As for where to start with Farmer’s stuff, I’d recommend To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first of the Riverworld novels; The Maker of Worlds, the first of the World of Tiers; The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, a good place to start for anyone who enjoys Verne, steampunk, or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; and Two Hawks from Earth, a terrific alternate history adventure.

Dan, the two biographies, Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage – His Apocalyptic Life are a great place to start. Tarzan Alive gets a little heavy with the heraldry and geneaology aspects of it all but, on the plus side, is MUCH easier to find than the Doc Savage book, especially outside the US.

The comparison to well-written fan-fic above made me smile. This stuff, or certainly Farmer’s contributions, feels to me a lot lke Roy Thomas’ work on the All Star Squadron, filling the gaps and making many real or imagined connections come to life. Its very definitely not continuity porn; Farmer asserts much of what has gone before is out and out wrong, for instance that Burroughs fabricated Pellucidar from whole cloth. He tells a rollicking good tale that doesn’t let obscure or otherwise details get in the way of his story. I can’t say that for much fan-fic I’ve read. But then I haven’t read very much so make of that what you will…

A great piece as usual Greg. Thanks!

I don’t think any rational person can debate the incredible importance of The Lovers to SF. And I truly believe that The Alley Man is one of the great SF short stories.

Thanks for the reminders of Farmer’s great work.

And what is the deal with the Kilgore Trout book?!

Farmer wrote it as part of his ‘fictional author’ series. When it came out a lot of folks thought it was Kurt Vonnegut himself that wrote it, but it was Mr. Farmer doing a sly Vonnegut parody. Trout is considered a member of the Wold Newton family, too.

Really you could start with any of these books pictured. Or Riverworld and Other Stories, that’s a nice little sampler.

And what is the deal with the Kilgore Trout book?!

It’s sad to hear of Mr. Farmer’s passing, but as you noted it was to be expected. At least he got one more book out before he left us!

Btw, I can’t help but smile at the very fact that Wold Newton is, basically, CROSSOVER FAN FICTION. The SAME kind of stuff we fans talk about, argue and even mock online these days. It’s likely VERY well written Fan Fiction, unlike most of the stuff posted on the Web, but still it’s basically “let’s put these characters from different series together and see what happens.” On the other hand, some people are dead-set against crossovers (even on TV SHOWS!), as if somehow every series HAD to exist on its own little universe, that the idea alone puts them off from reading or watching one. Their loss.

There’s one thing that DOES bother me about Wold Newton, though: the fact that all these amazing men and women only came to exist (or at least be formidable) *Because* a meteor irradiated some random people. I dunno, it’s kind of a letdown to assume that the human race could not produce such wonders on its own (even if we assume the radiation only “awakened latent genes” ala Marvel Comics.) And yes, I know SOME of the WN characters existed BEFORE the meteor, but the REALLY amazing ones came afterwards.