To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer :: Aaron's Book of the Week

Continuing our tribute to Philip Jose Farmer, the Book of the Week is the first paperback printing of Farmer's most famous novel, To Your Scattered Bodies Go.

In To Your Scattered Bodies Go, everyone who ever lived on Earth has been resurrected by an unknown power on another planet. Everyone awakes simultaneously on the banks of a huge, world-encircling river. The novel's title is taken from John Donne's 7th Holy Sonnet, concerning resurrection:

At the round earth's imagin'd corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise
From death, you numberless infinities
Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go.

This fascinating premise allowed Farmer to bring together whatever historical figures he found most interesting in a single story. Farmer explored the concept through four further volumes, collectively called the Riverworld Series. To Your Scattered Bodies Go won the Hugo Award for Best Novel of 1971.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Startling Stories August 1952

We begin our tribute to the late Philip Jose Farmer with his first published story. The Magazine of the Week is the August 1952 issue of pulp magazine Startling Stories, containing Philip Jose Farmer's "The Lovers" (cover art by Earle Bergey). This copy was signed by Farmer on the story's 50th anniversary, the party for which a book club buddy was able to attend.

"The Lovers" caused an instant sensation, and garnered Farmer a Hugo Award for Most Promising New Talent (a short-lived Hugo category, since replaced by the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer). "The Lovers" was influential because it was one of the earliest works of science fiction to address issues of sexuality in an open and frank matter. This story was thus an important step in the development of the SF genre into a mature branch of literature (even if not everybody yet recognizes it as such).

After the success of "The Lovers," Philip Jose Farmer went on to publish over 75 books. BOTW has featured him twice before, for Fire and the Night and Venus on the Half-Shell. Next week, we will continue our tribute to Farmer with his single most famous book.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Fire and the Night by Philip Jose Farmer

For any of you concerned about such things instead of properly focusing on your holiday celebrations, the Book of the Week is Fire and the Night by Philip Jose Farmer. This was scheduled to be our Book of the Week a number of weeks ago, before BOTW's obituary function unfortunately kicked in.

Philip Jose Farmer is best known as a science fiction writer (and is one of my all-time favorites), but Fire and the Night is a mainstream novel about an interracial couple, published in 1962 when such relationships were not widely accepted socially. Fire and the Night features one of my favorite opening lines: "Danny met Mrs. Virgil at the Gates of Hell, where she led him in." Small press Regency Books made its niche in the publishing market printing such controversial books. Not that there was a large enough market for this kind of social criticism to make any money. Regency Books was funded by the publisher's successful lines of soft-core pornography, produced by ridiculously talented authors and editors, some of which I will contemplate exposing you to next week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout

Following up on our tribute to Kurt Vonnegut, the Book of the Week is Venus on the Half-Shell by Kilgore Trout, published in 1975, with cover art by Victor Gadino.

Kilgore Trout was an invention of Kurt Vonnegut, a make-believe science fiction writer who appeared in many of Vonnegut's novels. According to Vonnegut, Trout was underappreciated as an author, largely because he was mistaken for a sleaze writer after some of his early works were published by pornographers. Trout was supposedly the author of over 100 novels, but Venus on the Half-Shell is the only one ever to see print in the real world, thanks to another science fiction author, Philip Jose Farmer.

Philip Jose Farmer is one of my personal favorite authors (you will see more of him in future BOTWs). Even though he has enjoyed significant success in the science fiction field, many of us believe he remains underappreciated, perhaps in part because he was mistaken for a sleaze writer after several of his early works were printed by pornographic publisher Essex House. Farmer delighted in borrowing other authors' fictional creations, and wrote Venus on the Half-Shell as a tribute to Vonnegut.

In Venus on the Half-Shell, Farmer deliberately imitated the style of Vonnegut, successfully enough that when the book came out several reviewers insisted that it really was by Vonnegut, even though he denied it. The Washington Post review declared, "Trout's prose is at least as good as Vonnegut's," then ended the review with the words, "Thanks, Kurt." The confusion annoyed Vonnegut enough that he later had some snappish things to say about Farmer free-loading off his reputation. This was rather unfair, since Vonnegut gave Farmer permission in advance to create Venus on the Half-Shell and declined Farmer's offer to share the royalties.

While Kilgore Trout evolved into a semiautobiographical figure in Vonnegut's writings, he was originally inspired by yet another science fiction writer, the subject of next week's BOTW.