The long-awaited conclusion to a series of works by Philip José Farmer is finally here. It’s The Monster on Hold, which finishes the “Secret of the Nine” series that started way back in 1969!
These works have a couple of characters that are clearly based on Tarzan and Doc Savage: Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban. When I first read them, also being familiar with Farmer’s “biographies” of the two characters, I figured these were created to be the “real” characters. But later on, I realized that these two are really set in an alternate reality/universe, which has been made clear by the work of others.
Caliban and Grandrith are immortal, due to a treatment provided by a secret society of immortals known as the Nine, who have manipulated the ancestors of both men, who were revealed to be half-brothers. Whereas in Farmer’s “bios,” Tarzan and Doc Savage are cousins, and their uniquiness is due to the meteor that fell at Wold Newton, and if you believe them to be immortal, their sources of this is different for each one.
A Feast Unknown (1969) kicks things off with a bang. Literally. Lord Grandrith is attacked at his African estate by three groups, one being Caliban who thinks Grandrith killed his cousin (Trish Wilde, an analogue to Patricia Savage). Caliban is aided by two of his remaining aides, analogues to Ham and Monk: octogenarians “Jocko” Simmons and “Porky” Rivers.
Soon it’s clear that this is all engineered by the Nine to have the two fight, the winner taking the place of one of the Nine who has died and is revealed to be their grandfather (maybe several times over). But after an epic fight, the two decide instead to unite and fight against the Nine. (I am way over-simplifying here.) And in case anyone isn’t aware, this work was published by a pornographic publisher, so this work would probably be considered R-rated or X-rated. The following works are more PG-13.
Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin are parallel sequels, which came out in an Ace “double novel” format in 1970. One focusing on Lord Grandrith and the other on Doc Caliban, with the two coming together at the end of The Mad Goblin. Caliban is now joined by the sons of Jocko and Porkins, Pauncho Van Veelar and Barney Banks, after their fathers died in the last novel. At the end, we were promised the fight against the Nine would continue, as by this time three more have been killed, leaving only five remaining.
If you don’t have these three, get the volumes from Titan Books. These are the best editions to get, especially with the additional forwards/afterwards.
The final novel never appeared. It was never clear to me why. What was written appeared as a couple of fragments in a few places. Finally, a few years ago it was announced that Win Scott Eckert was going to finally finish The Monster on Hold. And now in 2021, a few years later than expected, we have it from Meteor House. It is solely a Doc Caliban novel, and is also a sort-of sequel to the final Doc Savage novel, “Up From Earth’s Center.” Apparently it was started by Farmer to be that, before it was re-worked, being described as kind-of “Doc vs. the Cthulhu Mythos.”
Surprisingly, Monster is not set directly after the events of Mad Goblin, as I expected. Instead, we start off several years later in 1977 (Mad Goblin was set in 1969). Here we find Caliban, along with his allies Trish, Pauncho, Barney, and Barbara Villiers (another defector from the Nine) in Canada, going after one of the Nine. We learn of their past fight with the Nine and what happened to Caliban’s headquarters in the Empire State Building, his “crime college,” and his “graduates” from that. And that Grandrith has instead been looking for his missing wife.
Then, we skip ahead to 1984. The war is still going on, but more underground. Caliban learns that a threat exists to the whole world in what was located in that cavern that he visited, as did his otherworld counterpart, Doc Wildman, at the end of the 1940s. It is a dangerous Lovecraftian creature that has been affecting the world(s), if not the universe with it and its “children.” Hopefully ending this threat will help them finally defeat the Nine (or what remains of them). I’ll leave it to the reader if you think this provides a good explanation for what might have happened in “Up From Earth’s Center.”
In a final sequence, we have a short epilogue in 1993 that leaves us with more questions.
The rest of the volume has various bonus material.
One is a reprint of Eckerts’ “The Wild Huntsman,” which lets us know of some, but not all, of the activities of the alternate XauXaz in both the world of Doc Caliban, as well as the world of Doc Wildman (or “Wold Newton Universe”). This should help people understand more of this character and his importance.
We get scans of notes and letters from Farmer’s files on his original ideas for this work, and his original prose and outline, which had been published elsewhere.
From Eckert himself is first an explanation of the two universes (the “Grandrith/Caliban” and the “Wold Newton” ones) which lays out how, yes, Doc Caliban and Doc Wildman are alternative universe versions of himselves, along with a chronology of both, as well as a chronology of XauXaz.
All together, it’s an excellent package.
While the Nine series is finished, I hope we are not finished with that universe. There is a work by Frank Schildiner that is set in the same universe, It’s Always Darkest. This tale stars a new, but familiar, character, a one-time member of the Nine’s organization who has also chosen to also rebel against them. I’ve posted on it separately as it’s actually set before the events of Monster.
Will we see further works? It remains to see. There are several unanswered questions, including what the epilogue gives us. And further, will we get more works in the Pat Wildman series? One question from that series was answered here, but there are others.
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