Philip José Farmer
American writer (1918–2009)
Philip José Farmer (January 26, 1918 – February 25, 2009) was an American author known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.
Farmer is best known for two sequences of novels, the World of Tiers (1965–93) and Riverworld (1971–83) series. He is noted for the pioneering use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for, and reworking of, the lore of celebrated pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters. Farmer often mixed real and classic fictional characters and worlds and real and fake authors as epitomized by his Wold Newton family books, which tie classic fictional characters together as real people and blood relatives resulting from an alien conspiracy. Such works as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973) and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973) are early examples of literary mashup novels.
Literary critic Leslie Fiedler compared Farmer to Ray Bradbury, describing both as "provincial American eccentrics" who "strain at the classic limits of the [science fiction] form," but found Farmer distinctive for his capacity "to be at once naive and sophisticated in his odd blending of theology, pornography, and adventure."
Biography
Youth and education
Farmer was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana. His parents gave him the middle name "Josie", from his paternal grandmother Josephine, but Farmer later changed it himself to “José” as he resented the woman's name and wanted to lend color to what he felt was an otherwise rather drab name. Farmer grew up in Peoria, Illinois, where he attended Peoria High School. His father was a civil engineer and a supervisor for the local power company. A voracious reader as a boy, Farmer said he resolved to become a writer in the fourth grade.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q296256. VIAF identifies the subject as 46760781. The Library of Congress control number is n80090608. 4 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1918, 2009, 1965 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Philip José Farmer” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.