Philip Jose Farmer

While not exactly classics themselves, Philip José Farmer's World of Tiers novels are highly energetic and enjoyable adventures in a classic mold, drawing inspiration from everything from Edgar Rice Burroughs to centuries' worth of religious allegories. Farmer imbues this tale with enough flair and conceptual originality — you don't see too many novels in which the hero is galloping alongside American Indians and then jousting a medieval knight mere pages later — to prevent its becoming too dated too soon, and even its cheesiest scenes have a certain irresistible je ne sais quoi. Monsters and alternate worlds and an eagle woman and I think there may have even been a bear — oh my! This is the kind of "all bets are off" adventure storytelling we don't see any more.

Robert Wolff is a 66-year-old World War II vet who has never been able to recall his childhood. Dissatisfied with the mundanity of his later life, and married to a woman with whom he hasn't gotten along in years (this is what you call "defining your audience"), Wolff seems resigned to a mundane fate as he and his wife find themselves house-hunting in Arizona. In a basement closet of one house, Wolff thinks he hears the improbable sound of a trumpet call. His surprise is only compounded when, upon opening the Narnia closet, he finds himself gazing not at musty old coats but into another world entirely. Wolff sees the mysterious figure with the horn, and the man, who seems not only to know Wolff but to be expecting him, throws Wolff the horn before the portal between worlds closes. Wolff — not surprisingly — decides then and there he wants to buy that house. But his wife remains stubborn and intractable, and so Wolff makes the fateful decision to return that night. He breaks in to the basement, blows the horn, and leaves this Earth forever.

The premise of the man from Earth transported to some idyllic other world is one of SF and fantasy's most venerable, from Burroughs all the way to his imitators (Norman's Gor, Bulmer's Dray Prescot), from C. S. Lewis and Baum's Oz to Donaldson's Thomas Covenant. And more. Generally the theme is one of renewal and second chances when the protagonist is an adult. The hero gets the opportunity to make up for failings in his "real" life by starting afresh in his new world, and most often with a newly invigorated, Boris Vallejo physique to go along with the deal. And let's not forget the devoted dream girl companion he never had on Earth, either. It's pure wish-fulfillment fantasy, and Farmer follows all of the aforementioned tropes faithfully.

The world on which Wolff finds himself is a product of Farmer's own creative brilliance. It is literally a World of Tiers, one level stacked above another like a wedding cake, and so on and so forth, until you get to the top, the level that houses the "Lord" who rules over the entire shebang (but who may or may not be its creator). Wolff meets up with various colorful locals, most of whom speak an ancient form of Greek, a language he happens to know. There is the colorful Kickaha, a truly memorable rascal who turns out to be the one whom Wolff saw at the story's beginning. Nicknamed the Trickster, there is of course more to him than meets the eye. Wolff also meets the exotic beauty Chryseis, whom he'll be about rescuing from constant peril in no time, and the deformed half-woman, half-eagle Podarge, who tells him of the cruelty and tyranny of the Lord upon the highest level. Wolff and Kickaha find themselves on one of SF's most picaresque and improbable quests, ascending from one level to the next, in a daring bid to overthrow the Lord and restore peace and harmony to the World of Tiers.

What we end up with is an interesting satire, if you will, of the traditional religious allegory. The climb from level to level is a symbolic representation of moving towards enlightenment, similar to the path trodden by the world-weary believer of Pilgrim's Progress. But of course, Wolff wishes to reach the Lord only to overthrow him (or Him). I got a kick out of the brazenness of it all.

The story itself, however, while it contains no shortage of eye-opening and imaginative scenes, isn't exactly full of surprises in its plot resolutions. By the time I got towards the end I had a pretty good idea of how everything was going to wrap up, and generally my expectations were met. A big reveal about Wolff himself is visible a mile off. Yet there's no way you can't enjoy this story, particularly in the way Farmer flexes his imagination so forcefully while designing and populating the World of Tiers with its numerous cultures from throughout human history. (If anything, one thought that kept rushing through my head while reading The Maker of Universes was how an artist the caliber of Jean "Moebius" Giraud could turn this tale into a graphic novel of life-changing magnificence.) No, the book doesn't maintain full steam all the way through, and it ends too abruptly. But you'll still find it an appealing old-school yarn. (SF Reviews.net)

The Gates of Creation is another unusual and outré adventure in Farmer's World of Tiers series, though, like most sequels, it isn't as fresh as the first. It has plenty of action and adventure to keep you in your seat, and its brevity (under 200 pages) works in its favor to boot. Farmer has an admirable facility for not wasting time, or padding out his tale with needless exposition.

Whereas The Maker of Universes called upon a broad spectrum of religious tradition for its combination of allegory and satire, Gates has been fashioned specifically as a pastiche of the religious poetry of William Blake, particularly such works as Vala, or the Four Zoas and The Book of Urizen. Farmer explicitly derives many of his characters' names and personas from these poems, as well as the underlying theme: the loneliness of immortality and the vengefulness of gods.

Opening an unspecified amount of time after the events of Universes, the story pits Robert Wolff — who has now reclaimed his position as the Lord of the World of Tiers, though he has renounced his former tyrannical ways — against the treacherous wiles of his father and siblings. Wolff's father, Urizen, is the Lord of Lords responsible for initiating the creation of all of the "pocket universes" over which he and his children rule. (Farmer is still remaining deliberately hazy on where these Lords really come from, or how they create these universes, speaking vaguely about indescribably advanced technologies. Too much explanation would frankly spoil the stories' ability to function allegorically.) The thing is, the Lords have a tendency to tire of their creations — a problem you rarely see addressed in mainstream religion. What value would an all-powerful and omniscient God place upon existence if there was nothing left to know?

Wolff is confronted by Urizen one night and told that Urizen has kidnapped Wolff's beloved Chryseis, and that to recover her Wolff must endure a dangerous series of trials. Traveling through a gate into his father's universe, Wolff finds himself on an oceanic world where he encounters his numerous brothers and sisters — each of whom is suspicious and hostile towards all the others. One of Wolff's brothers, the tragic Theotormon, has been cruelly transformed into a hideous fishlike humanoid. One sister, Vala, definitely has more going on behind her seductive smiles than she's letting on.

Wolff, by the hardest, convinces this haughty consortium of mutual enemies to unite in the interests of finding and overthrowing Urizen. Thus they travel from world to world through a series of gates, never knowing where they will end up. And each world presents its own series of challenges that must be overcome before moving on to the next one. Like moving up levels in a video game.

Farmer keeps the adventure moving along generally well. The opening scenes on the waterworld, which include a spectacular pitched battle on an airborne, floating island, are the best. But it's true that, even as short as the book is, the repetitive structure of the plot (journey to new world, barely escape death, struggle to find way to next gate, repeat) causes the whole thing to lose much of its steam along the way. And the absense of such colorful characters as Kickaha is a demerit. There's pretty much nobody in The Gates of Creation besides Wolff to root for.

And yet the book rebounds handily in the seventh inning stretch, and delivers a satisfying, bravura climax. On another positive note, the numerous bizarre artificial worlds Wolff and his ragtag band of brothers (and sisters) are forced to traverse do a great job of demonstrating why Farmer is considered one of SF's brightest imaginations. Overall, The Gates of Creation is a good example of old-fashioned, Saturday matineé entertainment that will make readers happy they are mere mortals after all. (SF Reviews.net)

Perhaps aware that The Gates of Creation wasn't half the novel it could have been without the presense of the wily Kickaha the Trickster, Farmer turns the third novel in his World of Tiers series into a vehicle for him. And it's the most bravura, action-packed entry in the saga yet. This is adventure storytelling at its most kinetic. It opens in high gear and never downshifts throughout its length. I had a complete blast.

Set on the World of Tiers concurrently with the events in Gates — in which Wolff, Lord of the World of Tiers, was trapped in a bizarre multi-dimensional obstacle course set up, so he believed, by his murderous father — A Private Cosmos finds Kickaha fending off an invasion by the Bellers. Originally artificial life forms designed by the Lords to allow them to transfer and store their memories in other bodies, the Bellers have since become an independent, self-aware species in their own right, and one with all the intellect and power of the Lords themselves. Now they plan to conquer the World of Tiers in Wolff's absense, and use its vast population to breed themselves into an unstoppable force millions strong.

Yet there is one thing in the Bellers' path: Kickaha. The transplanted earthman knows all of the secret gates, codes and traps in Wolff's palace, and the Bellers need this information to make their conquest complete. The book is thus one massive chase scene, with Kickaha staying only a hair's breadth away from capture as he transports himself from level to level, even to the World of Tiers' artificial moon, while he tries to destroy the Bellers one by one.

It sounds like it could become monotonous very easily, but Farmer knows full well that this kind of pure action talespinning needs not only a solid forward momentum, but plenty of wit into the bargain too. Funny little subplots pepper the narrative, the best of which has to do with the moon. In a nod to the series' Burroughs roots that is so brazen in its honesty that my respect for Farmer shot up several notches on its basis alone, he tells us that Wolff originally designed the moon after Burroughs' Barsoom because Kickaha, a huge fan of the John Carter novels, suggested it! The only detail Wolff wouldn't consider was to create "a living, breathing, thinking green Martian...just so Kickaha could run him through with a sword."

Naturally, Kickaha is aided in his plight by a hot babe, in this instance one of Wolff's sisters, Anana. Their developing romance is always concealed under a cloak of outward scorn, as you'd expect. Other characters from previous volumes put in an appearance as well, particularly the mad eagle-woman Podarge. She provides yet another constant peril our hero must survive.

The book only runs out of steam at the tail end, when it becomes more than a bit ridiculous having to keep track of exactly which body is possessed by which Beller, and just who Kickaha is trying to avoid being attacked by. But the fact that Farmer maintains the narrative as well as he does for as long as he does is commendable. The finale, for the very first time in the series, openly sets up the next novel.

Having dealt handily with the allegorical aspects of the World of Tiers in the first two volumes (and to be honest, most of that was just in book one), Farmer keeps A Private Cosmos squarely within the bounds of swash and buckle. In doing so he has crafted a story that is certain to bring out your inner 13-year-old. Now if I can only find the right John Williams CD to go along with it...(SF Reviews.net)

From the sublime to the ridiculous in one fell swoop. The fourth entry in the World of Tiers series picks up right where the rip-roaring A Private Cosmos left off. But the results are significantly less than superlative this time. As with so many multibook series, Farmer is letting the whole thing get away from him. It's got no less action and derring-do than its predecessors, but the freshness date is receding into the distance. The series is becoming redundant and stale.

Behind the Walls of Terra certainly has entertainment value, but it's of a much cheesier variety, even by the already borderline-cheese standards of this series. The story has Kickaha and Anana traveling back to Earth in order to find the one Black Beller that escaped the carnage of the previous novel, and also to find Wolff and Chryseis, who are fleeing said Beller. Though what transpires can be fun to read, it most often plays like one of the old Star Trek episodes (which were running contemporaneously with this saga's first few books) where the Enterprise crew time-travels back to the 20th century. And I don't mean the kinda good one that Harlan Ellison wrote.

First, you have to endure the first forty pages, which are literally claw-your-eyes-out bad. Farmer — already aging by the end of the sixties — decides to engage in a little bit of derisive social commentary, and it's every bit as embarrassing as it usually is when someone entirely out of touch with youth culture tries to write about it. Kickaha and Anana, upon arriving on Earth, are first menaced by a clownish motorcycle gang called — I shit you not — "Lucifer's Louts". After dispatching these miscreants, they hitch a ride into Los Angeles on the tour bus of a hippie rock group ("The Gnome King and His Bad Eggs") who say things like "Groovy, me boy! Too much!" We get to read priceless exchanges like the following:

"What's the matter with you?" Moo-Moo said, her voice losing its softness. "You don't dig me?"

[Kickaha] patted her thigh and said, "You're a beautiful woman, Moo-Moo, but I love Ann. However, tell you what! If the Gnome King succeeds in turning Ann into one of his Bad Eggs, you and I will make music together. And it won't be the cacophany the radio is vomiting."

She jerked with surprise and then said, "What do you mean? That's the Rolling Stones!"

Okay, so maybe the book could have some camp classic value to a modern audience. Would that it were true. There's not enough of this unintentional silliness for the book to qualify. And considering that the preceding volumes in the series are pretty sturdy old-fashioned adventures that also date, but in a charming way, the only real conclusion you can make is that, with this one, Farmer has just run it off the rails in a spectacular fashion.

Kickaha discovers that the Earth itself belongs to a pocket universe created by one of the advanced, alien Lords who are constantly at each others' throats for dominance. And the secret Lord of the Earth, Red Orc, is locked in a battle with a ruthless enemy called Urthona. Not altogether convincingly, Farmer has these two near-deities conducting their affairs like Hollywood movie gangsters, sending out vicious (but typically inept) henchmen to do their bidding. Kickaha first seeks out Red Orc in order to find Wolff and Chryseis. All he wants is to kill the last remaining Beller and then be allowed to return to the World of Tiers with his friends, without getting drawn in to the battle between Orc and Urthona. But the two Lords have other ideas.

In order, I suppose, to enhance the story's pacing, Farmer does not break the novel down into chapters. But this has the opposite effect. Walls more often than not feels like an endlessly tedious novella. There are some scenes where the earlier novels' sense of suspense and excitement manages to re-establish itself. But for the most part, Farmer has gone back to the same well too many times. Even the section of Walls that most evokes the series' strengths, with Kickaha being routed by Urthona through a series of gates that lead him to bizarre and hazardous worlds, is simply rehashing The Gates of Creation. I just found little about this book that was sufficiently fresh to draw me in. I've said it before: it's the rare series that can sustain its momentum and its appeal beyond three volumes. The World of Tiers, while hardly unsalvagable, is proving itself a very common specimen. (SF Reviews.net)

After the conflict leaves Earth, Kikkaha and Anana are trapped on the constantly changing Lavalite world with two of her uncles. Details their fight to survive and find one uncle's palace.  This starts off rather fast, I like that. It does not stop, a run through this world with little sleep. That part, the fast run, reminds me of Deathworld which I loved. However, Mr. Farmer spends a lot of time talking about how the inhabitants are "like" earth animals and plants but not like them. That got a little tiring. I thought the main characters were good and I approve of the moral line the author drew to what is right and wrong. The designer of this world and the ones mentioned of the other designed worlds were quite amoral and it seemed only the contact with the lowly "leblabbiy"(a non designer, a native) could possibly give you any moral compass. Smacks too much of poking fun at God and at anybody that has power and money. I do not believe that becoming rich automatically makes you corrupt, though I have to admit there is temptation there, only I do not think the "natives" are all that holy either. I would have like more things in the world to "see" instead always the same sky and ever changing landscapes.

Learning more about Red Orc, one of my least favorite characters, through the eyes of a young psyche patient is the basic premise of the book. Not what I was reading for. Jim is a loser; poor, rebellious & has a crappy home life. He lands in a psyche ward where he undergoes 'tiersian therapy' - role playing through the World of Tiers series. This helps him work through his issues & become a better person. Through his interaction, we learn more about Red Orc's early life & why he is such a bastard.  I didn't care for it. I don't particularly care why Red Orc is the way he is & the idea that this is a valid psychiatric method, as the afterword tells us, gives me the willies. Until I've read the next book, I don't know how necessary this book is to the series, but so far I think I could have skipped it. I'll try to update this after reading the 7th & last book. If not, look there for the answer

Farmer's World of Tiers yarns--a mingling of classical and American Indian mythology, William Blake-ish romanticism, and Edgar Rice Burroughs-like high adventure--have been appearing variously since 1965; this book (according to the publishers) presents the ultimate showdown between the hero, Kickaha, and Lord Red Orc--one of the arrogant and decadent super-race that created the Tiers, a succession of pocket universes (the Tower of Babylon tier, the Atlantis tier, the Amerind tier, etc.). Though recent volumes have been presented for review in these pages, series fans will wish to investigate.