Customer Reviews

A Feast Unknown

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Feast Unknown by Philip Jose Farmer may not be everybody's cup of tea. There is a lot of graphic descriptions of both violence and male arousal. Yet if the reader is open-minded enough to get past these, this is a well crafted adventure novel by one of the masters of the field.

The novel pits Farmer's versions of Tarzan and Doc Savage against each other in a fight to the death over the secret of eternal life. Farmer calls these foes Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban, and tells the story from the point of view of Grandrith. Also, it turns out there is another secret these two share that they must discover before they kill each other.

There are enough explosions, deaths, and dismemberments for a summer Hollywood adventure blockbuster, but Farmer has added a strange twist to the story that makes this risky material for the screen. As the novel opens, Grandrith finds that he becomes physically aroused to the point of climax whenever he kills someone. This is very distracting for him, as he must outwit his most deadly enemies while his body is being drawn towards other feelings.

This is difficult material to handle and Farmer does it superbly, and with a touch of humor, while keeping the excitement level high. Leave it to the creator of Riverworld to invent such a fantastic story line and carry it off superbly from beginning to end.

Is this the original slash fiction (fan writings involving fancied romantic liaisons between fictional male companions)? Most articles about slash trace it back to 1970s fan fiction depicting romantic adventures between Star Trek's Kirk and Spock. A Feast Unknown was first published in 1969, a date that precedes the earliest dating for slash so far. However, regardless of whether this novel has anything to do with slash fiction, it is a great work on its own terms that was certainly groundbreaking at the time and can still be controversial to this day.

If you've stumbled across this particular amazon listing, then no doubt you were doing some searching for Phil Farmer's more obscure works. This is one of them, and let me tell you that this book is everything you want to get when you crack open a Farmer novel, applied to an extreme degree.

The basic gist of the plot is Tarzan vs Doc Savage. The characters are not named as such, likely because of the content, but it is obvious who the main characters are. These two pulp heroes define the classic adventure genre, and here Farmer has them crossing paths in what I'm positive other reviewers would agree is an orgy of sex and violence.

And no, that is not an exaggeration. This is one of the most graphic books I've ever read, violently and sexually and, yes, both at the same time. If you're familiar with Farmer (specifically 'Image of the Beast,' 'World of Tiers,' and 'Lord Tyger [which is another 'Tarzan' pastiche]) you know that the man tends not to hold back. In this particular instance, he strives to outdo himself. In fact, one could say it is the point of the novel- to take the ultimately superficial (violent) and ultimately latent (sexual) aspects of our favorite classic pulp heroes and to explore them in a novel that, once begun, does not let up until the final chapter.

Upon reading this (in one sitting, though I did not intend to do so at first), I was emotionally drained. The book is intense, action-packed, adventurous, deviant, pornographic, horrific, and ultimately great. I highly recommend this to Farmer fans, and I sort of recommend this to open-minded fans of the classic pulps. If you ever wanted to know what Tarzan's sex life was like, this or 'Lord Tyger' are the books for you. Wonderful, fast-paced, relentless enjoyment throughout.

Don't hesitate. Grab this one if you can.

Its hard to explain how this book is better than lame internet fan fiction. The author takes two fictional characters and puts them through some violent homoerotic adventures, yet this book is way better than any lame blog entry.

If you like disgusting books check this one out, it might even be more over the top than American Psycho.

This is an extremely enjoyable book for those who enjoy the work of Philip Jose Farmer. It is NOT the book to read first, if you've never read anything by Farmer before. This is a much less main-stream book than his other works like The Riverworld series or Flesh or Lord Tyger. Most of Farmer's work is pretty frankly sexually, A Feast Unknown is often referred to as "pornographic". It isn't really as unlike pornography it doesn't dwell on the specifics of the sexual act but it does contain some extremely direct reference to multiple kinds of sexuality including homosexuality, heterosexuality, sadism, and bestiality. The two main characters are extremely thinly veiled versions of Tarzan and Doc Savage and the entire story is based on Farmer's "Wold Newton Families" universe in which these two are rather closely related. It's a marvelous read and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has first dipped a toe into the waters of Farmer's works and decided they like it.

This is absolutely a case of "reader beware." Other reviewers refer to the graphic sex and violence in this book, but readers should be forewarned that this book includes some really troubling descriptions of brutal sexual images. Some reviewers imply that this book brings a healthy reality that allow these hero figures from an earlier era a realistic set of human reactions including human sexuality. This is wildly inaccurate. Within the first few pages of the narrative the reader is assaulted by images that connect tremendous cruelty, aggression, bloodletting and sex. (God help us all if anyone reading those passages find any of them in any way titillating.)

P-J Farmer has never been afraid of bringing human sexuality or violence into his fiction, and he has frequently pushed those barriers very effectively. For example, his justifiably praised short story "New Riders of the Purple Wage" is not only graphic, but in it's own way, brilliant.

If you are looking for something that continues Farmer's Wold Newton family saga represented by "Tarzan Alive" or "Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life", this is NOT where you want to go. Those books were fun re-examination of these characters with a more modern eye. This book is not that, by a long shot.

wHERE TO START,WE HAVE TWO IMMORTAL SUPER HEROES,A SINISTER SECRET SOCIETY CALLED THE NINE,AND OUR TWO HEROES SPEND MOST OF THERE TIME RUNNING AROUND NAKED SPORTING MASSIVE ERECTIONS,AND EJACULATING WHEN EVER THEY KILL SOMEONE.ITS KINKY ITS PERVERSE I LOVED IT.I ESPECIALLY LOVED THE TITANIC FIGHT BETWEEN OUR TWO NAKED HEROES,WHEN AS THE AUTHOR PUTS IT THERE PETERS WERE CROSSED LIKE SWORDS.GOOD DIRTY FUN,

This is the most uncompromising science-fiction novel of all time. Even more than 1984 or Clockwork Orange! A big infuence along with his Wold Newton Universe on Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Warren Ellis's Planetary. This is like a crossbreeding of Freud and Nietzche on steroids and PCP. Doc Savage becomes Doc Calliban and Lord Greystoke becomes Lord Grandrith. May have also influenced the Dark Knight Returns. Philip Jose Farmer is known for bringing a greater realism and sexual frankness to sci-fi along with Heinlein and others. And boy does he here. Robert Silverberg commented that the book proves that, "total violence combined with total sex equals total absurdity" or something to that effect but this absurdity is more on the level of outrage. By the end you feel exhausted and exhilarated. Could only be adapted as an adults-only fan-film or anime. The sequels are much tamer but still interesting. Sadly Farmer never brought the series to closure. Equally sadly he never gave this treatment to the Shadow, Spider, Phantom or other pulp heroes.

On the cover of my copy of A Feast Unknown it has a blurb about how shocking this was when it was first published in 1969. But really how shocking could it be ? Well, A Feast Unkown is so over the top in terms of sex and violence that it is almost comical. The story revolves around to heroes, the Lord of the Jungle (patterned after Tarzan) and the Man of Bronze (patterned after I'm not sure who). They both work for the Council of Nine, which govern and influence all human affairs, and supply the heroes with the elixir for virtual immortality. The two heroes have become mortal enemies as they duel to the death to take a vacancy in the Nine.
As noted the book is full of violent sex and sexualized violence. It is not for anyone easily offended by explicit sex and graphic violence. In fact I'm sure the sole motivation behind this book was to see how many people Farmer could outrage. The sex and violence is so extreme that it becomes comical. And really beyond the efforts to offend there's not much here. Like a lot of sci-fi and fantasy novels from the late sixties - it is incredibly dated.

Too many reviews have stated that one has to be "open-minded" to appreciate this book, as if resenting all the sex makes one close-minded. This book is full of Farmer's sexual ideas, and if you don't agree with those, you won't like the book. Also, the story itself isn't all that great. The idea of The Nine is intriguing, but instead of making a couple of heroes of another age more "real", the story made them a lot weirder. Stick to Burroughs or Dent, and let Farmer spin his little fantasies to himself.