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Philip José Farmer: Difference between revisions
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In ''[[Riverworld]]'', the quest to solve the mystery of the resurrection and the river involves lots of vividly-described action adventure. As prose the action sequences have a great immediacy: combat seems at all times dangerous since the emergent chaos of battle is no [[Anyone Can Die|respecter of persons]].
If you only looked at the early covers of his books he would appear to be nothing more that a pulp writer obsessed with grim-looking, violent and [[Rated "M" for Manly|highly muscular men]] -- which is not to say you can't find plenty of plenty meaty heroes in his work. Heroes who often get quite a kick out of a high-wire life of violent escapades.
''[[Riverworld]]'' addresses Big Ideas. Sex, politics, race, religion. Farmer loved messing with the divide between high and low culture. The deep problems of human life come up thick and fast in this series. Farmer broke new ground by having these themes coexist with fantasy action adventure -- prefiguring ''[[Discworld (Literature)|Discworld]]'' and many other works.
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* [[Human Popsicle]]: The "stoning" process in ''Dayworld'' is a form of suspended animation not involving cryonics and anything suspended this way is pretty much indestructible. It's used to manage population; there's so many people in the world that not everyone can be around at once, so different populations come out on different days and remain suspended the rest of the week.
* [[Jack the Ripper]]: In ''A Feast Unknown'', Jack the Ripper is the father of the two heroes Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban ([[Expy|expies]] of [[Tarzan]] and [[Doc Savage]], respectively).
* [[Literary Agent Hypothesis]]: In ''Tarzan Alive'' and ''Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life,'' Farmer claims that Edgar Rice Burroughs and Lester Dent were just the biographers of [[Tarzan]] and [[Doc Savage]]. He claims that their books were highly fictionalized and sensationalized and presents somewhat more mundane, but still sensational versions of the stories that correct various factual inaccuracies and continuity errors. For example, he explains that whenever Tarzan encountered a lion, a plains dwelling animal, in the jungle, it was actually a leopard and Burroughs exaggerated because lions were bigger and more dangerous looking.<br /><br />He also tries to explain away both characters' great strength and intelligence by claiming their [
* [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover]]: The [
* [[Mass Super-Empowering Event]]: In the "biographies" of [[Tarzan]] and [[Doc Savage]] (and the [[Massively Multiplayer Crossover]] "Wold Newton Universe" based on Phillip's stories), the Event is the titular Wold Newton meteorite. The radiation of the meteorite affected the passengers of a passing coach (and several animals in the area); their descendants were endowed with unusual strength, intelligence, and ambition, becoming [[Literary Agent Hypothesis|the inspiration for]] many of the heroes and villains of fiction. (See [
* [[Meta Origin]]: The Wold Newton Family concept posited the Wold Newton meteorite as a source of mutation, which, while generally not producing metahumans, produced an extended family including Tarzan, Doc Savage et al.
* [[Perspective Flip]]: ''The Other Log of Phileas Fogg'' and ''A Barnstormer in Oz''. In the latter, Glinda the Good assassinates U.S. President [[Warren Harding|Warren G. Harding]].
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[[Category:Authors]]
[[Category:Philip Jose Farmer]]
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