:-((((
Brent "Amy Harlib" <ahar...@earthlink.net> writes: >[ mailto:aharlib%40earthlink.net > ] ahar...@earthlink.net > >Philip Jos? Farmer dies > >A real shame. > >Author Philip Jos? Farmer Dies >([ http://sfscope.com/2009/02/author-philip-jos-farmer-dies.html > ] http://sfscope.com/2009/02/author-philip-jos-farmer-dies.html) > > >By Ian Randal Strock >February 25, 2009 > >Philip Jos? Farmer's web site reports the death of the author >peacefully in his sleep in the morning of 25 February 2009. Born 26 >January 1918 in Terre Haute, Indiana, Farmer won three Hugo Awards >(Most Promising New Talent, 1953; Best Novella ["Riders of the Purple >Wage"], 1968; and Best Novel [To Your Scattered Bodies Go], 1972), the >Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Grand Master Award >(2001), and the World Fantasy Award's Lifetime Achievement Award >(2001). > >Farmer's first short story, "O'Brien and Obrenov", appeared in >Adventure in March 1946. In 1950, after a twelve-year hiatus (and a >break to wash out of the Army Air Corps flight training program), he >received his BA in English from Bradley University. In August 1952, >Startling Stories published his first science fiction story, "The >Lovers". > >Farmer's first published novel was The Green Odyssey, which Ballantine >released in 1957. In 1953, however, Farmer's I Owe for the Flesh won >the Shasta prize novel contest. And though the prize was never paid, >the book was the first in what would become his iconic Riverworld >series. That series posits that "everyone who has ever lived on Earth, >from cavemen to 1984, is resurrected along the banks of a million mile >long river. A character dying along the river simply wakes up >somewhere else the next day." In these stories, Farmer has characters >from any point in history meeting, interacting, and frequently >fighting. > >Farmer also wrote the Dayworld series, in which overpopulation >requires that people be placed in suspended animation for six days out >of seven, each living but one day, and sharing their homes, jobs, and >lives with six other people. Then, of course, there are daybreakers, >who live different lives each day of the week. And his World of Tiers >series introduced the idea of Pocket Universes, which have different >physical laws. > >In the 1970s, when Farmer was suffering from writer's block, he turned >his efforts to writing other people's novels; specifically, he wrote >Venus on the Half-Shell by Kurt Vonnegut's fictional Kilgore Trout. He >also wrote as Ralph vvon Wau Wau, who came to life on his own when >Spider Robinson had him appear in Callahan's Bar. > >Farmer is survived by his wife, Bette (whom he married in 1941), as >well as children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
