The Other in the Mirror

A peek at the Advance Uncorrected Proof of the upcoming Phil Farmer omnibus, The Other in the Mirror, due out March 2009 from Subterranean Press. Rejoice: Bob Eggleton, who did the gorgeous cover illustration for Phil's last collection, will happily be on board for this book's cover as well.



From the publisher:

The Other in the Mirror brings together three classic novels by Philip José Farmer: Fire and the Night, Jesus on Mars, and Night of Light. All three are united by one of SF’s central tropes, that of The Other.

Fire and the Night is a mainstream novel so rare that even many of Farmer’s most dedicated fans have never read it. First published in 1962, it is also one of the author’s most daring works, exploring the issue of racial Otherness in a mesmerizing tale of temptation and entrapment in a small industrial Midwestern town.

In Jesus on Mars, Richard Orme and the crew of the Barsoom embark on the first manned mission to the Red Planet, intent on investigating what seemed to be evidence of life beamed back to Earth by a robotic survey satellite. But Orme discovers in the hollowed-out Martian caverns what he and the scientists back home least expect: a group of aliens, as well as humans transplanted from first century A.D. Earth, led by a being who claims to be Jesus of Nazareth Himself. Soon Orme and his crew are shocked to find that The Other they face is made all that more alien because of its similarity to humanity’s past.

Night of Light is not only one of Farmer’s most psychologically gripping SF tales, it is also the novel which inspired Jimi Hendrix’s psychedelic rock classic “Purple Haze.” John Carmody is a fugitive from Earth, condemned to exile for brutally murdering his wife. Hired by the galactic Church on a mission to squelch a burgeoning rival religion, Carmody must take the Chance on the planet Dante’s Joy and risk his worst nightmares becoming reality. But that’s not the worst of it: the Fathers of Algul and the Fathers of Yess have their own plans for the conscienceless Carmody—for to the inhabitants of Dante’s Joy, Carmody himself is The Other...and they need his alien flesh to give birth to God.

More details about the book here.

Seattle gets a meteor too

Western Canada got a nice fireball earlier this month and now it's our turn (be sure to watch the associated video after following the link--sorry, no embedding available).

New short story available

"Iron and Bronze," a short story Win Scott Eckert and I collaborated on, is now available in Tales of the Shadowmen: The Vampires of Paris, edited by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier. As I said back when I announced the sale:

Our story "Iron and Bronze" plays off the intersection of a number of literary mythologies: J.-H. Rosny's Hareton Ironcastle, Guy d'Armen's Doc Ardan, Pierre Benoit's L'Atlantide, Jules Verne's L'Étonnante Aventure de la mission Barsac, and H. Rider Haggard's African adventure novels for starters.

Win and I had a lot of fun writing the story and I hope we'll have the opportunity to work on something like this again. Tales of the Shadowmen: The Vampires of Paris is available directly from Black Coat Press and Amazon.com, with more distribution on the way shortly.

Where does the time go?

Certain Fathoms update:

Buried myself this weekend in the nineteenth century again. Dizzying, but extremely fascinating stuff. It's amazing when you're doing research of this kind how time slips away, but it's rewarding to know it was worth the effort. Uncovered lots of usable info and a multitude of potential leads. The bulk of the story is definitely going to be set in 1888. Still hoping to start writing in earnest in early January, in hopes of wrapping up the novel sometime in the summer.

Dumplingtopia

As I've been surveying nineteenth century utopian literature of the late, which sprang out of the economic hardships of the period, I was pondering whether the current financial crisis might also bloom forth in the utopian spirit. Sure enough. Witness Lord Dumpling and his Dumplingtopia.

'Ragnarok' à la 2008

I've been lucky enough to see two bolides with my own eyes, although admittedly the biggest one was maybe a quarter of the size of this thing. Both of the ones I saw had an orange-blue tail that I'll never forget.

The Cipher In the Plays, and on the Tombstone

As promised. . .

This is Donnelly's last published book, updating his cipher logic which claims Francis Bacon left behind a message in the Shakespeare plays indicating he was the true author. The cipher in the tombstone refers to the theory that Bacon also left a cipher on Shakeseare's headstone, an idea first proposed (as far as I can tell) in 1887 by Mr. Hugh Black in an article in the North American Review. Published in 1899 by the Verulam Publishing Company (Donnelly's own press) in gilt-lettered leather binding, it's a handsome little book.

The said curious epitaph from Shakespeare's grave is reproduced on the title page. The other quotes are from Bacon and Dickens. Donnelly was also apparently a fan of the latter. In a letter to his wife, written during his British lecture tour for The Great Cryptogram, Donnelly states that while visiting Westminster Abbey, "I shall never forget the start it gave me when I was contemplating the flat tombstone of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the poet, critic, and linguist . . . to glance down at my feet and find I was over all that was mortal of the author of David Copperfield and Barnaby Rudge. What a world of reflection rush over the mind at the mention of Charles Dickens." (Source: Ridge, Martin. Ignatius Donnelly: Portrait of a Politician. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1991)

My favorite section of the book...

An advertisement for Donnelly's other works is included at the end of the book. While the address is for the Verulam Publishing Company, I'm guessing that Donnelly was personally selling copies of the books printed by other publishers, as I've never seen any other books published by Verulam besides The Cipher in the Plays. The ad mentions that The Great Cryptogram was then out of print but that "A fourth edition will be published by us, if demand justifies it. Let us hear from those who desire a copy of it." Unfortunately, Donnelly was never able to find funding for either that reprinting or for his proposed second part to The Cipher in the Plays, which was to have been called Ben Jonson's Cipher or The Cipher in the Works of Ben Jonson (for more on the latter, see here, here, and here).