RIP: Philip Jose Farmer

Updated on March 13, 2009 By Ken Begg 6 Comments

Gone at the age of 91.  Hard to complain about that.

I was never a huge Farmer fan, although I the Riverworld books back in the day.  Probably his biggest general contribution to modern media, though, was his creation (as far as I know) of the whole multiverse thing, the idea that zillions of fictional characters in fact lived in the same universe and were inconnected in various ways. Without his pioneering work, we might never have gotten that episode of Nightman were Simon McCorkindale returned to the role of Manimal.

On the other hand, if you thought Heinlein got weird with the sex stuff–and he did–Farmer was if anything even weirder.  I still remember his book where his very thinly disguised analogues of Tarzan and Doc Savage had a cock fight (and I mean that in the most literal sense) above a gorge.

Still, one of the great names of what was probably, what, Sci-Fi’s Silver Age?  His family’s solace, I’m sure, is that his books will live on after him.

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  • BeckoningChasm

    Farmer was always readable but yeah, some of the stories like “Mother” read really, really weird nowadays. I mean, even weirder than when I was 12 years old.

  • Reed

    I would have bet Moorcock (which normally I don’t think is a funny name, but in context…) originated the inter-connected multiverse. Except that now that I think about it “Three Hearts and Three Lions” by, hm, Paul Anderson maybe? Anyway, I think it was before any of Moorcock’s Eternal Hero stuff.

    Or maybe not. I love to read, but I’m not really much on my author trivia.

    RIP Farmer.

  • GalaxyJane

    I always think of Heinlein’s Multiple Viewpoint Pantheistic Solipsism. Although I guess he didn’t really start playing with that idea heavily until “Number of the Beast”, he definitely tied it in with some of his work going back to at least the 1940s.

    And yeah, both definitely let some weird sexual obsessions start to take over their work, although I’d still like to turn up a copy of “A Barnstormer in Oz” somewhere, I’ve been curious to see what Farmer did with THAT particular mythos since I first ran across reference to the book back in the “80s.

    I liked the Riverworld books OK, but found the ending to be most unsatisfying.

  • David Fullam

    I always thought that later writers and fans went really overboard with the Wold Newton concept. It got to the point that you could link anyone with anything.

  • “I always thought that later writers and fans went really overboard with the Wold Newton concept. It got to the point that you could link anyone with anything.”

    Sure, says Sherlock Holmes’ great grandson/Nero Wolfe’s grandson/House MD’s (illegitimate) son!

  • Brian

    I suspect that, as with Heinlein’s novels and short stories after his death, his estate will start optioning out Farmer’s work for TV and movie use. I expect a poorly-CGI’d “Syfy” miniseries in 2010. Or an Uwe Boll non-video-game movie.