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
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
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.
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.
Due out in July 2018, Meteor House is taking preorders for the trade paperback, hardcover, or both here: http://meteorhousepress.com/2018/01/26/were-celebrating-philip-jose-farmers-100th-birthday/
So, That Farmerphile Thing…
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.
Both the trade paperback and hardcover versions of The Best of Farmerphile are available to order here: http://meteorhousepress.com/the-best-of-farmerphile/
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:
https://www.amazon.com/Beast-Other-Secret-Histories-Writings/dp/197408812X
and the UK:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beast-Other-Secret-Histories-Writings/dp/197408812X
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.
The Official Philip José Farmer Web Page can be found here: http://www.pjfarmer.com
* 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.