Tales of the Wold Newton Universe Read Free

to ensure that the author would not reveal clues that might endanger him or his loved ones. For this reason, Farmer withheld publication of the novel’s epilogue until the revised edition of Time’s Last Gift appeared in 1977, by which time Gribardsun must have felt he had slipped far enough off the radar that no one could conceivably follow the clues to him or his family. This newly appended epilogue (also included in the Titan Books edition) revealed that the jungle lord whom Farmer called Gribardsun was married to a beautiful blonde named Jane. The reader should also consider the account in that novel of the Duke of Pemberley, the British peer who was born in 1872 and “raised in indeterminate circumstances” in the jungles of West Africa, and who one member of the time travel expedition to 12,000 B.C . believes is one and the same as John Gribardsun. Incidentally, the 1872 birthdate serves as both a red herring and a clue to Gribardsun’s identity, as readers of Farmer’s Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke are well aware.
    Farmer continued his exploration of the Wold Newton Family in Ironcastle (1976), his translation and retelling of J. H. Rosny Aîné’s L’Étonnant Voyage de Hareton Ironcastle (1922), which includes several prominent Wold Newton references. Farmer’s The Lavalite World (1977), the fifth entry in the World of Tiers series, 8 also solidly connects to the Wold Newton series. Here Farmer’s protagonist, Kickaha, aka Paul Janus Finnegan, is revealed to be closely related to both the aforementioned Phileas Fogg and to Hardin Blaze Fog, a relative of “the famous Confederate war hero and Western gunfighter Dustine ‘Dusty’ Edward Marsden Fog,” whose exploits were chronicled in fictionalized form by author J. T. Edson.
    Farmer also wrote several Wold Newton short stories and pieces in the 1970s: “Skinburn,” “The Problem of the Sore Bridge—Among Others,” “The Freshman,” “After King Kong Fell,” “A Scarletin Study,” “The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight,” “The Obscure Life and Hard Times of Kilgore Trout,” “Extracts from the Memoirs of ‘Lord Greystoke,’” and others more peripherally connected to the series.
    He also continued to write short biographical pieces, including “A Reply to ‘The Red Herring,’” “The Two Lord Ruftons,” “The Great Korak-Time Discrepancy,” “The Lord Mountford Mystery,” “From ERB to Ygg,” “A Language for Opar,” and “Jonathan Swift Somers III, Cosmic Traveller in a Wheelchair: A Short Biography by Philip José Farmer (Honorary Chief Kennel Keeper).” 9
    Farmer returned to the Wold Newton series in a big way in the 1990s, starting the decade with the authorized novel Escape from Loki: Doc Savage’s First Adventure (1991), and rounding it out with the authorized The Dark Heart of Time: A Tarzan Novel (1999). 2009 saw the publication of the Wold Newton series novel The Evil in Pemberley House , coauthored with Win Scott Eckert, and in 2012 the concluding novel of the Khokarsa trilogy, The Song of Kwasin , coauthored with Christopher Paul Carey, at last saw print.
    Farmer passed away on February 25, 2009, after the completion of The Evil in Pemberley House and The Song of Kwasin but before publication.
    In 2010, Wold Newton fiction was authorized by Farmer’s estate, and new stories based on his research appeared.
    Those works included in the present volume are marked with an asterisk.
    The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 1: Protean Dimensions, Michael Croteau, ed., Meteor House, 2010.
    “A Kick in the Side” by Christopher Paul Carey
    “Is He in Hell?” by Win Scott Eckert
    The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2: Of Dust and Soul, Michael Croteau, ed., Meteor House, 2011.
    “Kwasin and the Bear God” by Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey*
    “For the Articles” by Bradley H. Sinor
    “Into Time’s Abyss” by John Allen Small*
    The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: