The Dark Design

Philip José Farmer (1918 - 2009)

Philip José Farmer was born in Indiana in 1918. Although he once said he resolved to become a writer in the fourth grade, it wasn't until 1952 that his first SF was published - the novella 'The Lovers', which won him the Hugo Award for Most Promising New Author. Although best known for his Riverworld sequence, beginning with the Hugo Award-winning To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Farmer also pioneered the use of sexual and religious themes in SF and wrote several novels reworking the lore of celebrated pulp heroes such as Tarzan and Doc Savage. He also wrote the tongue-in-cheek Venus on the Half-Shell using the pseudonym 'Kilgore Trout', a character who appeared in several Kurt Vonnegut novels. Philip José Farmer won three Hugos, a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. He died in 2009.