So… greydogtales is back. Which means that despite age, disease, general incompetence, and Biscuit the Dog eating all his shoes, John Linwood Grant still strides the earth like an arthritic, unimportant colossus! He’s done a ton of books since he was last here, fought a losing battle with the bindweed in the garden, and had to start using a cane. Sadly not a sword cane, spoiling any chance of being mistaken for a dashing Edwardian gentleman. Still, you takes what you can gets…
Time being our Harsh Mistress, we start off in a rush with a review by Dave Brzeski of a collector’s item which is about to be released from publishers Meteor House, but in the coming months we hope to bring you explicit photographs of how much damage the dog has done that week, chilling interviews and articles, and news of forthcoming weird and wonderful books. But what do we know?
SAVAGEOLOGY
Author: Philip José Farmer and Others
Publisher: Meteor House
Page Count: 340
Format: Hardcover/Paperback
Price: $70/$25
ISBN: 978-1-945427-33-6
Publication Date: August 2025
Website: meteorhousepress.com
Reviewer: Dave Brzeski
This is a collection of writings concerning Doc Savage, and can be considered a companion volume to Doc Savage:His Apocalyptic Life, which Meteor House previously published in 2013.
For those not in the know, DS:HAL was the second of Farmer’s fictional biographies (the first being Tarzan Alive). These books were where Farmer’s Wold Newton Family concept was first seriously explored. In these volumes Farmer shows how Tarzan and Doc Savage came to be who they are, and how they’re related to many other exceptional heroes and villains.
The book opens with “Philip José Farmer: An Anaglyphic Look” by Chuck Welch, which was originally published in the Bronze Gazette #80—an issue devoted to Philip José Farmer, one of the key writers who helped shape the character of Doc Savage. It’s only a few pages, but Welch does a good job of answering the grievances of Doc fans who took Farmer’s A Feast Unknown (1969) as an insult to Doc’s legend. Doc Caliban is a stand-in for Doc Savage in that book, but it was never supposed to actually be Doc Savage. Later in The Monster on Hold, completed by Win Scott Eckert from Farmer’s unfinished work, we learn that Caliban is an alternate world version of Savage.
Welch also covers Farmer’s writing of the story of young Clark Savage’s first meeting with his regular team of companions (Escape From Loki) – which again upset purists for daring to suggest that Clark had ever had sex – and of course the magnificent job he did on DS:HAL, including the sterling effort Farmer put into making a workable timeline for all 181 Doc Savage novels (updated, and revised since its initial publication).
This handful of pages is preceeded by cover reproductions of all the various different covers for DS:HAL, and embellished with the cover of that issue of Bronze Gazette, and scans of the dedication page of the copy of DS:HAL that he inscribed for Dent’s widow, Norma Gerling Dent, and a postcard he sent her.
The book is in fact peppered with such images throughout; not only cover repros, but relevant letters and documents. They all appear in greyscale in the paperback edition, but the hardcover presents them in full colour.
This short, but useful introduction is followed by the first Farmer contribution. “Writing Doc’s Biography” has appeared previously in numerous other publications, two of which I already owned, but there’s no denying that it also belongs in this book – in fact I’m mildly surprised that it wasn’t included in Meteor House’s hardcover edition of DS:HAL.
This is a seriously interesting read. Farmer gives much detail of the trials and tribulations he faced in writing DS:HAL. Some things were improved from his experiences of writing the earlier biography, Tarzan Alive, but it was still far from a perfect situation.
Farmer expresses a rather low opinion of Bantam books, who ignored his enquiries for information, and also completely ignored his letters about books he’d paid for, and never received. He concludes that whoever was in charge of the Bantam Doc Savage reprints at that time had no interest in the character whatsoever. It may surprise many people to discover that Farmer disliked the Bama covers that Bantam had on those books, which so many fans love. This was because they bore no resemblance to Dent’s descriptions of Doc Savage. He much preferred the covers by Baumhofer and succeeding artists for the original pulp magazines.
The piece goes on to talk about the herculean task Farmer took on in attempting to compile that logical timeline for the 181 adventures, and how he almost gave up. It also covers the way he laid the book out, and how and why it differed from Tarzan Alive. I’d read this before, but it was well worth a reread. It finally convinced me to invest in a copy of Rick Lai’s The Revised Complete Chronology of Bronze, for the definitive final version of Farmer’s Doc Savage chronology. If you’re tempted to feel, after reading “Writing Doc’s Biography” in this book, that you now have a handle on just how huge and difficult a task creating a workable chronology was, let me suggest you read Rick Lai’s 14 page introduction to The Revised Complete Chronology of Bronze. Farmer was only willing to devote so much space to that subject. Lai gives us a pretty comprehensive report.
I confess that Win Scott Eckert’s “Book of Magic” (first published in the Meteor House 2013 hardcover edition of DS:HAL) left me feeling quite emotional. I well remember those heady days when we had no internet, and no Amazon. Finding the books I loved relied on frequently fruitless searches in as many second-hand bookshops, market stalls and charity shops as I could get to, and even new publications often involved paying import prices for American editions. Eckert writes with feeling about the days when he first discovered the world of pulp heroes, and even states that finally finding the final volume he needed to complete his Bantam Doc Savage collection via the Internet still left him with some regrets that he didn’t get over that finish line the hard way.
He also reminisces about the way Farmer’s two fictional biographies led him to searching out and reading many many books that he may have otherwise never even looked at. I can claim him as a kindred spirit in this, and I have often stated that Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke, and DS:HAL were the two most expensive books I ever bought, in that they’ve never really stopped leading me to other books I needed to buy.
Eckert goes on to relate how all of this eventually led to his meeting Farmer, starting the Wold Newton Universe website, and finally working with Farmer on uncompleted works – and continuing to do so after Farmer passed.
In “The Kindly Author and His Avid Fan”, first published in the Bronze Gzette #80, alongside his previous piece in this collection – but updated slightly here – Chuck Welch returns to share the story of how he thought he’d found an error in the aforementioned chronology, and desperate for a way to let him know about it, he actually wrote to Farmer at the address he found in a reproduction in DS:HAL of a letter Farmer had written to the Empire State Building management offices, requesting tenant information about the 86th floor. Not only did Chuck’s letter actually get to Farmer, but he responded just a couple of days later. This is another very moving story, which I won’t spoil further. The letter, Farmer’s reply, and the reply Farmer received from the Empire State Building management offices, are all reproduced here.
Then, we come to something that was actually new to me. I saw the Doc Savage movie, starring Ron Ely, at the cinema when it was first released in the UK. I had no idea that a sequel was even considered, and that Farmer had written the treatment.
I need to confess a couple of things about me at this point, that I know an awful lot of fans will disagree with: At age 10, I was so excited to hear about the Batman TV show, but disappointed that it was initially only bought by certain ITV regions. We had Anglia ITV, who hadn’t bought it. However, my grandparents, who lived fairly close, had Midlands ITV (now Central) who had, and I walked to their house especially to watch Batman – maybe three times. Even at that age I found it to be disappointing, too camp and played for laughs, and to my mind cementing the adult view that comics were childish nonsense. I did come to quite appreciate the show for what it was in later years, but I never loved it like many fans.
The 1975 Doc Savage movie was obviously very influenced by the camp attitude of the Batman TV show, and again I really wasn’t overly impressed.
I hoped to enjoy Farmer’s treatment for an unmade second Doc Savage film more, and I did, but with caveats: firstly, this is a treatment, never intended to be read as a story, but rather to simply lay out the details of the proposed movie plot for the benefit of the producers. Secondly, Farmer was aware that he was writing a proposal for a follow-up to that original movie, and so he did rather lean into the cheesy aspects. Some of it made me cringe, and other parts made me laugh out loud. I couldn’t help but wonder if the relationship between the Thing and the Human Torch in Lee and Kirby’s Fantastic Four wasn’t heavily influenced by Monk and Ham.
That’s not to say that Doc Savage and the Cult of the Blue God wasn’t interesting, it was. I have to say that the action sequences did rather make me think that Farmer considered the budget their problem, not his, and the first battle sequence was so complex I can’t see most of it not having being cut, had the film gone into production. But overall, it had a lot going for it.
I think, if Farmer had been writing the treatment for a standalone film decades later, it would have been very different, and a lot better. For one thing, Pat Savage’s part would likely have been a little more substantial than it was. I really wish I’d had the time to read the supersaga, Murder Mirage, upon which this treatment was primarily based, before this review is due. I will certainly read it as soon as I get the chance – the comparison could be rather interesting.
While some of us know that Farmer did actually meet and interview the man the world knows under the fictionalised name of Tarzan, he did sometimes obfuscate matters intentionally with pieces of obvious fiction. “The Grant-Robeson Papers”, and the story it serves as an introduction to, “Savage Shadow”, are cases in point.
“The Grant-Robeson Papers” tells us how a Mr D*** paid Maxwell Grant and Kenneth Robeson a serious amount of money to write unique stories that no one but he and they would even know existed until after his death. We are told that they wrote sixteen short stories and novelettes for Mr D***, and decided to make each other the heroes of their respective tales.
Why do we know that Farmer was playing with us on this occasion? For one thing, it is well known that Dent and Grant were pseudonyms mainly used by the creators of Doc Savage and the Shadow, but also used by several other writers who contributed to the two long-running series. Other than that, the idea that the characters of Doc and his aides were inspired by a group of helpless drunks is patently absurd.
“Savage Shadow”, as by Maxwell Grant, however, is wonderful. Kenneth Robeson, down on his luck, and desperate for the series idea that will save his career as a pulp writer, gets involved in the problems of a young woman who believes something is very wrong at the sanitarium that her father had escaped from. Along the way, they meet other residents of the sanatorium – six men and one woman, who are drunken analogues of Doc, his five aides and his cousin Pat. They mean well, but they’re all bombed out of their skulls. We get an hilarious adventure that reads like a sozzled Keystone Kops Kaper, with added pulp thrills. It previously appeared in Weird Heroes Vol. 8 (1977), and Pearls from Peoria (2006).
“The Monster on Hold” is an excerpt from the 4th book in the Secrets of the Nine series that was published in the World Fantasy Convention Program (October 1983), then reprinted in Win Scott Eckert’s Myths for the Modern Age (2005) and Pearls from Peoria (2006).
Farmer opens with a precis of the first three books: A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin (the latter also published under the title Keepers of the Secrets). This is followed by the first draft of one of the weirder chapters of the novel, which Farmer never finished. If you find this interesting, you’ll be happy to know that it was later completed by Win Scott Eckert from Farmer’s written material and notes, and published by Meteor House in 2022. Last year they also published Secrets of the Nine as an omnibus hardcover, and I recommend it, and The Monster on Hold, very highly. Eckert did Farmer proud.
On rereading this part I felt that the Lovecraftian elements of the story owed as much, if not more, to William Hope Hodgson. It would be fascinating to read a version from the point of view of Caliban’s “Other” one day, but this would require the agreement of Condé Nast, and they seem more inclined these days to allow their intellectual properties be rebooted beyond all recognition by James Patterson, and his co-authors.
“Philip José Farmer: His Apocalyptic Life” is a much more complete version of an over three hour interview that Will Murray – himself author of several authorised Doc Savage novels – recorded with Farmer at PulpCon 18, (July 7-9, 1989), where Farmer was guest of honour. It was originally published over two issues of Starlog (#155 & #156), almost a year later, but it somehow passed me by, even though I worked in a comic shop back then which stocked the magazine. Running over fifty-five pages in the book, this was a highlight for me. Murray’s insightful questions led to one of the most fascinating author interviews I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
This is followed by Farmer’s afterword to the final Bantam Doc Savage reprint volume in 1990. It’s a little jarring as Farmer opens with references to Will Murray’s afterword that immediately preceeded it, which isn’t reprinted here, but it’s an interesting overview of what that first issue of the Doc Savage pulp magazine meant to a fifteen year old Farmer, and how it led to his writing the character himself many years later, and how his approach differed from Dent’s.
Christpher Paul Carey’s “Farmer’s Escape from Loki: A Closer Look” follows, and presents us with strong evidence to prove his claim that Escape from Loki was much more than the hard-boiled adventure novel many fans took it to be. He also points out examples of fictional characters Farmer referenced that were obscure enough for most people to miss, and suggests that there are doubtless more that even he hasn’t yet spotted.
This is immediately followed by an exchange of letters between Carey and Farmer, which detail how Carey was unwilling to publish his article without giving Farmer a chance to say no, if he wished, and/or to suggest corrections. It’s truly fascinating to be allowed to witness the beginnings of friendship, back when they still called each other Mr Farmer, and Mr Carey.
If Farmer had a superpower it was in the way he attracted people who would go on, through their friendship, to become not only collaborators, but great writers in their own right. I said in my review of Carey’s Hadon, King of Opar that I considered him to be “quite possibly the best writer currently working in the classic Heroic Fantasy genre,” – an opinion I still stand by. If you’re one of those readers for whom fantasy meant fairly short books that could be read in one, or two sittings, often featuring series characters – as opposed to the habit of producing endless 500+ page doorstops, which still seems to be the favoured format of most fantasy authors, then Carey is someone whose work you’ll like. I can’t help but wonder where authors of the calibre of Carey (currently the Vice President of Publishing at Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.) and Eckert would be now, had it not been for the way Farmer gave them his time and friendship back then.
Carey’s contributions continue with “The Green Eyes Have It—Or Are They Blue?”, yet more literary archeology in which Carey presents evidence to show which characters are actually other characters under a different name – or even gender – and which other works of fiction reveal yet more connections. I have nothing but admiration for this sort of thing. I love to read it, but I absolutely could not do it. I just can’t juggle all these ideas in my head – it gives me a headache. Not only are these essays periodically updated when the author discovers new data to work in – just as Farmer himself did in his own “fictional biographies” and essays. but one also has to accept that Carey, Eckert and others don’t always agree with each other’s theories. This is what makes it so much fun. You get to decide for yourself which theory works for you, and change your mind a week later. The bibliography of source material accompanying this much longer essay lists no less than twenty works, all of which are well worth reading in their own right.
“A Wild Woman” by Win Scott Eckert tells the tale of how Win was invited to visit Phil and Bette Farmer in 2005, staying in their basement guest room. He goes on to tell how he found a folder labelled “Pemberely House” in Farmer’s “Magic Filing Cabinet” which contained several typed chapters and an outline. This led to Eckert being allowed to complete what would become The Evil in Pemberley House, featuring Patricia Wildman – a sort of “what if Doc Savage had a daughter?” The title immediately gives away the fact that this is very much a Wold Newton Universe book. Eckert went on to write a second Pat Wildman book – The Scarlet Jaguar, and further adventures are planned.
Reprinted from Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer No. 14, we next get the story of the creation of Doc Wildman’s (AKA Doc Savage) Coat of Arms. Plus the final image by the wonderfully talented Keith Howell. This is one example where the hardcover illustrations all being in colour, rather than the greyscale version in the paperback makes a huge difference.
Also reprinted from an issue of Farmerphile (this time No. 6) “Through the Seventh Gate: Pursuing Farmer’s Sources in Savageology”, by Christopher Paul Carey gives us much information about the various works that he used to research DS:HAL. Carey posits that Farmer must have had access to more information about Doc than he could have possibly gleaned from his 1970 interview with Tarzan, or his later meeting with Patricia Wildman. If anyone reading this is of the opinion that Farmer simply invented it all, I will simply quote Carey’s comment in this short article – “To believe that Farmer made it all up is, of course, absurd.”
“The Ultimate Forbidden Doc Savage”, by R. Paul Sardanas, and “My Feast Unknown: Or how I Adapted an Unreadable Book into an Unwatchable Multi-Media Theater Piece that Crashes DVD Recorders” by Iason Ragnar Bellerophon, combine to describe the effect the Doc Savage pulp tales, and Farmer’s infamous A Feast Unknown, had on a young literary writer and an artist who went on to devote years attempting to adapt it into a mix of pulp, literature, art and music – truly fascinating and an invitation to the reader to step into yet another rabbit hole of exploration. I hadn’t previously been aware of Sardanas’ Doc Talos writings, but I suspect I will investigate.
We return to more familiar ground with Win Scott Eckert’ “Spoilers of the Nine: Completing Philip José Farmer’s The Monster on Hold”. This was a recent reread for me, it having appeared as the Afterword to Meteor House’s 2024 omnibus edition of Secrets of the Nine. Those who have yet to read the book should note that “spoilers” does indeed mean spoilers.
Here Eckert writes about the myriad works by Farmer and others that tie in to his completion of The Monster on Hold, from the several chapters and notes that Farmer left. Many of these connections more or less wrote themselves, Eckert claims. I’m again left awestruck by the sheer amount of data Eckert somehow keeps straight. I could never do this.
When I reviewed The Monster on Hold, I read a great number of the works Eckert lists here, but there are still several that I have yet to get to. You can find out which of them I have read by reading my review, which was published under the title, The Secrets of the Nine. https://greydogtales.com/blog/the-secrets-of-the-nine/
I have yet to complete my reread of the core three novels – comprising A Feast Unknown, The Mad Goblin (AKA: Keepers of the Secrets) and Lord of the Trees – for my review of the omnibus version of The Secrets of the Nine, part of the reason being that I’d read them so recently.
Most of the material in this collection has seen print before, and I’d previously read a few of the pieces, albeit the original printings of many of the articles were somewhat too obscure for me to have come across at the time. The one piece that I have read at least a dozen times before was “After Kong Fell” by Philip José Farmer, a truly moving retelling of the true events leading to the death of King Kong as witnessed by a thirteen year old boy, who is sharing the story decades later with his six year old grandaughter. It’s included here because Doc makes a cameo appearance, as does another famous pulp hero. I love this story. Few authors would have thought to have the grandfather confuse the characters of Roadrunner, and Wile E. Coyote, when he’s explaining the difference between real life and scripted shows to his grandaughter. It’s little details like this that show what a great writer Farmer was.
“Was,” is a word which leads us neatly into the final offering here. “Doc Savage Loses an Author”, Win Scott Eckert’s moving obituary for Farmer on his passing in 2009, originally published in The Big Book of Bronze No. 2 (2009) and very much deserving to be seen by many more people. It’s a very fitting way to end this book.
Finally, it would be seriously remiss of me to end this review without mention of Keith Howell, who was responsible for the beautiful cover, internal illustrations and book design. Well done that man!
The question is: Is this a worthwhile publication for those that don’t have a copy of DS:HAL – and indeed is it worthwhile for those who do, considering that most of the material presented here has seen publication before? I’d say a resounding yes to both. Nothing in this book relies on any prior knowledge of DS:HAL, albeit it is quite likely to tempt people to seek out a copy. And having the most up to date versions of all this material collected together under one cover cannot fail to be very useful for both Farmer fans, and Doc fans.