To My Sister, Joan

This collection is a reprint of The Book of Philip Jose Farmer, published in 1973 in softcover in the States and in hardcover in England in 1976. However, for this edition the forewords, where needing it, have been revised and updated. And since three stories, "Totem and Taboo," "The Voice of the Sonar in My Vermiform Appendix," and "Brass and Gold" have been recently reprinted in other collections, I have replaced them with "The Last Rise of Nick Adams," "The Freshman," and a nonscience-fiction tale, "Uproar in Acheron."

The title of this book implies a broad spectrum of my works, samples from each of the many fields of the vast genre of science-fiction in which I've worked. (Played, rather.)

Unfortunately, I can't include every field. I've written stories in many: adventure, space opera, parallel worlds, pocket universes, psychological, political, sexual, biological, pastiche, parody, religious, horror, time travel, ESP, "biographical," Cthulhu mythos, metaphysical, ecological, and Marxian. The last term refers to Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, not Karl, and could be applied to my polytropical paramyths. To include one sample of each would make a book twice as long as this, maybe three times as long. Also, some of the samples would have to be novels.

Thus, the stories and extracts herein are samples of the spectrum, not the complete spectrum.

Of all my shorter fiction, this is, after my "Riders of the Purple Wage," my favorite. A curious story, it has a curious history. It first went to John Campbell, then editor of Astounding (now Analog). He rejected it with the message that it made him nauseated, not because it was a bad story but because of its vivid biological details and its premises. He believed that the readers of Astounding would react as he did. I wasn't surprised; this wasn't the first story of mine that had sickened John.

Sadly, because I liked Astounding word rates, I mailed it out to a lesser-paying market. I bypassed Horace Gold, editor of Galaxy, an equally good payer, because Horace's editorial stomach was, I knew from experience, no stronger than John's. John was supposed to be a flaming reactionary, and Horace was supposed to be a flaming liberal. Actually, both were individuals, proteans who would wriggle out of the grasp of anyone who tried to hold them down while pinning a label on them. In this case, the compelling reason for rejection was their fear of their readers' reactions.

Bob Mills, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, also bounced it. He liked it but thought it too strong for his readers. However, Leo Margulies was planning a new science fiction magazine, Satellite, and, hearing of "My Sister's Brother," then titled "Open to Me, My Sister," asked Bob if he could read it. He purchased it, and the story, retitled "The Strange Birth," was set up in galley sheets and illustrated for the first issue. But Leo's plans collapsed; Satellite though, was canceled.

Bob Mills, meanwhile, had changed his mind. He would take a chance on it. He paid the difference between Leo's check to me and his and published it with my original title. Most of the readers were less queasy than any of the editors would have expected. This was in 1960, when the gears of the Zeitgeist were shifting into overdrive. The makeup of the general readership had changed somewhat; there were many more flexible-minded people than in the 1950's.

I'll note that the reactions of the editors who rejected this story, or, in the case of Gold, would have, are similar to the reactions of the protagonist to the strange society of Mars and the even stranger visitor to Mars, "Martia." This story is a hardcore science fiction tale, but it is also about an Earthman's hangups, extraterrestrial ecosystems, sexobiological structures, and religion.

Also, when the story was written, Hawaii was not yet the fiftieth state. But it seemed likely.

Also, the reproductive-phallic system of Martia's people is an original concept, just as Jeannette Rastignac's was in The Lovers. At the time I wrote the two stories, I was in my sexobiological phase. Which may come again, no pun intended.

Come to think of it, the phase did descend upon me again briefly in the 60's when I wrote the novels Image of the Beast and Blown.

The sixth night on Mars, Lane wept.

He sobbed loudly while tears ran down his cheeks. He smacked his right fist into the palm of his left hand until the flesh burned. He howled with loneliness. He swore the most obscene and blasphemous oaths he knew.

After a while, he quit weeping. He dried his eyes, downed a shot of Scotch, and felt much better.

He wasn't ashamed because he had bawled like a woman. After all, there had been a Man who had not been ashamed to weep. He could dissolve in tears the grinding stones within; he was the reed that bent before the wind, not the oak that toppled, roots and all.

Now, the weight and the ache in his breast gone, feeling almost cheerful, he made his scheduled report over the transceiver to the circum-Martian vessel five hundred and eight miles overhead. Then he did what men must do any place in the universe. Afterward, he lay down in the bunk and opened the one personal book he had been allowed to bring along, an anthology of the world's greatest poetry.

He read here and there, running, pausing for only a line or two, then completing in his head the thousand-times murmured lines. Here and there he read, like a bee tasting the best of the nectar -

It is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled...

We have a little sister,

And she hath no breasts; What shall we do for our sister In the day when she shall be spoken for?

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil for Thou art with me...

Come live with me and be my love

And we shall all the pleasures prove...

It lies not in our power to love or hate

For will in us is over-ruled by fate...

With thee conversing, I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change, all please alike...

He read on about love and man and woman until he had almost forgotten his troubles. His lids drooped; the book fell from his hand. But he roused himself, climbed out of the bunk, got down on his knees, and prayed that he be forgiven and that his blasphemy and despair be understood. And he prayed that his four lost comrades be found safe and sound. Then he climbed back into the bunk and fell asleep.

At dawn he woke reluctantly to the alarm clock's ringing. Nevertheless, he did not fall back into sleep but rose, turned on the transceiver, filled a cup with water and instant, and dropped in a heat pill. Just as he finished the coffee, he heard Captain Stroyansky's voice from the 'ceiver. Stroyansky spoke with barely a trace of Slavic accent.

"Cardigan Lane? You awake?"

"More or less. How are you?"

"If we weren't worried about all of you down there, we'd be fine."

"I know. Well, what are your orders?"

"There is only one thing to do, Lane. You must go look for the others. Otherwise, you cannot get back up to us. It takes at least two more men to pilot the rocket."

"Theoretically, one man can pilot the beast," replied Lane. "But it's uncertain. However, that doesn't matter. I'm leaving at once to look for the others. I'd do that even if you ordered otherwise."