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Philip Jose Farmer

Strange Relations Mass Market Paperback – January 29, 2008

by Philip Jose Farmer (Author)

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Two complete novels and five novelettes that broke new ground in science fiction and established Philip Jose Farmer as a master of the genre:

The Lovers: One of the most controversial and groundbreaking novels in science fiction. Sent by the religious tyranny of a future Earth to the planet Ozagen, Hal Yarrow met Jeanette, an apparently human fugitive, hiding in ancient ruins built by a long-vanished race. Unconsecrated contact with any female was forbidden to Yarrow—and love for an alien female was an unspeakable abomination. But Yarrow’s lifelong conditioning was no match for his strange attraction to Jeanette.

Flesh: The starship captain had been on a voyage lasting 800 years, and returned to find an Earth ruled by revived ancient pagan rituals. He was crowned the “Sunhero,” which was a very dubious honor . . . and unless he could escape, he would be the guest of honor at a fertility rite which would conclude with his very unpleasant death.

Strange Relations: Five novelettes of unbounded imagination telling of strange—and often deadly—encounters between human and alien.

Print length

720 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Baen
Publication date

January 29, 2008
Dimensions

4.19 x 1.2 x 6.75 inches
ISBN-10

9781416555261
ISBN-13

978-1416555261
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Philip Jose Farmer is a pioneer of science fiction. His stories were the first to explore alien sexuality, love, religion, and mythology. He has won numerous awards, including three Hugo Awards and the World Fantasy Award, and has been named a Nebula Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America. In a long and distinguished career, he has published over seventy novels and story collections. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction has called him "perhaps the most impish and anarchic" of major science fiction writers.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1416555269
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Baen (January 29, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 720 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781416555261
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1416555261
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.19 x 1.2 x 6.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #673,013 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,917 in Gothic Romances
- #4,522 in TV, Movie & Game Tie-In Fiction
- #5,567 in Occult Fiction

Customer Reviews:
37 ratings

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John J Arnold Jr

Philip Jose Farmer: Master of Science-Fiction Sensuality!

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2018

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A master story-teller, the spiritual father of all fantastic fantasy/science-fiction erotica, Philip Jose Farmer is at his best in this collection of memorable short stories. Farmer's fiction is always fascinating, but this selection of stories stands out as little masterpieces exploring the dangerous worlds of sexuality between wildly divergent species which makes films like Avatar look like pap and drivel. Highly recommended.

2 people found this helpful

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Pinner Blinn

Spacemen gone wild

Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2009

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I bought this book after hearing of Philip Jose Farmer's death and reading of how he supposedly broke the taboo of sexual themes in science fiction. This book contains the groundbreaking story "The Lovers" (for which publication/expansion dates of 1952, 1961, and 1979 are given). It's a very good read. Central character Hal Yarrow escapes a hellishly frustrating marriage by volunteering for service as a linguistic specialist on mission to a planet populated by bug-like aliens. He cannot as easily escape the bonds of his dogmatic and suppressive religion. Once on the ground, Hal begins to stray from his mission...

Two more "novels" are included in this volume. Of the three, "Flesh" is the raciest. There is no material here that could be called explicit, but this bawdy comedy centers around Peter Stagg who leads a crew of space travelers returning to a future Earth transformed into tribal countries, one of which surgically attaches fleshy antlers to Stagg's head making him their "Sunhero" who must romp around the countryside impregnating crowds of eager virgins. Modern sensibilities might be offended by the episode involving the Pants Elves (the tribe that rules Pants-Elf-vania, and who are all homosexual males). The apparent fury with which Stagg dispatches them in making his escape might be considered gay-bashing. On the other hand, Stagg is pretty much out of control when his antlers are pumped. Make your own allusions.

The third "book" is called "Strange Relations" and is a collection of short stories. The first two are connected. In "Mother", an Earthman participates in an alien's reproductive process, and in "Daughter" one of the progeny heeds well the advice of her "dad". The next segment "Father" is a bit of a tease since you might imagine that it is a further continuation, though not obviously so, as we see a planet where a god-like Father holds sway. In the end, no connection to the first two parts is evident, but the story stands on its own as a broad spoof of Christian themes. The fourth part "Son" leaves no doubt. Very straight sci-fi compared to the rest of the book. The final segment "My Sister's Brother" is perhaps the most satisfying story in the volume. While on a spooky rescue mission on a fanciful Mars, spaceman Lane is thrown into a situation both seductive and well outside the bounds of his by-the-book sensibilities. Typical of Farmer's protagonists, he is a musclebound doofus who just might avoid disaster despite himself.

All in all, an interesting and entertaining collection of stories.

18 people found this helpful

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Donna L. Pohlman

Truly original

Reviewed in the United States on March 14, 2014

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Farmer's work is like nothing anyone has ever read. He takes love, sex, aliens and religion, throws them into a salad and comes up with a masterpiece. The Lovers alone is worth the price of this one. The others are delicious frosting on a kinky cake. Read only if you're broad minded, but if you are, you will laugh, cry and scream at this one. A bouquet of masterpieces. Don't miss it!

One person found this helpful

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Robert Brownback

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2016

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Have always enjoyed Farmer's writing.

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mark

Strange Relations

Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2013

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Strange Relations soft cover book scfi I'm very happy with the product and do business with them form them again

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Brian

Looks good! Can't wait to read it!

Reviewed in the United States on July 27, 2014

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I haven't had the chance to read this yet but the book looks interesting. I'm a huge science fiction nerd so this book will definitely go into my collection.

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Melchior

Two Stars

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2015

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Strange, pointless, and not a single thread.

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Mithridates VI of Pontus

Strange Freudian Fantasies

Reviewed in the United States on January 26, 2014

*note -- this is a review for the original 1960 edition that does not contain Flesh or The Lovers*

Blanchard’s abstract vaginal cover for the 1960 first edition of Philip José Farmer’s Strange Relations (1960) hints, just obliquely enough to avoid being explicit, at the collection’s radical and groundbreaking contents. Nothing else existed like this from the 50s! Having exploded onto the scene with the “transgressive” (SF encyclopedia) novella “The Lovers” (1953) (later expanded to novel length), Strange Relations (1960) collects a further five short works from the mid-50s and later on similar themes — theology, sex, xenobiology, Freud, and social satire.

Each work revolves around a particular Freudian scenario, a Freudian fantasy. One can imagine that authors such as Barry N. Malzberg were profoundly influenced by Farmer’s meditations on humanity’s ”strange peccadilloes.”

Long time readers of my blog might know of my dislike of Farmer’s Hugo-winning To Your Scattered Bodies Go (1971) and the subsequent sequels which manage to add layers and layers of boredom. I’ve also reviewed the painfully tedious Traitor to the Living (1973)… So, it was with some trepidation that picked up Strange Relations. My dislike has diminished and metafictional pastiches such as Lord Tyger (1970) are on my to acquire radar. The Green Odyssey (1957) and Behind the Walls of Terra (1970), long relegated to a back corner of the to read pile are suddenly more appealing…

Highly recommended for the novelette “Mother” (1953) and its sequel short story “Daughter” (1954). The hard-shelled, hilltop living, female-only womb aliens who fertilize themselves via roving mobile “male” objects whom they capture and thrust into their womb-spaces, described in the these two stories are downright fantastic. The only one of the five that does not live up to its premise is “Son” (1954)–maternal /”female” ocean going robots who adopt and manipulate shipwrecked men should result in a more intriguing story!

Brief Plot Summary/Analysis

“Mother” (1953) (novelette) 4/5 (Good): The second best story of the collection follows the emotional opera singer Eddie Fetts who has a mother complex and an unhealthy attachment to the nipple-shaped rubber top of his liquor thermos. His mother, an accomplished pathologist, is a constant factor in his life, especially after Eddie’s wife left because they “couldn’t get together” (9). Eddie and his mother crash land on an unusual planet where Farmer’s skill at describing unusual aliens manifests itself. Eddie and his mother are captured, after being lured by a mating scent, and placed inside different immobile hilltop dwelling aliens.

He soon discovers that these aliens are all female, they impregnate themselves by capturing roving animal life like himself, and they feed their children inside the womb by producing a stew generated by captured animals and water syphoned via long tubes from the ground. Eddie literally returns to the womb and discovers that he strangely likes it there and takes an active part nurturing the young. Of course, the alien mother, Polyphema, gains great prestige having a talking male mobile.

“Daughter” (1954) (short story) 5/5 (Very Good): The best of the collection and one of my favorite of the collection. The sequel to “Mother”, “Daughter” is narrated by one of the female children of Polyphema, the alien that captured Eddie. This child, Little Hardhead, was Eddie’s favorite and the one who learned all Eddie knew about the outside world. When she is evicted from Polyphema’s womb, she puts Eddie’s teaching to the test and constructs a multi-layered womb-shell from all different materials when she finds a suitable hill to implant herself (and gains the ridicule of the other children more quickly establish themselves and produce young).

And then the big bad wolf creature, another fantastically bizarre alien conjured by Farmer, who eats all the crops planted by the womb-aliens, and slowly synthesizes chemicals to pry through the layers of the hard womb-shell approaches the last of Polyphema and Eddie’s children. Will Eddie’s teaching payoff when the mobile attacks! Little Hardhead is ready.

“Father” (1955) (novella) 4/5 (Good): ”Father” is one of numerous stories in sequence that follow Father (not the father of the title) Carmody, a Catholic priest of the future, in a series of adventures on planets that challenge Catholic theology. In this case, Carmody and the crew of the Gull crash land on the planet of Abatos, where so many vessels have never been seen before. Abatos is an unusual jungle-like world (queue Farmer’s obsessions with Tarzan) filled with only female plants and animals. The reason for this is revealed — a god-like being is offended by even the slightest of sins, animal and planet sex included. So, in his omnipotence he generates a Garden of Eden environment according to his fervent strictures regarding every possible sin. A debate emerges amongst the crew, do they bring the God-like creature back to Earth an utilize it as an instrument of the Church, or, is the God-like creature so utterly delusional and self-obsessed that it should be left to its own devices? One of the more intriguing theological ruminations of the 50s, up there with James Blish’s A Case of Conscience (1958).

“Son” (1954) (short story) 3.5/5 (Good): The fantastic premise devolves into a rather descriptive story that lacks the vibrancy of the others in the collection. Jones, after his luxury liner blows up by the enemy, is miraculously rescued by a sentient robot submersible. The robot takes Jones into the amniotic depths of the ocean where he is drugged, hypnotized, and manipulated into assisting “her” repairs. Soon Jones realizes that Keet is more than simply programming—a maternal instinct exists. But Jones, turns “out to be an American with the good old American name of Jones” (137) sees through her deception and forces himself from her womb-like interior. A second birth, another attempt to make things right…. A forced, violent, birth.

“My Sister’s Brother” (variant title: “Open to Me, My Sister”) (1960) (novella) 3.5/5 (Good): Nominated for the Short Fiction Hugo category in 1961. Perhaps the most unusual story of the collection…. Lane, a member of the first explorers of Mars, is tasked with discovering where the rest of companions have disappeared. He sets off across the Martian landscape and discovers unusual aliens who farm planets along long hollow tubes that stretch across the landscape. Soon he gains entry to one of the tubes after he encounters a nubile female humanoid looking alien named Martia….

Unlike other SF stories of the era, Lane is unable to overcome his revulsion of the alien’s characteristics, and more specifically bizarre mating patterns. He resorts to an act of brutal violence because, due to the hatred of her differences, “could not accept her love and still remain a man” (190). This is a rather radical story for our manly man, who lusts after aliens but really wants them to be more human than alien (especially when they have sex), despite encountering a peaceful race can only react with violence when his sexual mores are challenged.

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Top reviews from other countries

Dieter Mooyer

Farmer's telltale about a good relationship in bizarre times.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 14, 2014

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Even for SF and Fantasy-readers this book is hard to swallow. Why? There is to much love, sex and understanding in it! To much TRUTH. Is that a reason not to engage in this fabulous universe of mister Farmer? Of course not. This is the only reason you should get a copy of this book. There is more between the words than you could imagine if you would read it just casualty. Read it with all your heart and leave the mind out.

4 people found this helpful

Hettie Barker & Jenny Jumper

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 26, 2016

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This author varies from brilliant to mediocre. This is 2 good ones.

Alchemist

A classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 12, 2013

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A seminal work of SciFi which was one of those which aroused my passion for the genre. Still a great read. Delighted to have found it after all this time.

One person found this helpful

strange relations

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 12, 2013

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it was a gift for my husband and he hadnt read that book for many years and was delighted with it thank you .

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