The Lovers:

In this Hugo-winning novella, Farmer provides more complex characters than in much of his later work. The hero is a rebel, but not too much of one; he’s caught up by the beliefs he was raised with, and has difficulty getting past them. In this, he doesn’t always take the easy literary path; he doesn’t invariably triumph against all odds, and not all of his choices are good. The villain of the piece has another side that we only glimpse, but know is there.

While the depth of characterization is a surprising precursor to the more simplistic templates Farmer later relied on, the seeds of that more facile approach are here as well. I never really found myself believing in the society he created, nor in the alien biology he posits. For one thing, there’s no clear focus to the book; it feels very much like he’s making it up as he goes along. Sometimes that works. Here it doesn’t.

For all the story’s flaws, there are the bones of interesting ideas, and I can see why it attracted attention. At the same time, the story feels unnecessarily stretched out, and the weak spots are hard to ignore. This should probably have stayed at short story length. Still, I wish he’d taken the complexity and interesting choices that are here, and written more like that, rather than what seems to have been a determined tack toward pulp.

Dark is the Sun:

I’ve read a lot of Philip Jose Farmer in recent months. I’ve liked very little of it. In fact, I’d started to think that my enjoyment of the Riverworld series was an anomaly, and that, to put it bluntly, Farmer was simply not a very good writer.

Dark is the Sun doesn’t entirely confound that view; it’s not a work of any particular genius. But it is head and shoulders above the World of Tiers series, to pick one example. It’s so different that it reads as if it had been written by an entirely different author. Had I picked it up blind, I’d have assumed it to be a lost Piers Anthony novel from the 1970s, or a collaboration with him during that period. It has the same mounting introduction of novelty after novelty, and the same relentless, if somewhat facile, logical application of concepts. The sexism is limited and of its time rather than well past it. In short, it’s like reading a book by a whole different author.

That doesn’t mean this is a good book, but it’s not a bad one. It’s got an interesting world, decent (if into entirely credible) characters, and a challenging quest. There’s not a lot of surprise, but there’s plenty to keep you going. Of the half dozen Farmer books I’ve read recently, this is the only one that had me looking forward (slightly) to the next reading session, rather than looking for any excuse to put it off.

I can’t say this is the Riverworld Farmer I remember and liked, but it’s a lot like the Tarot and Cluster Anthony that I remember and liked. If you’re a fan of those series, you might like this as well.


Riders of the Purple Wage:

I can only imagine what Farmer was intending when he wrote this. It appeared in Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions, and I envision Ellison asking Farmer for a story, Farmer agreeing, and then trying to be ‘dangerous’ by emulating Hunter S. Thompson and Jack Kerouac. Or being on a lot of drugs. Or both.

I can’t imagine what the Nebula (nominated) and Hugo (won) voters were thinking. I found this essentially unreadable. If you really try, you can get a general sense that it’s about an artist trying to win a government grant. But there’s no reason to try. I did, and I’d like to save you the effort. Don’t read this.

It was a mistake to request all of these PHF books at once because reading them all together recalls how old they are and how tastes have changed. These books were revolutionary and fun at the time but they have been so widely imitated that they have lost their specialness. This is too bad because really, PHF sampled a little bit at a time can be quite a treat.

I received a review copy of this and five other volumes of the works of Philip José Farmer through NetGalley.com.

The Lovers, Dark is the Sun, Riders of the Purple Wage by Philip Jose Farmer-Two of the author's novels and one of his most famous novellas in one offering.
The Lovers. I've read a lot of Farmer's stories and quite a few novels but never had a chance to read the Lovers. Starting off it's a little shaky and straight out of the 50's mind-set of population explosion, repressed religious societies, and vivid conservative trappings. Not much happens until the protagonist, Hal Yarrow, gets off Earth and settles in on an alien world to observe the dwellers there. He doesn't realize it, but he's just looking for love, and he finds it where he least expects to. Up until this point in science fiction, sex has pretty much been a taboo subject except for the scantily clad women on the magazine covers. But Farmer is more ambitious than most and introduces emotional depth to his story along with some hanky-panky. It sounds okay but reads rather slow and drags in places. Only a must read for a true fan or archivist.
Dark is the Sun. The Sun has died and the burning moon no longer serves as a fill-in. A young man goes on a quest to find his soul egg? and a mate along with a strange collection of forest dwellers. A quest story with all the Farmer quirks and asides. This is a long journey but filled with dangerous wonders and unexpected pleasures.
Riders of the Purple Wage. This novella first appeared in Harlan Ellison's famously ground-breaking anthology Dangerous Visions and went on to win a Hugo award. There is a story here if you pay close attention. Reading like John Dos Passos on mushrooms or James Joyce on acid, the text is filled with unreal images and hilarious happenings. Not for everyone but a true classic in its own way.