Philip José Farmer (rođen 26.januara 1918.) je američki pisac, uglavnom poznat po svojin SF i F romanima i kratkim pričama. Rođen je u Tera Hautu (Terre Haote) u Indijani, ali je većinu života proveo u Peoriji (Peoria) u Ilinoisu, gdje i danas živi.

Karijera

Neki od Farmerovih ranih radova postali su poznati zbog uvođenja seksualnih tema u SF. Njegova prva objavljena SF priča, Ljubavnici (The Lovers) za koju je dobio nagradu Hugo kao najobećavajući novi pisac 1953. godine, bila je prva SF priča koja se bavila seksualnim odnosima između humanoida i aliena. To je bio zemljotres koji je trenutno postavio farmera na mapu. Najbolje je poznat po svojim serijalima Riverworld i ranijem, World of Tiers, kao i po svojoj obuzetosti obradama priča o legendarnim herojima za mase.

Njegova Riverworld serija prati avanture raznovrsnih likova kroz bizarni zagrobni život gdje svi ljudi koji su ikada živjeli istovremeno uskrsnu duž jedne riječne doline koja se pruža oko cijele planete. Serijal se sastoji od To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971), The Fabulous Riverboat (1971), The Dark Design (1977), The Magic Labyrinth (1980) i Gods of Riverworld (1983).

Riverworld and Other Stories (1979) nije dio serijala kao takva, već predstavlja zbirku priča o koje su samostalne a ne uklopljene u radnju nekog od romana. (Prve dvije knjige originalno su objavljene kao dvije priče, "The Day of the Great Shout" i "The Suicide Express," a dvodijelni serijal, "The Felled Star," u SF časopisima Worlds of Tomorrow i If između 1965. i 1967. Odvojena priča "Riverworld" objavljena je u Worlds of Tomorrow januara 1966.) Završni par povezanih novela pojavio se u devedesetim: "Crossing the Dark River" (u Tales of Riverworld, 1992) i "Up the Bright River" (u Quest to Riverworld, 1993).

Riverworld serijal nastao je u romanu Owe for the Flesh, napisanom za jedan mjesec, 1952. kao uvodna rasprava za neko takmičenje, i pobijedio. Ali knjiga ostaje neobjavljena i siroče, dok razočarani i depresivni Farmer gotovo da je zauvijek napustio pisanje. Original ovog romana je izgubljen.
Godinama kasnije Farmer je obnovio ovaj roman. Najzad, kopija revidiranoge originalnog romana pronađena je u jednoj kutiji u garaži i objavljena kao River of Eternity 1983. Farmerov uvod u to izdanje daje detalje o tome kako se to desilo. (Neki od tih događaja su kasnije iskorišteni kao materijal na početku romana To Your Scattered Bodies Go.)

World of Tiers serijal mnogi fanovi cijene kao jednak ili i bolji od Riverworld serijala, bez obzira što je on manje poznat. Serijal je smješten u nekoliko vještački stvorenih paralelnih univerzuma, kreiranih desetinama hiljada godina ranije od rase ljudi koji su posjedovali naprednu tehnologiju koja im je davala skoro božansku moć i besmrtnost.

Osnovni univerzum u kome teče priča i po kome je serijal i dobio ime, sastoji se od enormnog niza planeta oblikovanih kao niz diskova ili naseljenih cilindara, smanjenog prečnika, naslaganih jedan na drugi.
Serija prati avanture nekoliko ljudi sa Zemlje koji nesrećnim slučajem dospijevaju u te vještačke univerzume, a sastoji se od The Maker of Universes (1965), The Gates of Creation (1966), A Private Cosmos (1968), Behind the Walls of Terra (1970), The Lavalite World (1977) i More Than Fire (1993). Serijal je nadahnut serijalom Amber Rodžera Zalaznija (Roger Zalazny)

Mnogi Farmerovi radovi uključuju obradu postojećih likova iz mašte i istorije, npr: The Wind Whales of Ishmael ,1971, vanzemaljski nastavak Melvilovog Mobi Dika (Herman Melville's Moby-Dick); The Other Log of Phileas Fogg , 1973, koji popunjava prostor radnje između Vernovih Oko svijeta za 80 dana i Čarobnjaka iz OZ-a (Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days; i A Barnstormer in Oz ), u kome Dorotin odrasli sin, pilot, slijeće tu nesretnim slučajem. Glavni likovi ove vrste Farmerovih radova su popularni junaci Tarzan i Doc Savage. U njegovom The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, sarađuju Tarzan i Sherlock Holmes. Farmer je takođe osmislio i Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban serijal, gdje srećemo prerušene ali i nešto bezazlenije verzije Tarzana i Doc Sevidža. Ovaj serijal se sastoje od romana A Feast Unknown (1969), Lord of the Trees (1970) i The Mad Goblin (1970). Farmer je takođe napisao i duhovite, podrugljive biografije ovih heroja —Tarzan Alive (1972) i Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973)— u kojima je povezao podrugljive biografije svih likova s nizom drugih izmišljenih karaktera.

Sve ovo vodilo je ustanovljavanju posebnog tipa ove vrste fantastike, često pominjane vezano uz Farmerov originalni, the Wold Newton family.

Farmer je napisao Venus on the Half-Shell (1975) pod imenom Kilgore Trout, izmišljeni autor koji se pojavljuje u radovima Kurta Voneguta (Kurt Vonnegut). Planirao je da napiše više (posebno Son of Jimmy Valentine), ali zbog nesporazuma s Vonegutom, morao je odustati od tih planova. Nakon toga Farmer je napisao nekoliko poluanonimnih „izmišljeni autor” priča, uglavnom za The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. To su priče u kojima je “autor” lik iz neke druge priče. Prva takva priča je “od” Jonathon Swift Somers III (izmislio ga je Farmer lično, u Venus on the Half-Shell), a kasnije Farmer koristi lik "Cordwainer Bird", pseudonim koji je Harlan Ellison izmislio za film i TV projekat od koga se kasnije ogradio.

Farmerov rad često sadrži seksualne teme: njegova zbirka priča Strange Relations (1960) značajan je događaj u istoriji seksa u SF. Jedna je od tri kojima je Robert A. Heinlein posvetio svoj roman Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), takođe poznat po rušenju tradicija oko seksualnih tema. Fire and the Night (1962) je ne-SF roman o ljubavnoj aferi između bijelca i crnkinje koji obuhvata neke zanimljive sociološke i psihološke zaplete.

Njegov rad ponekad takođe sadrži religiozne teme. Isus se pojavljuje kao lik i u serijalu Riverworld i u Jesus on Mars. Night of Light (1966) vodi radije ne-svetog oca Džona Karmodija u odiseju na strani svijet gdje se spiritualne snage manifestuju u materijalnom svijetu.

Nagrade i nominacije

• 1953: Hugo Award, Most Promising New Talent, The Lovers
• 1960: Nomination, Hugo Award for Best Short Story, "The Alley Man"
• 1961: Nomination, Hugo Award for Best Short Story, "Open to Me, My Sister"
• 1966: Nomination, Hugo Award for Best Short Story, "The Day of the Great Shout"
• 1967: Nomination, Nebula Award for Best Novella, Riders of the Purple Wage
• 1968: Hugo Award for Best Novella, Riders of the Purple Wage
• 1972: Hugo Award for Best Novel, To Your Scattered Bodies Go
• 1974: Nomination, Nebula Award for Best Short Story, "After King Kong Fell"
• 2000: Nebula Award, Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award, lifetime achievement
• 2001: World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement

Bibliografija

Serijali

• World of Tiers
  • The Maker of Universes (1965)
  • The Gates of Creation (1966)
  • A Private Cosmos (1968)
  • Behind the Walls of Terra (1970)
  • The Lavalite World (1977)
  • Red Orc's Rage (Associated with The World of Tiers Series) (1991)
  • More Than Fire (1993)
• Riverworld
  • To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971)
  • The Fabulous Riverboat (1971)
  • The Dark Design (1977)
  • The Magic Labyrinth (1980)
  • Gods of Riverworld (1983)
  • River of Eternity (Riverworld Variant) (1983)
• Herald Childe
  • The Image of the Beast (1968)
  • Blown: or Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind (1969)
  • Traitor to the Living (1973)
• Doc Caliban and Lord Grandrith
  • A Feast Unknown (1969)
  • Lord of the Trees (1970)
  • The Mad Goblin (1970)
  • Keepers of the Secrets (British) - collects both Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin (1970)
• Opar
  • Hadon of Ancient Opar (1974)
  • Flight to Opar (1976)
• Dayworld
  • Dayworld (1984)
  • Dayworld Rebel (1987)
  • Dayworld Breakup (1990)
• Izmišljene biografije
  • Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke (1972)
  • Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973)

Romani

• The Green Odyssey (1957)
• Flesh (1960)
• A Woman a Day or The Day of Timestop (1960)
• The Lovers (1961)
• Cache from Outer Space (1962)
• Fire and the Night (1962)
• Inside Outside (1964)
• Tongues of the Moon (1964)
• Dare (1965)
• The Gate of Time (1966), prepravljena i proširena kao Two Hawks from Earth (1979)
• Night of Light (1966)
• A Feast Unknown (1969)
• Lord Tyger (1970)
• Love Song (1970)
• The Stone God Awakens (1970)
• The Wind Whales of Ishmael (1971)
• Time's Last Gift (1972)
• The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973)
• Traitor to the Living (1973)
• The Adventures of the Peerless Peer (1974) (kao John H. Watson)
• Venus on the Half-Shell (1975) (kao Kilgore Trout)
• Ironcastle (1976) (prevod i prosirenje J.-H. Rosny)
• Jesus on Mars (1979)
• Dark Is the Sun (1979)
• The Unreasoning Mask (1981)
• The Cache (1981)
• Stations of the Nightmare (1982)
• Greatheart Silver (1982)
• A Barnstormer in Oz (1982)
• The Dark Abyss (1990)
• Escape From Loki (1991)
• The Caterpillar's Question (1992) (s Piers Anthony)
• Nothing Burns in Hell (1998)
• Naked Came The Farmer (1998) (s Nancy Atherton, Terry Bibo, Steven Burgauer, Dorothy Cannell, David Everson, Joseph Flynn, Julie Kistler, Jerry Klein, Bill Knight, Tracy Knight, Garry Moore i Joel Steinfeldt)
  The Dark Heart of Time (1999)
• Up From the Bottomless Pit, izdato u deset dijelova u Farmerphile (2005-2007)
• The City Beyond Play, koautor s Danny Adams (planirano za 2007)

Zbirke

• 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 (1973)
• Riverworld and Other Stories (1979)
• Riverworld War: The Supressed Fiction of Philip José Farmer (1980)
• Father to the Stars (1981)
• Stations of the Nightmare (1982)
• Greatheart Silver (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 Jose Farmer (2006)
• Stranger Relations (2006)
• Pearls from Peoria (2006)

Kratke priče

• "O'Brien and Obrenov" (1946)
• "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" (1955)
• "The Alley Man" (1959)
• "Heel" (1960)
• "My Sister's Brother" ili "Open to Me, My Sister" (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 (part 1)" (1967)
• "The Felled Star (part 2)" (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 (part 1)" (1971)
• "The Fabulous Riverboat (part 2)" (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)
• "The Adventure of the Three Madmen" (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 as Dane Helstrom" (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 Stonhenge?" (2005)
• "That Great Spanish Author, Ernesto" (2006)
• "I Still Live!" (2006)
• "The Essence of the Poison" (2006)
• "Hayy ibn Yaqzam: An Arabic Mowgli" (2006)
• "Why Do I Write?" (2006)
• "The Doll Game" (2006)
• "The Trout Letters" (2006)

Wold Newton family

Wold Newton family je literarni koncept izveden iz forme unakrsne fikcije. U dvije izmišljene “biografije” izmišljenih likova (Tarzan Alive i Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life), Farmer nagovještava da je meteorit, u kasnom 18.-tom vijeku, pao u mjesto Wold Newton u Engleskoj, svojom radijacijom izazvao genetske mutacije. Potomci zahvaćenih imaju veoma visoku inteligenciju i snagu, i ogromnu volju i želju da čine dobro ili, kako to već biva, zlo. Zamišljeno je da neki od tih likova budu “pravi, živi” originali zamišljenih likova, heroja i zlikovaca, iz zadnjih 100 godina, kao što su Šerlok Holms, Tarzan, Doc Sevidž...

Ostali popularni likovi koje je Filip Hoze Farmer zamislio kao članove Wold Newton family su: Solomon Kane; Captain Blood; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Holmsov neprijatelj Professor Moriarty; Phileas Fogg; The Time Traveller (glavni junak The Time Machine od H. G. Wells); Allan Quatermain; A.J. Raffles; Professor Challenger; Richard Hannay; Bulldog Drummond; zlikovac Fu Manchu i njegov suparnik, Sir Denis Nayland Smith; G-8; The Shadow; Sam Spade; Doc Savidžova rođaka Patricia Savage, i jedan od njihovih pet asistenata, Monk Mayfair; The Spider; Nero Wolfe; Mr. Moto; The Avenger; Philip Marlowe; James Bond; Lew Archer; Travis McGee; Monsieur Lecoq; i Arsène Lupin.