Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan Are Related To Each Other?!? (No, Really!)

When I first read Philip Jose Farmer's Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (a "biography" of Doc, based on the 181 pulp novels by "Kenneth Robeson"/Lester Dent) in 1975, there was a chapter and family tree linking Doc to "cousins" like Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu (the family "black sheep" ?), Philip Marlowe, The Shadow, Captain Nemo and James Bond 007, among others.






Farmer had originally posited this idea in his similar "fictional biography", 1972's Tarzan Alive (yes, Tarzan, AKA Lord Greystoke, is a member). In a nutshell, a meteor crashed in Wold Newton, England, in 1795, and its radiation somehow affected the people and their eventual descendants genetically. The descendants of the people of Wold Newton (according to Farmer) developed various above-average intellect and skills and the drive to do good (or evil) deeds.


Here's Farmer discussing how he "met" the real Tarzan when doing research for Tarzan Alive :








It's a goofy idea, but a fun one. Farmer himself wrote some short stories & novels such as 1976's The Adventures of the Peerless Peer, which teamed up Holmes & Tarzan (here called "Lord Greystoke" to keep the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate licenseholders happy) in 1916 Africa, and 1991's Escape To Loki, a WWI-set "prequel" to the Doc Savage novels, in which he continued to link all these characters to each other.



PJF fan and writer Win Scott Eckert took it upon himself to expand upon Farmer's "family tree" of fictional adventure characters and began a site devoted to the "Wold Newton Universe", which you can find here . Well, Eckert published a collection of essays by him, Farmer & others in 2005 called Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe, which I just got via the library & will start reading ASAP.


In addition to the aformentioned characters, Eckert, Farmer & others link other fictional icons (like Zorro, Charlie Chan and even Henry Higgins -!- from Pygmalion/My Fair Lady) to said "family". Looks like a good read. Can I find 'em or what? -Ed

Related links: The Secret History of the Wold Newton Universe ; The Lester Dent Museum ; The Official Tarzan Web Site

Stuff I'll Be Looking At On My Vacation

(Left: Philip Jose Farmer's Venus On The Half- Shell and Others collection.)

One of my favorite science fiction writers, Philip Jose Farmer, has just gotten his 1975 sf spoof novel Venus On The Half-Shell republished, along with other humorous takeoffs in a new collection from Subterranean Press, the details of which can be found here . This is one of the items I'll be looking at during my vacation. (You have your way to relax, I have mine.) Yep, I'll be ordering a copy for the library.



Another book I'll be checking out, from Fatagraphics Press , is Blake Bell's Strange and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko , which officially comes out later this month, but I managed to get my greedy little hands on a pre-publication copy. The book can be ordered here and the author, who has his own site on Ditko , is interviewed here . Mr. Ditko is perhaps best known as the co-creator of the Marvel Comics character Spider-Man .



Tim Lucas, the editor of Video Watchdog , spent thirty years researching the life and career of Italian horror director Mario Bava (1914-1980), and the magnificient result of his efforts can be found in his self-published Mario Bava: All The Colors Of The Dark , which I got for half price quite a while ago. The tome, which is over a thousand pages, also discusses Bava's various films, including the 1960 Gothic classic Black Sunday . Lucas's blog on the book can be found here . And here's the coming attractions trailer for Black Sunday . (Yep, we carry Bava's films! )



In 1975, to promote his then-latest solo album, No Other , former Byrds member Gene Clark (1944-1991), with his hastily-put together backing band, embarked on a grueling concert tour. Highlights from one of those shows can be found on the Silverado '75-Live and Unreleased CD, from Collector's Choice Music . Here's a clip of Clark performing one of the songs from his set.




Finally, I'm going to be checking out a DVD collection of four 1960s Hammer films, three of which star Christopher Lee , called Icons Of Adventure, put out by Sony. DVD Talk has a pretty good review of it posted.

These should keep me out of the pool halls for the next two weeks.

-Ed