Philip José Farmer, 1918–2009
top left: artist unknown (1969); top right: Patrick Woodroffe (1975)
bottom left: Peter Elson (1988); bottom right: artist unknown (1995)
The great science fiction writer Philip José Farmer died today. I wrote about his more excessive works back in August 2007 and that post is as good an obituary as I could offer now. A Feast Unknown remains a favourite for pushing extreme content to a degree which would give William Burroughs pause whilst still functioning as a rollicking page-turner. Few writers could work on both those levels and do much more besides. Feast seems to be out of print today, which isn’t a surprise. Publishers are still a timid bunch for the most part and Farmer never pulled his punches.
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Previously on { feuilleton }
• Philip José Farmer book covers
4 comments or trackbacks
#1 posted by Evan J. Peterson
Feb 26th, 2009
So far, my only exposure to PJF have been To Your Scattered Bodies Go (which I appreciated but didn’t particularly enjoy) and Venus on the Halfshell, which I first read at the age of ten and had no idea was actually penned by Farmer until very recently.
I’m going to check out Image of the Beast and see where that takes me.
-EJP
#2 posted by John
Feb 27th, 2009
Hi Evan. Image is probably a good book for a Clive Barker fan to start with since it’s very Barkeresque. Or maybe Clive is Farmeresque…
#3 posted by Márcio Salerno
Feb 27th, 2009
Not exactly Philip K. Dick, but also good. The ’silver age” of sci-fi goes away forever.
R.I.P.
#4 posted by Art Turner
Mar 5th, 2009
PJF was a brilliant, visionary writer who happened to write science fiction – a singular talent who redefined what genre fiction could be. Let’s hope that his tragic passing has the silver lining of bringing a few more readers to his incredible body of work.
BTW – the site looks great, John. I know I’m not the 1st to say this, but you’re my go-to guy for great fantastic-themed art. Keep up the good work.
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