Read by Christopher Paul Carey
Venus on the Half-Shell and Others collects for the first time the best of
the best from Philip JosĘ Farmer's scintillating "fictional-author period."
In the mid-1970s a fever-pitched furor was created when an actual novel
purported to be by Kilgore Trout -- the sadsack science fiction writer who
appears as a character in the works of Kurt Vonnegut -- materialized on
the bookracks, complete with a mysterious back cover photo of the author
looking like a bearded vagabond sage. Debate raged as to who had truly
written Venus on the Half-Shell. Was it Vonnegut himself, or perhaps
Theodore Sturgeon, rumored to have been the inspiration for Trout?
Or did Kilgore Trout really exist? Just as one respected newspaper
published an article "proving" that Vonnegut had written the book,
the Hugo Award-winning science fiction author Philip Jose Farmer announced
he was the true author. The controversial Kilgore Trout episode was neither
the first nor the last time Farmer would impishly slip out of his own skin
and assume the persona of another author. In Venus on the Half-Shell and
Others, Philip Jose Farmer transforms himself into fictional personalities
as compelling as they are diverse: Cordwainer Bird, Paul Chapin, Rod Keen,
Harry "Bunny" Manders, Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor, John H. Watson, M.D. and
even the real-life author William S. Burroughs (writing his own version
of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Jungle Lord!). Also included is the original
version of Farmer's classic Sherlock Holmes/Lord Greystoke pastiche
The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, back in print for the first time in
over thirty years. A unique collection, Venus on the Half-Shell and Others
showcases the grand imagination of one of science fiction's most
resourceful and creative minds.
Download File Size:580.54 MB
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