February 25, 2009
R.I.P. Philip Jose Farmer
This shouldn't come as a surprise, but, still, I'm sorry he's gone. (Source: Scalzi's blog)
In a lifetime of reading, it takes a special kind of book for me to remember specific scenes, and Farmer's "Riverworld" series was one of them. Starting with "To Your Scattered Bodies Go," I was enthralled with the mystery, the weirdness (at one point, the hero realizes that he can't die, so he kills himself repeatedly -- a la "Groundhog Day" -- until he wakes up unexpectedly in the "in-between place" and gets a few vital clues. Naturally, I blitzed through them in record time. "The Lovers" I read because I was a purient teen (hormones, you know), but I still remember the couple eating behind veils before them, because it was considered rude to show yourself eating. I still think about that at every meal.
Farmer was a link author to me, leading me to "Heavy Metal" magazine and the French cartoonists such as Mobius, and back to Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison. He will be missed.
Side note: He was born in Terre Haute, Ind., and died in Peoria, Ill., which I think is pretty cool. Man knew his roots.
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