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3/10/09
Well, here’s my second blog of 2009…it’s kind of a mixed bag.
The legendary and magical SF writer Philip Jose Farmer passed away on February 25th at age 91.
His contributions to the field of SF and even literary scholarship are incredibly varied. He basically invented the “fictional biography” category with his ground-breaking work, Tarzan Alive, which in turn inspired Wold-Newton scholarship.
For those who came in late, Phil postulated in Tarzan Alive and in his Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life that just about every major literary figure represent twigs and branches of the same family tree, the roots of which can be traced back to a crash of a meteorite in Wold-Newton, England in 1785. I have a link to the site on my links page.
I started reading Phil’s work when I was around 11 with the Ace paperback edition of The Gates of Creation which was the second in his “World of Tiers” series. Combined with a great cover by the late Gray Morrow, the rich characters and concepts contained in that one slender volume stayed with me for the rest of my life. I love that book...I must've read it a dozen times.
The World of Tiers series itself inspired a host of homages and even imitators…from Roger Zelanzy’s classic Chronicles of Amber to the basic set-up of Stargate SG-1.
(Phil’s Tier Lords are pretty much the templates for SG-1’s System Lords.)
And of course, Phil was the author of the award-winning Riverworld series…the second book of which, The Fabulous Riverboat, is one of my favorite novels of all time. You wouldn’t think Sam Clemens would make much of an action-adventure hero, but Phil brought it off flawlessly
I regret to say that I didn't know Phil well, although I spoke to him a few times on the telephone...he sounded exactly like Gary Cooper.
Win Eckert, a good friend of Phil’s, is the foremost expert on everything Wold-Newtonian. He collaborated with Phil on a book that deals with some of the more esoteric elements of that legendary family.
The Evil in Pemberly House can be preordered through Subterranean Press: The Evil in Pemberly House.
Ave atque vale, Philip Jose Farmer…he was a writer whom I greatly admired and who had more of an influence on me and my sources of creativity than I can ever enumerate.
And on that note…
Not too long ago, I had a discussion about the process of creativity and what ignited the flames of imagination and enthusiasm for particular projects, turning them from mere jobs to a true sense of (almost) artistic accomplishment.
Every professional writer has more of the former than the latter in their curriculum vitae and I’m certainly no exception. But in order for me to be truly enthused about a project, I have to feel invested in the characters in some form or another.
With the two books I wrote featuring Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan, I can’t say I was particularly enthused about writing either one of them. Certainly the obsessed, complex character whom I had begun reading about in the tenth grade was only a shadow of his former self by the time I came aboard. Years before, Gold Eagle had turned him into a civil servant with a .44 caliber penis substitute and not much else.
Although I enjoyed the process of writing Devil’s Guard, it was due mainly to the villains of the book. The tone of the novel itself owed far more to Edward S. Aaron’s Sam Durrell series than it did Don Pendleton’s original vision of one man’s suicidal quest to destroy organized crime.
With the second Bolan book, Hellfire Trigger, I shifted into a James Bond type of situation, complete with a pair of over-the-top super villains and their Weapon of Doom.
Both books were generally well-received by fans and Devil’s Guard kicked off a flurry of Bolan books wherein he suddenly squared off against different neo-Nazi groups with occult ties. In fact, one Executioner writer—Gerald Montgomery by name--was so enamored of the concepts I introduced in that book, he wrote a couple of loose sequels to it.
But to be honest, I was never that much of a fan of Bolan and even less so of the horde of paperback vigilante imitators who followed in his wake. Maybe if I’d come across Bolan when I was ten instead of Doc Savage and The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I’d have been more engaged.
My Deathlands work, although very well-received, was pretty much by rote. By the time I was asked to contribute, the series was locked into such a brain-dead formula, I could not identify with any of the characters or for that matter the ridiculous and totally unbelievable postnuke setting…it had as much relationship to a real post-nuke environment as Middle-Earth did to medieval Europe.
The emotional and mental range of the stories and the characters were stupendously shallow—far more superficial than old episodes of The A-Team. The word “backward” and even “retarded” came to mind, particularly with the fixation on biologically impossible mutations whose genus always ended in “ie.”.
As Dorothy Parker was quoted as saying about Katherine Hepburn: “She runs the gamut of emotions from to A to B.”
So, I determined not to follow the formula and at least give the illusion of striking out in a new direction, both conceptually and character-wise.
I introduced the Anthill Complex (full of cryogenically preserved Neocons), put forth the now-accepted proposition that most if not all of the human mutants in the series were the result of genetic engineering--rather than accept the total and imbecelic impossibility of environmental factors--portrayed Mildred Wyeth as finally acting in the role of a scientist and completely dropped the ranting old derelict persona of Doc Tanner, which had been shamelessly stolen from Mose Harper, the iconic ranting old derelict played by Hank Worden in the classic film The Searchers.
And Stoneface, the first Deathlands book I produced, is generally considered to be one of the best, if not the best novel in the whole series. So go figure.
In any event, by the time I wrote my Bolan and Deathlands books I had already contributed to the “mythos” of Doc Savage, the Man From U.N.C.L.E., and the Wild, Wild West in graphic narrative form (i.e., comics) and was satisfied with what I had done and judging by the response, so was the audience.
I feel very fortunate to have created stories about characters and concepts I loved and that had a great influence on me. Through them my own archetypes were formed.
Still, my interest in contributing to series that I hadn’t had a hand in creating kind of waned over the years. At one time, I would have sat in a bonfire for the chance to write the Fantastic Four for six months.
But now--
I slowly realized there was no real long-term benefit to laboring away on characters or concepts owned by corporations with the quality overseen by secretaries and traffic managers. It seemed more logical to create my own—and in many ways, it was more enjoyable since as the creator I wasn’t bound by pre-existing formats.
Granted, I hadn’t created the Justice Machine, but I did reboot the series (being very careful not to violate what had been established before—I was respectful, not resentful) by putting the characters in a new situation and introducing new characters of my own creation. The current incarnation of the Justice Machine owes more to Darryl Banks and I than earlier versions.
Star Rangers actually began as a collaboration between Jim Mooney and I as a Planeteers mini-series for DC, reviving Jim’s character of Tommy Tomorrow. Unfortunately, DC had plans for all of their space characters (the excreable Twilight mini-series) so they passed on it.
But, it turned out for the best since we took the basic premise and the cast of characters and turned them into Star Rangers…and that version was considered sound enough to serve as the template for the short-lived CBS TV series, Space Rangers…but more about that when the Star Rangers: The Spur graphic novel is released.
With Death Hawk, although I cheerfully acknowledge that the character’s roots are firmly grounded in the great space opera tradition of Edmond Hamilton’s Starwolf, CL Moore’s Northwest Smith and even Han Solo, everything else is mine...from the corporate controlled Orion Spur to his partner, Cyke to his rattletrap spaceship, Peregrine, to 25th century samurai, the Tigers of Heaven.
Whether Joss Whedon’s Firefly/Serenity owes anything to Death Hawk is anybody’s guess. My own guess—and one that’s shared by quite a few others—is yes, at least on a superficial basis.
Then of course, there’s The Miskatonic Project…although it’s based on concepts (and in some cases, characters) created by H.P. Lovecraft, it’s the kind of team dynamic that has always appealed to me—and to readers, since I borrowed quite a few of the elements for Outlanders.
The Grant who has been shooting and punching his way through Outlanders for all of these many years and books is pretty much the same as the Augustus Grant of The Miskatonic Project…except that Augustus has a doctorate.
That’s not to say I won’t involve myself in projects featuring characters not of my creation. Mr. Holmes & Dr. Watson: Their Strangest Cases is one of the projects and of course, the upcoming graphic novel from Millennial Concepts featuring Simon Templar, The Saint, is another one.
I can’t end this blog entry without making a couple of comments about The Watchmen movie, so I can at least tie it into the title, Quis custodiet ipsos cusdoes? which of course translates into “Who Watches The Watchmen?”
Apparently, judging by the box office returns, pretty much everybody.
Whether The Watchmen is the best super-hero film ever made is certainly debatable…but that doesn’t diminish the true epic scope of the movie and how it hewed far more closely to the original source material than most books, prose or comics, adapted to film.
Yeah, the movie has received some bad reviews, but most of the negative ones seem to stem from people who either aren’t familiar with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ limited series/graphic novel or don’t share that cultural touchstone of the super-hero.
Movie-goers who can’t suspend their disbelief and accept the possibility of super-heroes or costumed vigilantes will find watching The Watchmen a disturbing and even brutal experience.
It’s certainly not a film for anybody under the age of 12.
On the topic of graphic novels…both The New Justice Machine: High Gear Edition and The Miskatonic Project: Bride of Dagon will be in stores no later than the end of the month.
Mr. Holmes & Dr. Watson: Their Strangest Cases is on sale now.
 
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