The Monster on Hold - Preorder & Cover Reveal!

Philip José Farmer worked on The Monster on Hold, the fourth novel in his Secrets of the Nine series, in the 1970s and ’80s, but never completed it or any other works in the series. Using Farmer’s partial manuscripts and copious notes, Win Scott Eckert, co-author with Farmer of The Evil in Pemberley House, has at long last completed the novel.

Today, publisher Meteor House announced the two cover artists. Douglas Klauba is doing the Trade Paperback cover and Mark Wheatley is doing the Signed Hardcover Limited Edition cover. And here is a look at the front (only) of the hardcover wraparound artwork by Mark Wheatley!

They were known simply as the Nine. Grim and ancient rulers who discovered the key to eternal life thirty-thousand years ago, and ever since have held the world secretly in thrall. These dark manipulators control the destinies of billions, including the formidable Doc Caliban, Champion of Justice. Once, Doc had been their servant and had shared their secrets. Now, appalled by their tyranny, he and his half-brother, Lord Grandrith—bastard son of Jack the Ripper—have turned against the Nine, daring to challenge their centuries-old supremacy.

In the eighteenth century, the Nine had been faced with a similar revolt and, in desperation, summoned a thing from another dimension—a thing with the power to touch the subconscious and cause nightmares. And that thing—Shrassk—was held in abeyance in a deep cavern complex below New England.

Now, Shrassk and her Children have awakened.

Caliban, suffering from recurring nightmares in which he sees somebody much like himself—and who in these visions seems to be dreaming of Caliban—gathers his closest allies for a final showdown. Together with longtime associates Pauncho Van Veelar and Barney Banks, and his titian-haired cousin, Trish Wilde, whose superhuman skills match his own, Doc descends deep into the subterranean complex to confront an infinite evil, the unspeakable dweller lurking at the threshold between two universes…

Featuring an introduction by Bronze Gazette editor Chuck Welch, The Monster on Hold is available in a Trade Paperback (featuring cover art by Doug Klauba, coming soon) and a Signed Hardcover Limited Edition (featuring a wraparound jacket by Mark Wheatley). Each edition also includes interior artwork by both artists. The hardcover will be signed by Win Scott Eckert, Chuck Welch, Doug Klauba, and Mark Wheatley!

The book is due out in the fall of 2021.

Order The Monster on Hold

2017 (and Beyond) Writing Projects

Following on the heels of my 2016 writing review, this is an overview of what I have planned for 2017 and 2018. I'm happy to say that most these projects are firm commitments, and won't leave much space in my schedule for additional work.

That said, I am always open to discussing chance-of-a-lifetime, no-way-can-you-turn-this-down projects!


The Avenger–Domino Lady short story. In my Avenger story "Death and the Countess" (The Avenger Chronicles, Moonstone Books, 2008), I referred to an "untold tale," the first meeting of The Avenger and the Domino Lady. I am currently in progress on this story, which fills a neat little space between Ron Goulart's "The Return of the Iron Skull" and "Death and the Countess."

Next, an Avenger novel for Moonstone. Novella length, really, but who's counting. This one is already generally plotted and should not take long to write once I get cranking.

A Sherlock Holmes short story to be submitted to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories – Part VII: Eliminate the Impossible. I have the idea for this, but have not plotted or outlined it yet. It may well be a semi-sequel to my tale "No Ghosts Need Apply" (The Phantom Chronicles 2, Moonstone Books, 2010). That story had a neat bit of Wold-Newtonry (if I do say so) which has gone largely unnoticed, and which I'd like to extend in the Holmes tale.

The biggie... completing Philip José Farmer's unfinished fourth Doc Caliban novel, The Monster on Hold, due out from Meteor House in Summer 2018. This will require rereading A Feast Unknown, Lord of the Trees, and The Mad Goblin (for the umpteenth time), as well as intensive research, detailed outlining, worldbuilding, writing, rewriting, and polishing. I expect to spend the bulk of my writing time between now and spring 2018 on this. 

Slipped in the cracks of all this I will be continuing to research and put together material which will result in a proposal for a licensed character I would very much like to write.

It feels good to be back in the game.

The Wild Huntsman

    Thus, Tarzan has as ancestor Woden. It would be difficult to find a more highly placed forefather than the All-Father.
     Perhaps the great god of the North is not dead but is in hiding. It pleased the Wild Huntsman to direct the falling star of Wold Newton near the two coaches. Thus, in a manner of speaking, he fathered the children of the occupants. The mutated and recessive genes would be reinforced, kept from being lost, by the frequent marriages among the descendants of the irradiated parents.
—Philip José Farmer, Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke

In November 1795, after undergoing a harrowing adventure in France, Sir Percy Blakeney—The Scarlet Pimpernel—decided to call a Conclave of some of the most remarkable people of his time to plan how to influence the political and revolutionary climate sweeping across Europe. These extraordinary people, many of them heroes in their own right, were the ancestors of a group of mutant supermen who have played a large role in our affairs—Sherlock Holmes, Doc Wildman, Captain Nemo, and the lord of the jungle, among many others.

It is December 13, 1795. The ionized radiation accompanying a meteor strike in the tiny village of Wold Newton, Yorkshire, endows Blakeney and his fellow Conclave attendees with a boost—a nova of genetic splendor—that will result in those supermen and women.

Or does it?

A mysterious time traveler has come to Wold Newton to witness the momentous event, and is quickly drawn into investigating a series of impossible murders heralded by an ominous tolling, murders never recorded in the history books. As the Conclave guests divide into camps, and hopes for a solution to the European problem dwindle, so too dwindles hope for the future. For if the enigmatic time voyager cannot overcome the machinations of an immortal trickster and ensure that the right people are at the right place, at the right time, then not only will his own future and past be erased, but the whole of history itself will be rewritten…

Drawing on the cornerstone Wold Newton novels, biographies, and stories by science-fiction Grandmaster Philip José Farmer, including Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Time’s Last Gift, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, and A Feast Unknown, “The Wild Huntsman” is a 12,000-word novelette by Wold Newton expert Win Scott Eckert. A sequel to Eckert’s tale “Is He in Hell?” (The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 1: Protean Dimensions), “The Wild Huntsman” will see publication in Meteor House’s The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster (2012).

Note: Time is running out for readers to win to a chance be Tuckerized in a major story in The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster. Readers can enter this contest up to three times (see www.pjfarmer.com for details) but the deadline is June 30.

Feasting on Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban

A sampling of what's on my mind right now...