Getting started on Philip Jose Farmer.

[spidervenom]

what books by him would you recommend.

[Tobias March]

I recently read a nice tribute to him in Joe Lansdale's Mad Dog Summer.

[Street Worm]

'Image Of the Beast'- first book of his I read, still a favorite & one I'd love to see made into a movie.

'Time's Last Gift' is another favorite as well as his
'World Of Tiers' series...........

a few others-
'The Adventure Of the Peerless Peer'
'Jesus On Mars' &
'The Unreasoning Mask'

'The City Beyond Play' is kind of interesting-
started by Phil in (I think) the early '70s & never finished-
his grand-nephew Danny Adams finished writing the story in 2005.

For recent short story collections,
Subterranean Press has done a great job with-

The Best Of Philip Jose Farmer
Pearls From Peoria &
Venus On the Half Shell & Others

[Shellhead]

The Riverworld series is amazing, although the ending doesn't suit the rest of the series.

The World of Tiers is pulpy fun, but uneven in quality. Behind the Walls of Terra gets kind of convoluted, and More Than Fire brings the series to a shocking and disgusting conclusion ripped off from PJF's own A Feast Unknown. Red Orc's Rage is actually written by some psychiatrist and has only a weird and tangential connection to the rest of the series, so I don't recommend that one. This series was an influence on Roger Zelazny's Amber series, which is a superior work.

A Feast Unknown is a bold satire of both Doc Savage and Tarzan, and I don't recommend it to most readers. There is some really disgusting sex and violence, including rape, bestiality and perversions that I don't even have names for. The sequels are allegedly better, but I never gave them a try.

Inside Outside and The Stone God Awakens are standalone books of moderate quality. The first is about Hell and the second is a distant future where mankind has been replaced by various species of sentient animal men. I've also read some of his short stories.

There are quite a few PJF books that I have never gotten around to reading, and have been out of print for years, like his Barnstormer in Oz book. Farmer writes good action scenes, and likes to challenge readers notions of social norms and morality. His series tend to better than his standalone books or his short stories, but I've never been bored by his work. Like his contemporary Harlan Ellison, Farmer is solidly grounded in the fiction of the pulp era.

[Gordon Smith]

A Feast Unknown is a bold satire of both Doc Savage and Tarzan, and I don't recommend it to most readers. There is some really disgusting sex and violence, including rape, bestiality and perversions that I don't even have names for. The sequels are allegedly better, but I never gave them a try.



The sequels are completely anemic. They are just straight pastiches of Doc Savage/Tarzan without any of the disgusting sex and violence that drenches A Feast Unknown. I wouldn't recommend them for anyone's reading pleasure.

[Chris N]

I'm new to him, so I'm curious to hear the answers myself.

I started with The Lovers because it had been recommended. I liked the concept of the book more than the book, but I did enjoy it. I've since heard the short story it is based on is better.

Next on my list is To Your Scattered Bodies Go, as the Riverworld series seems to be his most famous work.