Philip José Farmer: Well, in the actual writing -- remember I had to reread all 180 novels, more than once...

{Gordy Dickson enters the bar asking for Harry Harrison. He sits down with us to wait.}

Philip José Farmer: (Looking at Gordy, then back to us...) If you want to hear a lot of BS, well just wait. (Laughter around the table.)

{Harry Harrison comes into the bar, grabs Gordy Dickson around the neck and lets loose with a titanic roar/growl. Much surprise and laughter.}

Philip José Farmer: See, I told you you'd hear a lot of BS...

So, if you take the attitude, that if you're tackling a whole series of novels, then you're committed to a lot of discrepancies, the author has contradicted himself. There are then things you have to explain -- you have to reconcile these discrepancies, which generates a lot of new stuff.

So, it took me quite a while to write the Tarzan biography. That one was about six months, not counting the genealogy which took a lot of time. After this and a few other things I decided to do Doc Savage, and I've had a lot of fun with that, too.

But right now I'm working on the third Riverworld novel which should be out in late 1976. It's going to be a long book.

{Following a pause to order more drinks}

Philip José Farmer: I'm sorry I can't answer more about Trout. I can tell you how I got involved with it. You know, I wrote a short biography about Trout which appeared in a fanzine first and then I rewrote it and it appeared in The Book of Philip José Farmer. And then I have close contact with Dell, and one of the things I had to worry about was just when in the hell was Kilgore Trout born, because Vonnegut's three novels have discrepant items. He was either born in 1906 or 1912 or 1917, so I managed to get the galleys of Breakfast of Champions before they were published and noted that he had put down the date when Trout was born; you know, he had that tombstone illustration. However, it got all screwed up when it came out because the printer made a typo and it came out 1906 instead of 1907.

Bette (to Phil): I think they'd better talk to you next year.

Philip José Farmer: Well, I don't know. What's my favorite novel? Of course, I really like the Riverworld series, but actually the first two are only preludes to what I consider to be the symphony -- the third one. I liked writing Flesh, and Lord Tyger is about my second favorite one. Now that one nobody paid much attention to; everybody took it for granted that it was just another Tarzan takeoff. It's not. In order to understand the structure and everything that's really going on there, you've got to be familiar with Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. If you read that, then read Lord Tyger, you can follow Campbell's motif right on through the novel. No critic ever noticed that.

That will come out eventually, of course, but I had so many characters that I couldn't handle them all myself, so I asked Gene Wolfe to write a story about David Copperfield. And Leslie Fiedler is thinking about writing a story about Gustav von Auschenbach, the writer/hero of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. I had to get permission for all this stuff.

Bette: Did you see Geis's article about the Trout novel?

Philip José Farmer: He read the first twenty pages of the abridged magazine version, said that it was Vonnegut, and took off on a tirade against Vonnegut. Somebody mailed it to Vonnegut and it really teed him off. Well, it was obvious that Geis just assumed it was Vonnegut and he didn't like Vonnegut. He said the novel made fun of science fiction readers and writers and it doesn't, not at all. He totally misinterpreted it. Anyway, I guess there won't be any more Trout novels.

I signed the contract and got the advance and then got to thinking about the shape we're in now and got madder and madder, and finally I called up Forry and said listen, I'm going to have to give you your money back because I don't think I can do it. You want upbeat stories, right? He said right. Then I said well, no, I'd better not do it. He said no, that's alright, I'll give you three more weeks and keep the money.

I had about four or five ideas that I rejected. One of them was an idea I got while in the Men's room at the L.A. airport. The original title was "Men's Room, USA." Right now it's called "Fundamental Issue." (Laughs) It's about a U.S. Supreme Court Justice who has come back from a vacation in Tahiti with his young wife, and he's suffering from constipation. And while they're waiting in the airport, he goes into the Men's room, and it's sort of a microcosm of what's happening today. While he's in the toilet he sees and hears all sorts of things. In the meantime, he's pondering this big decision he has to make about a laser-fusion reactor they're building in upper New York, in a town named Wahoppe. He can't make up his mind what the heck to do with it and he sees this drunken U.S. senator he knows and he thinks that -- but he's not sure -- that this guy who's trying to build this plant is trying to slip him an attache case full of money -- but he's not sure. Anyway, it gets stolen by an Italian. Oh, and also when he goes into the toilet he sees a whole bunch of workmen hammering on a wall, and he wonders what the heck they're doing. First, he thinks they're looking for a bomb, but he says to himself no, it can't be because they'd be evacuating everybody -- in more than one sense. So, he decides simultaneously with his BM -- you know, his decision comes through. The two are very closely connected. And he leaves feeling better, but as he goes out he sees the wall is torn down and the passage between the Men's room and the Women's room is open now. Which is a recent appellate court decision, and he knows damn well he's got to get that case pretty soon. (Laughs) So he goes out to his wife -- and I use a little bit of Bette here -- and she's doing a crossword puzzle and she says, "Are you going to believe this coincidence? I've got the word Wahoppe in my puzzle." And he says, "Well, I'll believe anything today." She says that it's an old Indian word from the Oneida/Iroquois meaning He Sat Down. (Laughs) But uh, I don't know if Forry is going to take that story or not.

But I thought that everything that's going on in the Men's room is sort of a microcosm of everything going on today; ideals, as opposed to the constitution, and so forth, and you can see the contrast. And also, I had some graffiti but I cut that out because it wasn't really relevant, and also because the story was getting too long already.

There's really not much moving up until the end when the Supreme Court Justice finally gets rid of his constipation and comes to his decision. I think Forry's going to have a hemorrhage when he sees it. We'll just have to wait and see how it all comes out.

{Phil pauses to order more drinks around}

Philip José Farmer: Sorry I can't tell you more about Trout right now. I did get a letter sent to me by Ed Ferman because he knew I was interested in it. He knew I'd get a kick out of it, from a fan in New Jersey who swore up and down that Trout had to be a Yiddish writer because nobody but a Yiddish writer would be able to do that big standup cosmic comedian scene at the end where, you know, Why Not? He's in for a shock, too. (Laughs)

Bette: The funny thing is, that nobody here at the convention, the writers, is giving an opinion on the Kilgore Trout novel. And I think it's because nobody knows who wrote it and they're afraid they'll say the wrong thing to the wrong person… or the wrong thing to the right person. The thing that worries me is that you'd think if they liked it they'd say so.

(Laughter from all.)