by Win Scott Eckert.
The second section of the book is given over to “Nonfiction by Philip José Farmer”. Here we have his Guest of Honour speeches from various conventions, lectures, correspondence etc. Farmer writes equally knowledgeably and entertainingly about subjects as diverse as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Kipling’s Mowgli, Sherlock Holmes, the many varied aspects of his own work and writing in general. I can’t emphasise enough just how informative and downright readable Farmer’s essays and speeches are.
In addition to the regular contributors, there’s an abundance of material by other authors in “Nonfiction by Guest Contributors”. Here we find in depth essays on Farmer and his work from friends and colleagues. There are some familiar names here. Will Murray, Joe R. Lansdale, Spider Robinson, Howard Waldrop and many others. There’s even a contribution from “Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor”. It’s particularly fascinating to read the tales of how meeting and getting to know Farmer affected the lives of so many people.
For many readers, there’s no getting away from the fact that the section entitled “Fiction by Philip José Farmer” will be where much of their interest lies. No less than thirteen stories by Philip José Farmer that hadn’t seen the light of day until they were published in Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer are included in this volume. Not only that, there’s a fourteenth tale, “Getting Ready to Write”, which serves to add Paul Spiteri to that list of very special authors who somehow managed to seamlessly complete an unfinished story of Farmer’s, from his fragments and notes.
Some of the non-fiction pieces in this collection were revised and expanded for inclusion in various of the Titan Books Philip José Farmer reissues. In those cases this book collects those more recent versions in preference to the originals.
As with the Philip José Farmer Centennial Collection, this is another book I’m reviewing without first reading it from cover to cover. Obviously, having picked up all the issues of Farmerphile as they were published, not to mention all of the Titan Books Farmer reissues, much of the material was familiar to me. I will absolutely be reading various pieces from this collection again and again over the years to come.
If, dear reader, you’re naively thinking that’s all I have to bring to your attention regarding the centennial of one of the greatest Grand Masters of science fiction—well, you’d be wrong. Published just a few days ago (July 2nd) I couldn’t possibly not mention…
THE GRANDEST ADVENTURE: WRITINGS ON PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER by CHRISTOPHER PAUL CAREY (LEAKY BOOT PRESS)
Christopher Paul Carey has written quite a lot about Philip José Farmer over the years, so rest assured that, though this book does indeed include a few short pieces that also feature in The Best of Farmerphile, they represent just a small fraction of the treasure trove of material in this collection. In fact the majority of the material that originally appeared in that now out of print fanzine is now only available here. The material collected ranges from 1996 to 2018 and originally saw print in such diverse publications as The Bronze Gazette (Doc Savage fanzine), Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer, Locus, The Burroughs Bulletin, SF Signal, The Worlds of Philip José Farmer and a Farmercon Convention Program. We also get assorted forewords, afterwords, prefaces etc. from specific editions of Farmer’s books, some of which are now seriously hard to get hold of and a good number of pieces previously only available on assorted websites.
To be found here are, as one would expect, several pieces of in-depth Wold Newton research, alongside detailed examinations of some of Farmer’s greatest works with much focus on the underlying themes that drove them. Subjects covered here include Doc Savage, Sufism, Fictional, Authors and Edgar Rice Burroughs. It will come as no surprise to those that have read my somewhat enthusiastic reviews of Christopher Paul Carey’s continuations of Farmer’s Khokarsa books that my favourites here were the personal reminiscences of Carey’s meetings with Farmer and working alongside him on the final part of the Khokarsa trilogy. Song of Kwasin, along with a number of detailed, informative essays on the world of Khokarsa.
Few, if any, can rival Christopher Paul Carey in his in depth knowledge of Farmer and his work, and this is a truly exemplary collection of pieces that brings us so much closer to the Grand master himself. The book is heavily illustrated throughout with relevant photographs and book covers. Christopher Paul Carey can be found talking about The Grandest Adventure on his vlog on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSRSCxO0DQ0&feature=youtu.be
The book may be ordered from Amazon, the Book Depositry, and others. Here’s the publisher’s link:
THE BEAST AND OTHER SECRET HISTORIES by JOHN ALLEN SMALL (ETHAN BOOKS)
This is the point at which I had assumed I’d be done with talking about books celebrating 100 years of Philip José Farmer. But just as I was working on my first draft of this blog post, another member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society—John Allen Small—announced the publication of The Beast and Other Secret Histories, yet another collection of writings about Philip José Farmer. At under 150 pages, this is shorter than all the other books under discussion here, but it is no less interesting for that.
As with Carey’s book, the pieces found herein originally appeared in various outlets, both in print and online, including Glimmerglass: The Creative Writer’s Journal, Myths for the Modern Age, and Encyclopedia Galactica. I rather suspect that two of those are going to be pretty hard to find these days. Also in this book, we have an opportunity to witness exactly how the various members of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society worked together, in the form of emails that Small exchanged with Win Scott Eckert.
In this case, the book is pretty much all about Wold Newton Family research. Subjects covered include, the true history of King Kong, James Phelps and the Impossible Missions Force, Louis L’Amour’s Sackett family saga, Lilith: the First Vampire, the Eugenics War, the Questor File and early super-heroes. John Allen Small’s writing tends to have a lighter, more conversational tone than that of his fellow creative mythographers, which is by no means a criticism.
Finally, Small treats us to an actual story, “The Bright Heart of Eternity”, where a man named Phil meets a man named Ed in another world. Short and sweet, it sent a shiver down my spine.
I think this one is an Amazon exclusive. Here are the links for the USA:
It occurred to me, while putting together this feature on Philip José Farmer, that there are many interesting parallels between PJF and another cult author who is often simply referred to by his three initials alone.
H.P. Lovecraft, and Philip José Farmer both had a group of—disciples is probably not too strong a word—who followed and supported his work. (I think the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society is a much cooler name than the Lovecraft Circle, but I suspect the latter was applied to HPL’s group after the fact, whereas PJF’s chose their own). In both cases—August Derleth’s Arkham House for HPL and Michael Croteau’s Meteor House for PJF—one of these friends and followers created a publishing imprint with the specific purpose of promoting the master’s work, which proved to have a wider scope than that laudable ambition alone would have suggested. Both HPL and PJF created a mythos of sorts that their immediate circle would contribute to—and which would go on to inspire and be added to by many, many authors beyond that circle. In both cases, there would eventually be material produced that is considered by serious scholars to be of a lesser quality—that endless multitude of authors who considered name-dropping an ancient tome, or Great Old One in their fiction was enough to make it Lovecraftian, and those who were so enamoured with the Wold-Newton Family concept that they would attempt to shoehorn in their favourite characters via the flimsiest of reasoning.
Of course the differences were even more marked than the similarities. For one thing, Farmer doesn’t come with the baggage of personal views Lovecraft held that many now find abhorrent. Farmer also, thankfully, lived an awful lot longer than Lovecraft, who died at just 37 years old. Farmer’s Wold Newton Mythos actually embraced and encompassed Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, along with so much more. Similarly, his writing was of a much broader scope. Lovecraft didn’t really deal with sex, sexuality or race much in his writing—for which we should possibly be thankful considering some of his views. One couldn’t deny that religion played a part in Lovecraft’s stories—in that he invented one—but he never dealt with the concept in as realistic and intelligent a manner as Farmer, who broke taboos and opened up the worlds of science fiction, horror and fantasy to concepts that had previously been avoided.
I could go on, and on, and on about how Philip José Farmer and the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society have kept my reading list full for so many years—how they’ve cost me a fortune trying to keep up with Farmer’s work, their work and all the work of the countless authors who weren’t even aware that they were writing about Wold Newton Family members at the time. I look back with fond memories at the hours I used to spend sitting on the floor in a local second hand bookshop searching through heap after heap of books, gradually building up a pile that featured characters I had only became aware of by reading Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life.
While my bank account may regard you with some little antipathy, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, Phil*, for the all the books and the friends, both real and fictional, who I may never have met had it not been for you.
* I never had the pleasure of meeting, nor corresponding with you myself, and you were likely never even aware of my existence, but I’d like to think you’d forgive me that one instance of familiarity.
