Meteor House‘s The Best of Farmerphile, as its title indicates, collects the best of the fiction and non-fiction that ran in the 15 issues of Farmerphile, published from 2005-09.
Focused on Philip José Farmer, it had non-fiction and previously unpublished fiction by Farmer, along with a variety of non-fiction works about Farmer and works by others.
And why should we care?
Because Farmer, as a pulp fan himself, wrote works (sometimes as pastiches) about or using pulp characters such as Tarzan, Doc Savage, Sherlock Holmes, and others. I’ve previously posted on Farmer’s work in this area, including the Wold Newton Family/Universe.
And several of the non-fiction works included here touch on several of those.
For instance we get:
• Articles by Win Scott Eckert on Pemberley House, Tarzan, and Phileas Fogg.
• Articles looking at the origins of Farmer’s Khokarsa saga, including one by Farmer.
• An article by Will Murray on Farmer’s Doc work.
• A look at the use of Camp Loki in the Doc “mythology.”
• Another article takes a look at the “Grant-Robeson Papers,” which I still wish someone would do the “Grant” side of.
• Farmer’s articles include a talk on Sherlock Holmes and his activities during the period he was though dead and may have investigated Sufism, fitting Jongor into the Wold Newton Family, and Doc Wildman‘s coat of arms.
As noted, there are a little more then a dozen Farmer short stories. Sadly none of them are explicitly pulp inspired, but I think most will enjoy several of these.
