The Evil in Pemberley House [Hardcover]

This novel clevery links earlier works by Philip José Farmer into the context of a gothic mystery. The elaborate connections between Tarzan and Doc Savage from Mr. Farmer's Wold Newton Universe are skillfully interwoven into an exciting narative.

There are also many refrences to other fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu and Bulldog Drummond. Even the most erudite fan of populer fiction may have difficulty in catching all of these literary crossovers. It took me a while to realize that a comment concerning a family named Belville tied into E. W. Hornung's Raffles story, "To Catch a Thief."

Completed by Win Scott Eckert from an unfinished manuscript and a very detailed outline by Philip José Farmer, the novel is an enthralling delight. Mr. Eckert was ideally suited for this task. He has consistently championed the crossover concepts of Philip José Farmer in articles (see Myths for the Modern Age) and in pastiche fiction (see Mr. Eckert's wonderful short stories in the Tales of the Shadowmen anthologies).

Although I wholeheartedly recommend this novel, I must add a word of caution. Unlike the other Wold Newton works by Mr. Farmer, The Evil in Pemberley House has graphic sexual content. Mr. Farmer clearly intended this novel to be the Wold Newton equivalent of A Feast Unknown (1969), an early controversial Tarzan/Doc Savage pastiche that was contradicted by his later works. While the disguised version of Doc Savage in this novel does not engage in any controversial sexual acts in The Evil in Pemberley House, the novel's heroine (meant to be Doc's daughter) behaves in a very provocative manner.

Mr. Eckert is perhaps uniquely qualified to be Farmer's collaborator on this novel since the background of the novel concerns Farmer's Wold Newton Family, a subject near and dear to Eckert's heart. Eckert has been webmaster and publisher of the premiere Wold Newton family website An Expansion of Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe for over a decade. Eckert was also the editor of Myths for the Modern Age, a collection of essays that expanded upon Farmer's Wold Newton Family concept.

Although some reviews may call The Evil in Pemberley House a posthumous work, it is not. Although published after Phil Farmer's passing, the novel was finished, approved by Farmer and bought by a publisher prior to his death.

Sex has always been a double edged sword for Farmer. Portraying it brought him both acclaim and condemnation, and I think possibly precluded him from being looked at in the same regard as Asimov, Heinlein or Clarke. For my money, I think his ideas were just as broad and his execution was in many regards more skillful than the Big Three.

While less explicit than Farmer's other pieces of erotic fiction The Evil in Pemberley is a book for mature audience and does have a strong sexual content. Yet these scenes are never simply prurient and each one is intrinsic to the plot as a whole.

However clever the author of a review wants to be in discussing his favorite novelist, the reader undoubtedly is impatiently thinking. Get to the gist! Is it any good? Does it measure up to Farmer's other works?

The answer to both questions is a resounding yes. Like many of Farmer's works it can be read on many levels, a sexually charged gothic thriller, a psychological mystery, a sherlockian/pulp pastiche and yes, as a novel that fits into his Wold Newton Family mythos. Farmer's skill was always to adeptly take many disparate elements, enact some literary alchemy and decant gold from the mixture. The Evil in Pemberley House is no exception to this rule. It is a very good book and a compelling read. I think that it easily stands alongside such works as The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, Greatheart Silver, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg as well as his erotic classic A Feast Unknown.

Kudos for this must be given to collaborator Eckert. Win Eckert is most assuredly a scholar of Farmer's work, yet even if such a scholar of an author's works so thoroughly steeps himself in his collaborator's words that it seems as though he hijacked and channeled his muse only a writer of exceptional talent can make the collaboration seamless. I have read a few works that were unfinished works, finished by other authors, of some note, and invariably there comes a point in your reading where you know where the original text left off and the new writer took up the pen. In the case of The Evil in Pemberley House unless it is pointed out to me, I cannot tell were Farmer left off and Eckert began. While it is a collaboration, it is truly a Farmer book.

The Evil in Pemberley House by Philip Jose Farmer and Win Scott Eckert, isbn 9781596062498, 214 pages, Subterranean Press, $40.00
(also available in a Limited signed & numbered edition with addtional chapbook for $60).

I'll admit that when it comes to the depth and breadth of character interconnectedness that is The Wold-Newton Universe, I am nowhere near as well-versed as Win Scott Eckert, Denis Powers, Rick Lai and the folks who have spent countless years building upon the basis laid down by Philip Jose Farmer in books like Tarzan Alive, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, and such works. I like to think I'm a slightly above-average fan, though -- I enjoy picking out the little mentions here and there that indicate how a new piece of fiction might be linked to the classics (such as the veiled reference to Indiana Jones in the first Gabriel Hunt adventure; or the fact that Shannon Rutherford on LOST might actually be distantly related to Tarzan's mother).

As he says in his author's notes, Win Eckert got the chance to meet Mr. Farmer, and to dig through old files looking for pieces of interest for the Farmerphile fan magazine, and came across the unfinished manuscript for The Evil in Pemberley House. And Farmer agreed to let Eckert finish the manuscript and submit it for publication.

The Evil in Pemberley House is pure classic Farmer, connecting the daughter of Doc Savage to a curse that stretches back through the Darcy family of Austen's Pride and Prejudice and even further back from there. There are connections to Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, The Shadow, The Avenger, and a variety of other pulp-and-earlier classic adventure tales, including of course Doc Savage himself. I don't think I picked up every single cross-literary name-drop, but I enjoyed the hell out of trying to.

Also in classic Farmer mode: every one of these characters has a libido -- an active libido. Farmer, after all, is credited with finally showing super-heroes as fully functioning beings, including bathroom breaks and sex .... lots of sex. By today's standards, the actual descriptions of sex are pretty tame. Eckert rightfully resisted the urge to "beef up" the sex scenes to match what today's readers might find shocking; and because of that, the scenes that are meant to be erotic actually are erotic -- the old "less is more" adage in full effect. (And, I should add, not every sex scene is meant to be erotic, especially the very first one).

The story is the classic Gothic literature setup: young woman is the sole remaining heir to a large, and possibly haunted, estate. Is the house really haunted, or are other people trying to scare her off? That is the crux of Farmer's story, as developed and completely by Eckert. The authors go out of their way to walk that line through the story that the creators of Savage and Holmes usually walked in their heroes' tales: there's always a plausible non-supernatural explanation for everything, but it is left up to the reader to decide in the end what was really happening.

In true collaborative form, you can't really tell where Farmer's original ms and Eckert's later work start and end, which I think is a testament to Eckert's ability as a writer. There are people with questionable motives all around the heroine, Patricia Wildman, and another fun part of the book is figuring who (if anyone) actually has her best interests at heart.

I highly recommend The Evil in Pemberley House to anyone who is a fan of gothic lit, pulp adventure, or a good old fashioned mystery. I'm very glad this was rescued from the depths of Farmer's files and that Subterranean Press agreed to publish it.