The Image of the Beast [and Blown]
by Philip José Farmer
Herald Childe (Collections and Selections — Omnibus 1-2)
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Private investigator Herald Childe watches a snuff movie of his partner being brutally murdered. The subsequent pursuit of his killers takes him through the LA smog and into a waking nightmare of sexual brutality and supernatural bestiality.Tags
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Trashy sex aside, Farmer gets at some interesting ideas in this book, and offers intriguing twists on some standard sci-fi tropes. The sex scenes have a surprising amount of both humor and ickiness, giving even the porn a subversive quality. If you're going to go for something in the increasingly popular erotic fantasy genre, why not go all the way with Mr. Farmer? It'll be weirder, grosser, and more rewarding.
At the time I read this, it was possibly the most disturbing book I had ever read -- although to be fair, I have always stayed strictly away from all types of horror. It's kind of horror and sci-fi all mixed up with some erotic elements that are fairly unpleasant. Gave me nightmares a little. But I've never forgotten about it. Once in a while I pull my copy out of the big box of old sci-fi that's stashed way back in the garage and look at the cover and wonder if it would still be as disturbing today...
Vile. Utterly vile. Horrific. Too strange to further describe. Farmer's unique imagination has been corrupted by minions of Baal and Jubilex. There is nothing like this book in print on the planet (or if there is, please write and correct me).
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365+ Works 36,012 Members
Philip José Farmer was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana on January 26, 1918. He worked in a steel mill while attending Bradley University at night and writing in his spare time. In 1952, his story The Lovers, in which a human has sex with an alien, was published in a pulp magazine called Startling Stories and won him the Hugo Award in 1953 for show more most promising new author. He quit his job to become a full-time writer, but a string of misfortunes eventually forced him to take jobs as a manual laborer. He worked as a technical writer from 1956 to 1970, but continued writing science fiction. He finally found success in the 1960's with the Riverworld series. He wrote more than 75 books throughout his lifetime including the Dayworld series and the World of Tiers series. He also wrote short stories. He won the Hugo award for best novella in 1968 for Riders of the Purple Wage and for best novel in 1972 for To Your Scattered Bodies Go. In 1988, he was the recipient of the Writers of the Past Award and the Nova for best book for Riverworld. In 2001 he was awarded the Grand Master Award and the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award. He died on February 25, 2009 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Image of the Beast [and Blown]
- Original title
- The Image of the Beast
- Original publication date
- 1979
- People/Characters
- Herald Childe; Forrest J. Ackerman
- Dedication
- For Forrest J. Ackerman, the Scarlet Pimpernel of fantasy
- First words
- Green milk curdled.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Heepish chuckled. “Could Dr. Jekyll get rid of Mr. Hyde?”
- Disambiguation notice
- This is a combined edition of Image of the Beast (c1968) and Blown (c1969). Please use care not to combine it with volumes containing only Image of the Beast
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Statistics
- Members
- 289
- Popularity
- 110,965
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (3.62)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 6
- ASINs
- 4
