“The goblin has gone mad, and he is our enemy and the enemy of our enemies, his former friend. The goblin is holed up, but we are digging him out.”
Brass Bwona (Doc Caliban)
The Goblin probably refers to Iwaldi, the ancient dwarf and one of the nine. Iwaldi was at least ten thousand years old and possible could even be thirty thousand years old.
Lord of the Trees, Philip Jose Farmer
In his introduction to Philip Jose Farmers “Lord of the Trees”, Scott Eckert has made more than few observations about Farmer’s work and his characters. There is much I will not comment on, however there are a few points of his introduction I would like to share.
Farmer wrote three novels about the nine and as is usually the case I did not read them in succession, I read them in the order I was able to obtain them. They are:
“A Feast Unknown”I have read the other two, with “The Mad Goblin” being my first introduction to the “Nine”, and then “A Feast Unknown”, which was the most disturbing of Farmer’s work I had read up to the point, and now I start second of the series as my last read from the series.
“The Nine are a secret sect of immortals (those who have partaken of immortality elixir that extends one’s life up to 30,000 years) bent on amassing power and manipulating the course of events.”V
There are always mentions of other texts. Texts that are meant to fill-in-the blanks as to the history of the Wold Newton Family, like Farmer’s “Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke”, and “Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life”, both fictional biographies. Both are on my Farmer reading list.
You really don’t know whether Farmer’s literary mentions are “real” or are part of his Wold Newton mythos. Here are a few mentioned in his Hadon of Ancient Opar:
Even though he gets little more than a cameo mention in Hadon of Ancient Opar, Sahhinder is a significant figure in Farmers, Hadon of Ancient Opar. He seems to have appeared in khokarsa over a period of two thousand years and taught the ancient Khokarsans peoples animal husbandry, how to grow certain cereal plants, how to mine copper and tin, and how to fashion weapons and farm implements from these materials. Since his presence was long known abound these peoples they referred to Sahhinder 1 as god. Please see Farmer’s Times Last Gift.
1 Of course we can assume that this character was referred as Sahhinder and may have other names.
I have been fascinated by maps since I was a child and this fascination has not abated since I have grown-up. I especially am fascinated with maps that pertain to the text I am studying at the time. Hadon of Ancient Opar, as the title of my post mentions includes three maps. These are located at the beginning of the book and include an ancient map of Africa, circa, 10,000 B. C. , a map of Island of Khokarsa, and a map of the central section of City of Khokarsa.
If you follow this link you will find four additional maps, three of which were originally created by Philip José Farmer.
I have read a few of Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe texts, although not necessarily in chronological order. I have read them as I have learned of them. Many of Farmer’s books are either out of print or, if they are available, they sell as collectors’ items.
So Hadon of Ancient Opar is the start of Khokarsa series, however through the Wold Newton Universe heredity there are so many other texts that have been written before this series was introduced that are relative the plot of this text.
So the full canon of the Khokarsa series can be considered:
“Time’s Last Gift,” Farmer (1972, reissued by Titan, 2012)This list was found on Pulp Net.
Another list:
“Welcome to the lost civilization of Khokarsa. You are about to embark on one of the most epic journeys of heroic advent in the annals of history. Philip Jose Farmers Hadon of Ancient Opar is a tale of nigh forgotten age of the earth, and when swordplay and prophesies were merely the stuff of legends, but rather the fact of everyday experience…”
Christopher Paul Carey
All of the work of Farmer’s I have read, up to this point, have been a real treat and has Carey has so enthusiastically asserted an “epic journey”. Hadon of Ancient Opar is the first in Farmer’s Khokarsa series, the first of three volumes.
Hadon of Ancient Opar is a 290-page story, and includes three maps, a description of the maps, and two addendums. In addition, there is Khokarsan language glossary. There is a lot of material to parse.
Having read just about all of Farmer’s Wold Newton series, I am looking for more of Farmer’s work. Here is a short list of titles listed by one of the A Feast Unknown’s biographers:
World of Tiers
Riverworld
The Lovers
Day World
Two Hawks from Earth
Khokarso
“…an Evolution strangeMary Swenson
Yes, the name of this novel was taken from a line from Mary Swenson’s poem. This novel was the first in Farmer’s Wold Newton Parallel Universe series. I didn’t have the benefit of reading this novel before reading the later texts in this series. This is the first of Farmer’s work that did not include footnotes. Farmers’ works is usually riddled with footnotes that often help by giving you the back story.
A Feast Unknown, like Farmers other work, takes the reader on an amazing adventure. The novel is written as it is the diary of Lord Grandrith, “the legendary Apeman, Lord of the Jungle and bastard son of Jack the Ripper.” There are many dark themes that unfold as the story progresses.
With this post I am instituting a new sub collection Journey into the Unknown. I will use the Journey into the Unknown to explore some of the topics that were covered within the text, regardless of the outcomes.
“In the beginning was a formless which gave birth to Kho, the great goddess. She fashioned the earth, the air, the sky, the stars, the moon, and the sun.” The priestess Adythne recited these words to a bear that stood ten foot high, as she proffered her small honey soaked hand to the bear."
Wold Newton Prehistory-Kwasin and the Bear God
Miscellaneous data from the text:
Kahamwoodoo translated from Zalarapamtranian is the Purple Beast of Stinging Death. The Kahamwoodoo like most creatures found in this dimension of earth’s future is an atmospheric kraken. The creature looked like a “rough disk with a diameter of at least mile and a half and had a thickness of three hundred feet.” From a far it looked like an island.
Kahamwoodoo’s body was purplish and the tentacles, which were mostly coiled up while it traveled, were blood-red. The Kahamwoodoo’s body was able to readjust and reconfigure itself for different situations it might find itself. This creature created havoc and spurned destruction wherever it went.
The Wind Whales of Ishmael, Philip Jose Farmer
“One man survived.
The great white whale with its strange passenger and the strangled monomaniac its trailer, had dived deeply. The whaling ship was on its last, its vertical, voyage.”
This will be my fifth book in the Wold Newton Universe series that I have read. Like the rest of Farmer's work, it is hard to put this one down. This volume is a sequel to Melville’s Moby Dick in a way that only Farmer could come up with.
| Hadon of Ancient Opar |
| Lord of the Trees |
| Lord Tyger |
| The Wind Whales of Ishmael |
| Flesh |
These titles are published by Titan Books
Throughout the literature of Philip Jose Farmer you will find frequent use of footnotes. These footnotes typically point the reader to other texts and fill the gaps of the Wold Newton Universe genealogy or explain other pertinent facts.
Gribardsun beginnings date back 12000 years before Christ and to the origins of the Khokarsan civilization. “Gribardsun’s ebony hair hung in his face, covering his piercing gray eyes, as he sat alone in his room, starring at the floor brooding…
Eridaneans and Capellenas. Some sort of competing secret societies, so-called because their membership, rituals, and purpose were clandestine?
Perhaps related to the Illuminanti? The Rosicrucians? Those groups were supposedly interested in gathering secret knowledge from all over the world…
He thought of the importance of the number nine in Khokarsan culture, and the nine-sided temple of Kho. The Door of the Nine, which gave unto the temple. And the nine primary aspects of Kho.”
The Wild Huntsmen, Tales of the Wold Newton Universe, Philip Jose Farmer
Skinburn is one of many short tales found Farmer’s anthology “Tales of the Wold Newton Universe”. It is one of three found in the anthology’s Pulp Inspirations section.
“This story is about Love, which means that it is also about Hate. One of the themes that run through much of my work is that for every advantage you gain there is a disadvantage, that the gods or whoever, require payment, that the universe in all its aspects, which includes the human psyche, is governed by a check and balance system.”
On this day in the year 1795 a meteorite, weighing 56 pounds fell near the Wold Cottage farm at around 3:00 P.M. “A monument was erected on the location of the stone's impact, by Major Topham, on whose property the stone had fallen.” Philip José Farmer’s Wod Newton Family is said to have started at this point in history.
The Official Philip José Farmer Home Page
Although Philip Jose Farmer used many footnotes in his The Other Log of Philieas Fogg I have decided to ferret a few of these out and see where they end up. Are they fictitious or will they have some landing place? Once I ascertain whether they have some validity the next question: have they been manufactured for this novel as I suspect of some of resource materials or are they genuine articles?
31 A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystake
32 The Mask of Fu-Manchu, Shan Greville
Pretty Sinister Books
34Wold Cottage Website (broken link)
41 Myths for the Modern Age, Philip Jose Farmer (out of print)
42A Kick in the Side, Christopher Paul Carey; (out of print)
Is He in Hell, Win Scott; (podcast)
Kwasin and the Bear God, Philip Jose Farmer & Paul Carey (still available)
Interesting rabbit trail; maps of Khokara
The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer, volumes 1 & 2 (out of print?);
Of Dust and Soul, Michael Croteau; Croteau is listed here as what I presumed to be the author however, Croteau is listed as the editor. (this is a foot note for the footnote numbered 42)
46“The Conundrums of Kichaha”, Farmerphile: The Magazine of P. J. Farmer, #7
(a couple issues are still available, but not issue #7 )
47“The Stars are but Reflections”, The Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History, Denis E. Powers;
This is a reference page I was led to: Articles Alphabetical by Author
It seems, for the most part, these footnotes are to other resources that this story finds itself interwoven into. The exercise spawned more questions than answers; however, the endeavor did reveal additional bits of Famer lore and other interesting Farmer resources. See, for instance: Aliens Among Us!, The Thoan
...
Project Gutenberg offers three of Farmers stories as electronic texts in various formats. The three texts include Farmer’s The Green Odyssey and Rastignac the Devil, both short novels and Farmers They Twinkled Like Jewels a short story.
Both references are from the same site and comprise elements from the Wold Newton Universe. At any rate, it is an interesting take on Dr. Fu Manchu and other characters found in the Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu story. This post will complete my Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu series. We will pick it up again the next episode.
