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Philip Jose Farmer passed away this morning at the age of 91.
He was a giant in science fiction. If the Riverworld series was all he wrote, his immortality would be assured. But he created so much more.
He had a love for the age of pulp magazines heroes. In fact, when I published a Doc Savage fanzine in high school with my friend John Boehm, Farmer was he first author I ever interviewed. Even as he tried to convince me over the phone that Doc Savage and Tarzan were real people, he remained a true gentleman. In later correspondence he encouraged my writing, and never treated me like the gawky fanboy I was.
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I think I'm going to sit down with To Your Scattered Bodies Go, and rediscover the brilliance of his work.