Literary success did not translate into financial security, so he left Peoria in 1956 to launch a career as a technical writer. But the book was not published and Farmer did not get the $4,000 prize money that was supposed to go to the winner. Thus encouraged, he quit his job to become a full-time writer, entered a publisher's contest, and promptly won first prize for a novel, Owe for the Flesh, that contained the germ of his later Riverworld series. He won a Hugo Award for Best New SF Author or Artist in 1953, the first of three Hugo awards he won in his career. įarmer had his first literary success when his novella The Lovers was published by Samuel Mines in Startling Stories, August 1952, which features a sexual relationship between a human and an extraterrestrial. He continued his education, however, earning a bachelor's degree in English from Bradley University in 1950.

After washing out of flight training in World War II, he went to work in a local steel mill.

Andre and eventually fathered a son and a daughter. A voracious reader as a boy, Farmer said he resolved to become a writer in the fourth grade. His father was a civil engineer and a supervisor for the local power company. Farmer grew up in Peoria, Illinois, where he attended Peoria High School. According to colleague Frederik Pohl, his middle name was in honor of an aunt, Josie. Literary critic Leslie Fiedler compared Farmer to Ray Bradbury, describing both as 'provincial American eccentrics' who 'strain at the classic limits of the form,' but found Farmer distinctive for his capacity 'to be at once naive and sophisticated in his odd blending of theology, pornography, and adventure.' Biography įarmer was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana. Such works as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973) and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973) are early examples of literary mashup novels. Farmer often mixed real and classic fictional characters and worlds and real and fake authors as epitomized by his Wold Newton family books, which tie classic fictional characters together as real people and blood relatives resulting from an alien conspiracy. He is noted for the pioneering use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for, and reworking of, the lore of celebrated pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters.

įarmer is best known for his sequences of novels, especially the World of Tiers (1965–93) and Riverworld (1971–83) series. Philip José Farmer (Janu– February 25, 2009) was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.

Strange relations philip josé farmer