Venus on the Half-Shell (33 page)

So the stories I, Jonathan Swift Somers III, had written could be summarized even though they didn’t exist; but they could only be summarized if the pretence was maintained that they
did
exist. Otherwise, they would just be pitches, not proper summaries, and pitching stories is less satisfying than summarizing them, even if they are identical. Does that make sense?

In a similar vein, the Polish science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem once published a volume of literary reviews of books that didn’t exist. He did this because he didn’t have time to write the actual books but he wanted to lay claim to the original ideas they contained. Some critics feel this is a lazy approach but I believe it’s ingenious and I only wish that Lem had reviewed my own books. However, Farmer seems to have had more energy than Lem, more energy than one might deem possible, for he was willing not only to imagine and summarize stories that didn’t exist in order to save time; he was willing to later spend that same time writing those stories to match and even exceed the summaries! And let me add that Farmer once reviewed one of Lem’s books,
Imaginary Magnitude,
a collection of introductions to books that don’t exist. Squeeze my Lem ’til the juice run down my leg!

But to return to the way that I was presented in the
Venus
novel... In the first instance, the story described (that is, the story I had written) was of less importance in the text of the framing novel and Farmer spent more time describing me. Apparently he didn’t want anyone to have to come along behind him and fill in the details of my life story, as he had to do with Trout. The other stories of mine, however, were more detailed in their summary and were revealing about two of “my” creations. First, there was Ralph von Wau Wau, a genetically enhanced German Shepherd with a 200 IQ and the ability to speak. Farmer states that with the exception of Ralph, all of my protagonists have major disabilities, this being due to my own condition of being paralyzed from the waist down. The second of my characters described is John Clayter, a space traveler whose spacesuit is full of (often malfunctioning) prosthetics.

If a fictional character invents another fictional character who invents another fictional character who invents another fictional character, is there a grading of
existability
(for want of a better word)? I mean... is a dream within a dream less real than the dream that frames it, or are they both equal in terms of the fact that neither have concrete form? This is a question that has understandably intrigued me for quite some time. If you know the answer, please keep it to yourself, okay? I’m freaked out enough by my condition already.

Anyway, the Dell paperback edition of
Venus on the Half-Shell
came out in February 1975 (available for the first time without lurid covers!) and the reviews, and controversy, quickly followed. Funny how that happens, isn’t it? Do you imagine, as I do, the book traipsing down the street, followed by a number of reviews that are stumbling to keep up, with controversy close behind, its nose in the rear end of the last review in line? That’s the picture I see in my mind, anyway...

A wildly popular fanzine, Richard Geis’
Science Fiction Review,
ran a review of
Venus on the Half-Shell
in the February 1975 issue. The humorous novel was full of clichés as Farmer poked fun at the genre; after all, he had written the novel he believed Kilgore Trout, a science fiction hack, would have written had Trout existed. Since Vonnegut had for years taken umbrage at being labeled a science fiction writer, and since Richard Geis assumed Vonnegut had in fact written the book, Geis took offense at a novel that seemed to make fun of, and look down on, science fiction because he did not feel that Vonnegut had earned the right to do so (a case of, it’s okay for me to call my sister ugly, but if you do it, I’ll punch you in the nose). Geis’ review wasn’t very gentle. In fact, it came out swinging.

But reviews from the likes of
Publisher’s Weekly, The Washington Post, Eastern News, Science Fiction Review Monthly, National Observer, Locus,
and the
UCLA Daily Bruin
were more favorable. In fact, the
Bruin
reviewer went to great lengths to “prove” that Vonnegut was in fact the author of
Venus on the Half-Shell
.

The novel was a bigger success than even Farmer could have dreamed. At least, we can assume that it was a bigger success than he could have dreamed. But he was a man with extremely big dreams, let’s not forget! Sorry. Nitpicking again. Related to Xog, I must be... Yes, that’s plausible, for Xog never existed either...

On March 16, 1975, the
New York Times Book Review
reported Dell had sold 225,000 copies in the first month. Farmer was having a blast. Dell was going to sponsor a “Who is Kilgore Trout?” contest and they had begun forwarding Kilgore Trout’s fan mail to him. Farmer really enjoyed answering these letters, sending replies back from “Kilgore Trout” (several examples of these were published in
Farmerphile
#5, July 2006). But Farmer wasn’t satisfied with having merely pulled off the biggest hoax in science fiction since Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. He had plans to take things to a whole other level. Farmer loved taking things to other levels and he was extremely good at it. Try reading the World of Tiers series and you’ll see what I mean. Literally.

The March issue of
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
contained “A Scarletin Study,” by Simon Wagstaff’s favorite author, me, Jonathan Swift Somers III. This story, about Ralph von Wau Wau, the hyperintelligent German Shepherd described in
Venus on the Half-Shell,
was to be the first in a series of stories written by “fictional authors.” In addition to myself, Farmer also wrote stories “by” Harry Manders, Paul Chapin, Rod Keen, and Cordwainer Bird. He further planned to collect these stories in an anthology and began recruiting other writers such as Philip K. Dick, Howard Waldrop, and Gene Wolfe to join in the fun.

While attending Minicon, a science fiction convention in Minneapolis, in April 1975, Farmer was interviewed by David Truesdale, Paul McGuire, and Jerry Rauth for the fanzine
Tangent.
By now rumors were already beginning to circulate that Farmer was the author of
Venus on the Half-Shell.
While denying he was the culprit, Farmer laughingly offered up the possibility of Trout being “a collaboration between Harry Harrison and Ted White. Or Joanna Russ and Phil Dick—or Harlan Ellison and Captain S.I. Meek.”

I doubt any of you remember Captain Meek? He wrote a madcap story called “Submicroscopic” back in the early ’30s and followed that with a sequel that was a novella, “Alwo of Ulm.” But I’m digressing again. Forgive me...

However, before the issue with the interview could be published, Dave Truesdale discovered a notice that had appeared in the
New York Times Book Review
on March 23 about whom the author of
Venus on the Half-Shell
might really be: “This week, from Peoria comes a letter from a man who asks not to be named, stating that he is its author.”

Even though, after calling Farmer to confirm, he was able to trumpet the news on the cover of the May ’75 issue, “Tangent Hooks Farmer on Trout,” Truesdale was not happy the
New York Times Book Review
chose to so callously let the cat out of the bag; seriously, how many science fiction authors live in Peoria? In fact, in the editorial where he broke the news, this sums up his reaction: “All I can say is FUCK YOU to the
New York Times...”
Farmer wasn’t happy either, but there was no point in denying the story now.

Of course, the news was not immediately universally known. In a bit of coincidental timing that could
only
happen in fiction, when the aforementioned review appeared in the
UCLA Daily Bruin
“proving” Vonnegut wrote
Venus on the Half-Shell
, Farmer happened to be at UCLA. He was there as part of an Extension Course which featured a guest science fiction author each week. The day the review appeared, May 20, Farmer revealed to the class that he was, in fact, “Kilgore Trout” and the author of
Venus on the Half-Shell.
The following week, a correction was printed: “We’ve been had...”

Slowly the word continued to spread.
Locus
confirmed it in early June, also saying, “Kurt Vonnegut, who went along with the gag at first, has become very annoyed because of reviews and statements made about the book...” Farmer explained years later that half the people said it was Vonnegut’s worst book, and the other half said it was his best. In July, Farmer was the guest of honor at RiverCon I in Louisville, where his speech, “Now It Can be Told” (which also happens to be the title of one of Kilgore Trout’s stories, as described by Vonnegut), was about writing
Venus on the Half-Shell
. Tragically, no copy of this speech is known to exist. In August, a long interview with Farmer about the affair appeared in
Science Fiction Review.

The following year my story, “The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight,” was published in the November issue of
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction,
and then I faded from existence, nearly forgotten. My stories have been reprinted a few times, but that is it. When
Venus on the Half-Shell and Others
(Subterranean Press, 2007), a collection focusing on Farmer’s fictional-author series, was published, even though I was the most prolific, the most well known of Farmer’s fictional authors, Tom Wode Bellman was invited to write the foreword. And he’s not even a proper fictional author, just a stand-in for Farmer himself!

But I’m not too unhappy about being who I am. I just have one worry that nags at me whenever I lie awake at night unable to sleep (because I don’t exist; whoever heard of a nonexistent entity sleeping?) And that worry is this: I was created as a byproduct of writer’s block. If my father, Farmer, hadn’t had that block at that time, it’s very unlikely I would be here.

Now then, birth is the opposite of death. So if I was created by a block, then what will kill me will be the opposite of that, in other words creative flow. Farmer is no longer with us. He’s on the other side now. And that’s the biggest block any writer can ever have: to have shuffled off this mortal coil. But what if he starts writing again on the other side? Creative flow is the opposite of a writer’s block and the opposite of a block is death to me. If Farmer starts writing again, wherever he is now, I might somehow vanish... I know that’s bizarre logic and an obscure thing to fret about. But I
am
bizarre. Remember: I’m writing this article even though I’m fictional!

I can almost feel someone
walking over my grave
right now, even though I won’t have a grave because I don’t have a solid body to bury, but the figure of speech is appropriate; and rather bizarrely I can reveal that its first recorded use in print was in Simon Wagstaff’s
A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation,
published in 1738. The date isn’t an error. This was a different Simon Wagstaff, one of the pseudonyms of the satirist Jonathan Swift. Talk about recursion!

And where is Farmer now, I hear you ask? Well, I don’t know. But I’ll say this: a great many obituaries pictured him waking up along the banks of the million-mile-long river that was one of his most amazing creations in a creative life full of astounding concepts. And yet... As I mentioned earlier, Farmer was the greatest ever master of a type of writing called Bangsian Fantasy. I’d never even heard of Bangsian Fantasy until recently. It’s named after the mostly forgotten writer John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), whose most famous book was
House-Boat on the Styx
, in which Charon upgrades from his leaky old skiff to a luxurious boat capable of holding many dead people at once, dead people who happen to have been real in
your
world and not just invented by Bangs.

What if Farmer is a guest on that house-boat right now? What if he has managed to get hold of some writing materials? What if he’s saying to himself, “Hey, Charon, let’s do a collaboration! Why don’t we write a story pretending to be Trout; maybe a story about what happens when Jonathan Swift Somers III dies and wakes up on the banks of a million-mile-long river!”

That’s my worry. Or my hope. I’m not sure which.

“The unconscious is the true democracy.
All things, all people, are equal.”

PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER

By one count, Philip José Farmer, a Grand Master of Science Fiction, has written and had published fifty-four novels and one hundred and twenty-nine novellas, novelettes, and short stories. Creatively, Farmer’s work is equally ambitious. In 1952, he authored the groundbreaking “The Lovers,” which at long last made it possible for science fiction to deal with sex in a mature manner. He is the creator of Riverworld, arguably one of the grandest experiments in science fiction literature. His World of Tiers series, which combines rip-roaring adventure with pocket universes full of mythic archetypes, is said to have inspired Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber series and is often cited as a favorite among Farmer’s fans. And in the early 1970s, he penned the authorized biographies of Tarzan and Doc Savage and inspired generations of creative mythographers to explore and expand upon his Wold Newton mythos. Yet among all of these shining minarets of his opus, Farmer has stated that he has never had so much fun in all his life as when he wrote
Venus on the Half-Shell.

I believe it is no coincidence that this novel belongs to what Farmer has labeled his “fictional-author” series. A fictional-author story is, as defined by Farmer, “a tale supposedly written by an author who is a character in fiction.” Many of Farmer’s readers are aware that
Venus on the Half-Shell
originally appeared in print as if authored by Kurt Vonnegut’s character Kilgore Trout. However, most are not aware that Farmer, in league with several of his writer peers and at least one major magazine editor, masterminded an expansive hoax on the science fiction readership that spanned a good portion of the 1970s.