Sunday, October 12, 2008

What type of revolver was Dr. Watson using c. 1899?


Probably a Webley Mark III series Revolver in .38 Caliber, according to this excellent online article, "The Firearms of Sherlock Holmes."

Yep, I am researching for a story... and I loves the internets.

P.S. Holmes probably carried a
Webley Metropolitan Police Model Revolver. Too cool.

pic o' the day


Friday, October 10, 2008

The Wold Newton gang in FARMERPHILE #14

Now that I've broken the news about the Doc Savage coat of arms in FARMERPHILE no. 14 , it really bears mentioning how many Wold-Newtoneers we have contributing to this issue, our longest issue yet!

Art Sippo makes his first contribution with "This Played in Peoria?"

Rick Lai is back with the very timely "
The Doc Ravage Presidential Campaign."

Regular
Dennis Power joins in with "
Oh the Humanity."

Chris Carey , as always, puts his indelible stamp on the issue with all of his invaluable behind-the-scenes work.

And I've got a few Pemberley House things in there, including an interview about writing the book, a family tree, and a two-chapter excerpt.

Complete contents:

Issue No. 14 - October 2008
60 pages (5.5 x 8.5 inches)
$11 (includes shipping in the US and Canada)

Table of contents:

This Played in Peoria?
- by Art Sippo

A Whale of a Time
- by Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor

Tongues of the Moon
- by Philip José Farmer
--- illustrated by John Streleckis

The Voice of Farmer in My Vermiform Appendix
- by Rhys Hughes

Creative Mythography: Excessively Diverted, or, Coming to Pemberley House
- by Win Scott Eckert

Farmerphile Interviews Win Scott Eckert

Excerpt from The Evil in Pemberley House
- by Philip José Farmer & Win Scott Eckert
--- illustrated by Keith Howell

Say, What's the Big Idea?
- by Michael Carroll

The Doc Ravage Presidential Campaign
- by Rick Lai

Bibliophile
- by Paul Spiteri

Boris the Bear: Wold Newton and Philip José Farmer
- by Steve Mattsson

Oh the Humanity
- by Dennis E. Power

Unpolished Pearls from the Magic Filing Cabinet

Greartheart Silver
- by Philip José Farmer

Doc Wildman's Coat of Arms
- by Philip José Farmer
--- illustrated by Keith Howell

Cover art by Charles Berlin


We really hope you'll support our efforts and pick up this issue .

All the best,

Win

Doc Savage's Coat of Arms!

I'm very pleased to announce that, as I blogged about a short time ago, Doc Savage's (okay, Doc Wildman's :-) coat of arms will appear in issue 14 of Farmerphile! The illustration is based on Phil Farmer's description in Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, with a few additions based on unpublished notes from the Magic Filing Cabinet in Phil's basement. I (and my lovely wife) were very pleased research the rules of heraldry in order to provide instructions to fantastic artist Keith Howell in executing what Phil described in DS:HAL, as well as choosing the small additions from Phil's unpublished notes.

This is a big deal for Doc fans, so please spread the word (forward the link to this post!) and consider picking up the issue; Keith's illustration is truly extraordinary.

pic o' the day




Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Short fiction in print

My pal Matthew Baugh posted his short fiction in print, and while I have a complete bibliography on another page, I thought it was kinda cool to put it right in a blog post, so I'm unabashedly copying him. :-)

IN PRINT...
  • "The Vanishing Devil" TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN, VOL 1 - Doc Ardan (Doc Savage), Doctor Natas (Doctor Fu Manchu), Sherlock Holmes
  • "The Eye of Oran" TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN, VOL 2 - Doc Ardan, Doctor Natas, Violet Holmes, A. Lupin, J. Bond, SNIF
  • "Shadows over Kunlun" LANCE STAR--SKY RANGER - Lance Star & co., Doctor Natas
  • "Les Lèvres Rouges" TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN, VOL 3 - Doc Ardan, A. Lupin, Elisabeth Bathory, Nestor Burma, Jens Rolf, SNIF
  • "The Shades of Pemberley" FARMERPHILE nos. 8 & 9 - Sexton Blake, Tinker, Doc Ardan, the Dowager Duchess of Holdernesse, Doctor Augustus Moran, Sherlock Holmes
  • "The Atomos Affair" TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN, VOL 4 - Madame Atomos, UNCLE
  • Excerpt from the Wold Newton novel THE EVIL IN PEMBERLEY HOUSE (with Philip José Farmer), FARMERPHILE no. 14 - Patricia Wildman (daughter of the Man of Bronze), the Dowager Duchess of Greystoke (Holdernesse), Doctor Augustus Moran (coming out any week now, so I'm listing it as IN PRINT rather than NOT YET PUBLISHED... :-)

IN FRENCH...
  • "L'oeil d'Oran" LES COMPAGNONS DE L'OMBRE (Tome 1)
  • "L'Affaire Atomos" LA SAGA DE MME. ATOMOS (Tome 3)

ACCEPTED BUT NOT YET PUBLISHED...
  • "Death and the Countess" THE AVENGER CHRONICLES (coming out later this month, I think/hope)
  • "Iron and Bronze" TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN, VOL 5 (with Christopher Paul Carey) - Doc Ardan, Hareton Ironcastle, Antinea, Harry Killer (coming January 2009)
  • "Les lèvres rouges" LES COMPAGNONS DE L'OMBRE (Tome 3)
  • "Captain Midnight at Ultima Thule" CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT: DECLASSIFIED

pic o' the day


Tuesday, October 07, 2008

MileHiCon 40 schedule - October 24-26

These are the panels I'm scheduled for at MileHiCon 40, October 24-26 (Hyatt Regency - Tech Center, 7800 E. Tufts Ave., Denver, CO). I'll be looking at selling books (Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer’s Wold Newton Universe, Tales of the Shadowmen, Tarzan Alive, Farmerphile, etc.) through an author's co-op in the Dealer's Room.

Friday Oct. 24:
4-6 pm

Aspiring Authors 101: The Creative Side

S. Biondine, W. Eckert, T. Powers, M Rotundo (M), C. Vaughn, C. Willis

7-8 pm

Author Reading:

W. Eckert & L. Patten

Saturday Oct. 25:
2-3 pm

Tight Focus

B. Nickless / W. Eckert (Eckert starts at 2:25 pm - Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe)

9-10 pm

Turn the Page to Turn Me On

S. Biondine, W. Eckert, L. Hilburn (M), T. Hutcheson, N. Kurtz, B. Nickless



Sunday Oct. 26:
11am-12 noon

Dealing with Death

M. Bateman, D. Dieter (M), Dan. Dvorkin, D. Dvorkin, W. Eckert

1-2 pm
Autographs

Eckert / Bonham / Caress


Er... gulp. Time to start boning up on my sitting-on-the same-panel-with-sf-luminaries-and-trying-not-to-say-something-stupid-fu.

pic o' the day


Saturday, October 04, 2008

The Avenger Chronicles - limited edition cover art!





Artist extraordinaire Douglas Klauba has posted his cover for the forthcoming Limited Edition of The Avenger Chronicles from Moonstone Books. It features all the members of the Justice Inc. team, for the first time ever. All I can say is "Wow!" What a fantastic piece! The book is coming soon, and I'm very honored to be a part of it.

pic o' the day


Thursday, October 02, 2008

Otis Adelbert Kline’s The Swordsman of Mars - Unabridged!


At long last, the complete version of Otis Adelbert Kline’s The Swordsman of Mars is being published by the fine folks at Planet Stories.

Full details here! And more details about the book here at the Paizo Planet Stories website.

It's probably no surprise, but the Ace/Avalon reprint was not unabridged as claimed, and thus Kline's reputation was sullied by Avalon's editorial hack-job. Kudos to Planet Stories for restoring the original version serialized in the Argosy pulps. And while you're at it, check out the whole Planet Stories lineup. These are well-packaged reprints of pulp classics that deserve to be reprinted, and Planet Stories has done a great job in a very short time of launching a well-branded imprint of don't-miss books.

pic o' the day


Sunday, September 28, 2008

Coats of arms of "fictional" characters... Tarzan, James Bond, Lord Peter Wimsey... and Doc Savage?






Here is Tarzan's coat of arms drawn to Philip José Farmer's specifications by Bjo Trimble. The arms appeared in Phil's "The Arms of Tarzan." first published in Burroughs Bulletin No. 22, Summer 1971. (Reprinted online with permission at the Wold Newton Universe website, as well as in MYTHS FOR THE MODERN AGE: PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER’S WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE and PEARLS FROM PEORIA.











Next we have James Bond's arms, scanned from the back cover of the original hardback edition of Raymond Benson's THE JAMES BOND BEDSIDE COMPANION.














Here are the Wimsey arms, from the cover of C.W. Scott-Giles The Wimsey Family (the "Dorothy L. Sayers" across the top is obviously not part of the arms, but I wanted to present the color cover rather than the b&w illustration from the book's interior).






















In Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Philip José Farmer described the described the coat of arms of the Clarke Wildman family (Doc Savage's family):

"ARMS—Argent, a fesse chequy gules and azure, in chief an alchemical pelican between two fleams, in base a demisavage holding on his sinister shoulder a club. Crest—A demihuntsman proper winding a horn gules. Mottoes—Free for a Blast; Inicissimus Maleficorum.

The lower* motto means: The Greatest Enemy of Evildoers, a very appropriate motto for Doc Savage."

* The British paperback edition of DS:HAL (Panther, 1975) says “lower,” while the U.S. paperbacks (Bantam, 1975; Playboy, 1981) say “latter.” Both are contextually correct in this case.

I'd bet a lot of Wold Newton and Doc Savage fans might be interested in seeing an actual illustration of Doc Savage's coat of arms. What does everyone think?

PRIDE & PREJUDICE crossovers - the Mr. & Mrs. Darcy mysteries

Book four in the Mr. & Mrs. Darcy mystery series by Carrie Bebris is out, The Matters at Mansfield: Or, The Crawford Affair -- a crossover with Jane Austen's Mansfield Park this time.



The time-frame for Pride and Prejudice in Bebris' continuity is about 20 years or so later than it must occur in the Wold Newton Universe (in the WNU P&P must occur Sept. 1792-Late Autumn 1793, so that the married Darcy and Elizabeth can be present at the Wold Newton meteor strike in Dec. 1795).



Forcing the Bebris mysteries backward about 20 years also forces the other Austen novels back ~20 years, which causes some insurmountable chronological issues.Thus, I am using the Austen mega-crossover Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton (1914) in the main timeline in Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World, and listing the series of crossover mysteries by Bebris in the Alternate Universes Addendum of the book.

pic o' the day


Friday, September 26, 2008

THE INVADERS - Wold-Newtony crossover request in lettercol



Way back in 1978, my pal and fellow contributor to MYTHS FOR THE MODERN AGE: PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER'S WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE, Art Bollmann, wrote a letter to THE INVADERS which appeared in issue 33 (click for larger image). Yes, the Merry Marvelites misspelled his last name as "Hollmann" when they printed the letter, but we all know it's him. ;-)





bonus pic o' the day

Bonus pic o' the day for CPC!

pic o' the day