The Evil in Pemberley House [Hardcover]

Philip Jose Farmer (Author), Win Scott Eckert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2009

For over thirty years, readers have marveled at Philip José Farmer's inventive integration of popular fiction and literature's most beloved characters, in a mythical web known as the Wold Newton Family. First described in the fictional biographies Tarzan Alive: The Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Farmer expanded his Wold Newton mythos in novels such as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, Time s Last Gift, Hadon of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, The Dark Heart of Time: A Tarzan Novel, and Escape from Loki: Doc Savage's First Adventure.

The Evil in Pemberley House, an addition to the Wold Newton cycle, plays with the Gothic horror tradition. Patricia Wildman, the daughter of the world-renowned adventurer and crimefighter of the 1930s and '40s, Dr. James Clarke "Doc" Wildman, is all alone in the world when she inherits the family estate in Derbyshire, England old, dark, and supposedly haunted.

But Farmer, characteristically, turns convention on its ear. Is the ghost real, or a clever sham? In Patricia Wildman, Farmer creates an introspective character who struggles to reconcile the supernatural with her rational scientific upbringing, while also attempting to work through unresolved feelings about her late parents. He sets the action at Pemberley from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and ingrains the various mysteries in the Canon of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

The Evil in Pemberley House is a darkly erotic novel with broad appeal to readers of pulp and popular literature, particularly followers of Doc Savage, Sherlockians, and fans of Farmer's own celebrated Wold Newton Family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Set in Farmer's imaginative Wold Newton universe (the setting for Tarzan Alive; Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life; and other novels), in which an 18th-century meteor impact led to a genetic mutation that produced numerous superheroic characters of mystery and science fiction, Farmer and Eckert's struggling collaboration neglects the fantastic in favor of the violently erotic. American Patricia Wildman, obsessed with her father's body and incest fantasies, is abducted and sexually abused by another woman while traveling. Wildman manages to turn the tables on her kidnappers and escape, only to end up in a nest of intrigue at Pride and Prejudice's Pemberley House. Numerous familiar fictional characters, from Elizabeth Bennet to a descendant of Professor Moriarty's chief of staff, only add to the clutter and sense of overkill. (Oct.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 212 pages
• Publisher: Subterranean (September 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596062495
• ISBN-13: 978-1596062498
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #346,038 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

WIN SCOTT ECKERT is the coauthor with Philip José Farmer of the Wold Newton novel THE EVIL IN PEMBERLEY HOUSE (Subterranean Press, 2009), about Patricia Wildman, the daughter of pulp hero Doc Wildman, the bronze champion of justice. Pat Wildman's adventures continue in Eckert's sequel, THE SCARLET JAGUAR.

In 1997, Eckert launched the first Wold Newton website, THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE. He is the editor of and contributor to MYTHS FOR THE MODERN AGE: PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER'S WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE (MonkeyBrain Books), a 2007 Locus Awards finalist. He has coedited three Green Hornet anthologies for Moonstone Books, and his short fiction tales of The Green Hornet, Zorro, The Avenger, The Phantom, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Hareton Ironcastle, Captain Midnight, Doc Ardan, and Sherlock Holmes, can be found in the pages of various character-themed anthologies from Moonstone Books, as well as anthologies such as THE WORLDS OF PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER (Meteor House), TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN (Black Coat Press), and TALES OF THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE (Titan Books). Eckert's critically acclaimed, encyclopedic CROSSOVERS: A SECRET CHRONOLOGY OF THE WORLD 1 & 2 was released by Black Coat Press in 2010.

His latest work includes the Wold Newton Origins short stories, "Is He in Hell?" and "The Wild Huntsman," found in the first and third volumes of THE WORLDS OF PHILIP JOSÉ FARMER, and the Honey West/T.H.E Cat crossover A GIRL AND HER CAT (coauthored with Matthew Baugh, Moonstone Books), the first new Honey West novel in over 40 years. Find him on the web at www.winscotteckert.com.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant addition to the Farmerian Mythos September 19, 2009

By R. Lai

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Farmer's legacy lives on! September 16, 2009

By Dennis Power

Format:Hardcover

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.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Long Lost Evil Comes to Light November 7, 2009

By Anthony R. Cardno

Format:Hardcover

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.