Venus on the Half-Shell and Others

2008 collection by Philip José Farmer
978-1-59606-142-2OCLC192074536

Venus on the Half-Shell and Others (ISBN 978-1-59606-128-6) is a collection mostly of science fiction author Philip José Farmer's pseudonymous fictional-author literary works, edited by Christopher Paul Carey and published in 2008. Farmer describes a fictional-author story as "a tale supposedly written by an author who is a character in fiction."[1] Carey, who had access to Farmer's correspondence while editing the book, reveals in his introduction that in the early to mid-1970s Farmer planned to edit an anthology of fictional-author stories by other writers. Farmer solicited fictional-author stories from authors such as Arthur Jean Cox, Philip K. Dick, Leslie Fiedler, Ron Goulart, Howard Waldrop, and Gene Wolfe, urging them to submit their stories to venues such as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Only Cox, Waldrop, and Wolfe completed their stories and had them published, although Philip K. Dick's never realized fictional-author story "A Man for No Countries" as by Hawthorne Abendsen is said to have led Dick to write his posthumous novel Radio Free Albemuth.[2][3] In the end, Farmer's fictional-author anthology never materialized.[4]

The Tom Wode Bellman Controversy

The Foreword by Tom Wode Bellman in Venus on the Half-Shell and Others states that Bellman was also solicited by Farmer to write a fictional-author story entitled "The Wee Weepers of Mu" as by Gabriel Weltstein, which was reputedly published in 1976 in a fanzine called Kukuanafan, although there has been some debate as to whether the name Tom Wode Bellman is itself a fictional-author pseudonym.[5][6] The July 2008 issue of Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer published a Guest of Honor speech which Farmer presented at the science fiction convention Balticon 11 that only adds to the Bellman mystery. In the speech, Farmer states that he planned to write a novel about the science fiction community featuring a protagonist named Tom Wode Bellman. However, an essay accompanying the speech, purportedly by Bellman, claims that Farmer merely used Bellman's name for the character as a joke.[7][8]

Contents

  • "Foreword" by Tom Wode Bellman
  • "Introduction: More Real Than Life Itself: Philip José Farmer's Fictional-Author Period" by Christopher Paul Carey
  • "Why and How I Became Kilgore Trout"
  • Venus on the Half-Shell (a novel originally published under the byline Kilgore Trout)
  • "The Obscure Life and Times of Kilgore Trout"
  • "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod"
  • "The Problem of the Sore Bridge--Among Others" as by Harry Manders
  • "The Volcano" (originally published under the byline Paul Chapin)
  • "Osiris on Crutches" as by Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor
  • "The Phantom of the Sewers" (originally published as "It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal" by Rod Keen)
  • "A Hole in Hell" as by Dane Helstrom
  • "The Last Rise of Nick Adams" (originally published as "The Impotency of Bad Karma" under the byline Cordwainer Bird)
  • The Adventure of the Peerless Peer as by John H. Watson
  • "Philip José Farmer as Fictional Author: A Chronological Bibliography"
  • "The Impotency of Bad Karma" (only available in the Lettered leatherbound edition)

Notes

References

  • Farmer, Philip José. (1979) Riverworld and Other Stories New York: Berlkley. ISBN 0-425-04208-1
  • Farmer, Philip José. (2008) "Wild Weird Clime: Balticon 11 Guest of Honor Speech" in Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer no. 13, July 2008
  • Bellman, Tom Wode (17 February 2008). "Through Obscurity, Dalrkly". The Unofficial Tom Wode Bellman Blog. Retrieved 2008-09-02.
  • Bellman, Tom Wode. (2008) "To Be, or Not to Be" in Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer no. 13, July 2008
  • Carey, Christopher Paul. (2008) "Introduction: More Real Than Life Itself: Philip José Farmer's Fictional-Author Period" in Up from the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories by Philip José Farmer, Burton, MI: Subterranean Press. ISBN 978-1-59606-142-2
  • Nuninga, Zacharias. "The trickster(s) did it again!". Philip José Farmer International Bibliography. Retrieved 2008-09-02.
  • Williams, Paul. (1986) Only Apparently Real: The World of Philip K. Dick Encinitas: Entwhistle Books. ISBN 0-425-04208-1

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Venus on the Half-Shell and Others.
  • The Unofficial Tom Wode Bellman Blog
  • Farmerphile: The Magazine of Philip José Farmer
  • Green Man Review review of Venus on the Half-Shell and Others
  • Publishers Weekly starred review of Venus on the Half-Shell and Others
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Novels
series
Other
novels
Story
collections
  • Strange Relations (1960)
  • The Alley God (1962)
  • The Celestial Blueprint: And Other Stories (1962)
  • Down in the Black Gang (1971)
  • The Book of Philip José Farmer, or the Wares of Simple Simon’s Custard Pie and Space Man (1973)
  • Riverworld and Other Stories (1979)
  • Riverworld War: The Suppressed Fiction of Philip José Farmer (1980)
  • The Cache (1981)
  • Father to the Stars (1981)
  • Stations of the Nightmare (1982)
  • The Purple Book (1982)
  • The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1952-1964 (1984)
  • The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1964-1973 (1984)
  • The Grand Adventure (1984)
  • Riders of the Purple Wage (1992)
  • Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe (2005)
  • The Best of Philip José Farmer (2006)
  • Strange Relations (2006)
  • Pearls from Peoria (2006)
  • Up from the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories (2007)
  • Venus on the Half-Shell and Others (2008)
  • The Other in the Mirror (2009)
  • The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer: Protean Dimensions (2010)
  • Up the Bright River (2010)
  • The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2: Of Dust and Soul (2011)
  • The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster (2012)
  • Tales of the World Newton Universe (2013)
Stories
  • "O'Brien and Obrenov" (1946)
  • "Duo Miaule" (anii 1950)
  • The Lovers (1952)
  • "Sail On! Sail On!" (1952)
  • "The Biological Revolt" (1953)
  • "Mother" (1953)
  • "Moth and Rust" (1953)
  • "Attitudes" (1953)
  • "Strange Compulsion" (1953)
  • "They Twinkled Like Jewels" (1954)
  • "Daughter" (1954)
  • "Queen of the Deep" (1954)
  • "The God Business" (1954)
  • "Rastignac the Devil" (1954)
  • "The Celestial Blueprint" (1954)
  • "The Wounded" (1954)
  • "Totem and Taboo" (1954)
  • "Father" (1955)
  • "The Night of Light" (1957)
  • "The Alley Man" (1959)
  • "Heel" (1960)
  • "My Sister's Brother" (1960)
  • "A Few Miles" (1960)
  • "Prometheus" (1961)
  • "Tongues of the Moon" (1961)
  • "Uproar in Acheron" (1962)
  • "How Deep the Grooves" (1963)
  • "Some Fabulous Yonder" (1963)
  • "The Blasphemers" (1964)
  • "The King of the Beasts" (1964)
  • "Day of the Great Shout" (1965)
  • "Riverworld" (1966)
  • "The Suicide Express" (1966)
  • "The Blind Rowers" (1967)
  • "A Bowl Bigger than Earth" (1967)
  • "The Felled Star" (1967)
  • "The Shadow of Space" (1967)
  • "Riders of the Purple Wage” (1967)
  • "Don't Wash the Carats" (1968)
  • "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod" (1968)
  • "Down in the Black Gang" (1969)
  • "The Oogenesis of Bird City" (1970)
  • "The Voice of the Sonar in my Vermiform Appendix" (1971)
  • "Brass and Gold" (1971)
  • "The Fabulous Riverboat" (1971)
  • "Only Who Can Make a Tree?" (1971)
  • "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World” (1971)
  • "Seventy Years of Decpop" (1972)
  • "Skinburn" (1972)
  • "The Sumerian Oath" (1972)
  • "Father's in the Basement" (1972)
  • "Toward the Beloved City" (1972)
  • "Mother Earth Wants You" (1972)
  • "Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind" (1973)
  • "Monolog" (1973)
  • "After King Kong Fell" (1973)
  • "Opening the Door" (1973)
  • "The Two-Edged Gift" (1974)
  • "The Startouched" (1974)
  • "The Evolution of Paul Eyre" (1974)
  • "Passing On" (1975)
  • "A Scarletin Study, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1975)
  • "The Problem of the Sore Bridge - Among Others, as Harry Manders" (1975)
  • "Greatheart Silver" (1975)
  • "The Return of Greatheart Silver" (1975)
  • "Osiris on Crutches, as Leo Queequeg Tincrowder" (1976)
  • "The Volcano, as Paul Chapin" (1976)
  • "The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1976)
  • "Fundamental Issue" (1976)
  • "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" (1977)
  • "Greatheart Silver in the First Command" (1977)
  • "Savage Shadow as Maxwell Grant" (1977)
  • "The Impotency of Bad Karma as Cordwainer Bird" (1977)
  • "It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal, as Rod Keen" (1978)
  • "Freshman" (1979)
  • "The Leaser of Two Evils" (1979)
  • "J.C. on the Dude Ranch" (1979)
  • "Spiders of the Purple Mage" (1980)
  • "The Making of Revelation, Part I" (1980)
  • "The Long Wet Dream of Rip Van Winkle" (1981)
  • "The Adventure of the Three Madmen" (1984)
  • "UFO vs IRS" (1985)
  • "St. Francis Kisses His Ass Goodbye" (1989)
  • "One Down, One to Go" (1990)
  • "Evil, Be My Good" (1990)
  • "Nobody's Perfect" (1991)
  • "Wolf, Iron and Moth" (1991)
  • "Crossing the Dark River" (1992)
  • "A Hole in Hell" (1992)
  • "Up the Bright River" (1993)
  • "Coda" (1993)
  • "The Good of the Land" (2002)
  • "The Face that Launched a Thousand Eggs" (2005)
  • "The Unnaturals" (2005)
  • "Who Stole Stonehenge?" (2005)
  • "That Great Spanish Author, Ernesto" (2006)
  • "The Essence of the Poison" (2006)
  • "The Doll Game" (2006)
  • "Keep Your Mouth Shut" (2006)
  • "The Frames" (2007)
  • "A Spy in the U.S. of Gonococcia" (2007)
  • "A Peoria Night" (2007)
  • "The First Robot" (2008)
  • "Getting Ready to Write" (2008)
  • "My Summer Husband" (2010)
  • "What I Thought I Heard" (2011)
  • "Kwasin and the Bear God" (2011)