A Philip Jose Farmer Timeline
by Art Bollman
         14,000 BP TIMES LAST GIFT
Tarzan arrives from the future on a time travel expedition.

12,000 BP HADON OF ANCIENT OPAR & FLIGHT TO OPAR
The adventures of Hadon, a warrior in a city discovered by Tarzan.

1872 THE OTHER LOG OF PHILEAS FOGG
Phileas Fogg proves that Holmes is no the only Englishman to ever get the best of Professor Moriarty.

1895 The Problem of the Sore Bridge

Harry Manders‘ tale of Raffles and the worm unknown to science.

1916 THE ADVENTURES OF THE PEERLESS PEER
Sherlock Holmes meets Tarzan and the Shadow.

1918 ESCAPE FROM LOKI
Doc Savage and the fab five have their first adventure.

1918 THE DARK HEART OF TIME
Tarzan's missing adventure.

1920 IRONCASTLE
Hareton Ironcastle goes on an interesting expedition.

1920s  A BARNSTORMER IN OZ
Dorothy Gale's son returns to Oz.  Indiana Jones reference as well.

1932 After Kong Fell

A giant ape and a young boy learn some things about love.

1936 The Volcano
One of the more notable works of Paul Chapin is published.
1943 THE GATE OF TIME (Also called "Two Hawks from Earth)
Roger Two Hawks, from a parellel universe, finds himself on a world that may be a Red Orc's real pocket universe.

1960-1975(?) THE WORLD OF TIERS
The events of the World of Tiers Series

1962 FIRE AND THE NIGHT
An interracial affair at a steel mill.

1964  DARE
An adventure with the descendants of the Roanoke colony, who have been abducted by aliens

1968 A FEAST UNKNOWN
Lord Grandrith and Doc Caliban battle the Nine.

1969 IMAGE OF THE BEAST & BLOWN
Private investigator Herald Childe makes some amazing discoveries.

1970 LORD TYGER
An insane millionaire attempts to reinvent Tarzan, with bad results.

1970 LORD OF THE TREES & THE MAD GOBLIN
Grandrith and Caliban continue their battle against the Nine.

1972 Skinburn

The only recorded case of Kent Lane

1972 STATIONS OF THE NIGHTMARE
Paul Eyre encounters a UFO and experiences a remarkable transformation. Leo Queequeeg Tincrowder, a WNU family member, is a supporting character.

1973  TRAITOR TO THE LIVING
Herald Childe has changed his name to Gordon Carfax, mild mannered history professor, but he still cannot escape from strangeness.

1974 GREATHEART SILVER
The adventures of the worlds unluckiest Zeppelin commander

1975 A Scarletin Study

1976 The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse than his Bite

Ralph von Wau Wau solves a crime

1985 - Ulysses Singing Bear is stoned.

1988 RED ORC'S RAGE
A young man undergoes therapy with the World of Tiers as the basis.

1997 NOTHING BURNS IN HELL
The first recorded case of Thomas Gresham Corbie

2030 JESUS ON MARS
Man lands on Mars and makes a discovery that shakes Earth's religious beliefs.

2040 THE RIDER OF THE PURPLE WAGE
The Earth has become stagnant, but Grandpa Winnegan, a decendant of Kickaha, keeps the faith.

2070 Tarzan goes back to 14,000 BP

2140 Tarzan goes to a new star system for some elbow room

2200 THE GREEN ODYSSEY
Alan Green is shipwrecked on an alien planet with humanoid lifeforms. FTL Travel and a Terran world government.

2300 NIGHT OF LIGHT
This book and the rest of the Father John Carmody stories take place in this century.  References to Sherlock Holmes.

2350 THE UNREASONING MASK
A Muslim space officer has a religious experience in roughly the same mileau as the John Carmody stories.
 

2600 (?) VENUS ON A HALFSHELL
The Earth is destroyed by a flood caused by aliens.  The rest of humanity decides not to recolonize the Earth and lets it function as a sort of a wilderness refuse.

2750 CACHE FROM OUTER SPACE
 A young man from a primitive tribe goes on an initiation quest.

2750 FLESH
A spaceship from the past return to Earth and meets an odd society.

20,000 A.D. THE WIND WHALES OF ISHMAEL
Ishmael is taken into the future and discovers that the seas have dried up, but sailing still happens.

10,000,000 A.D. THE STONE GOD AWAKENS
Ulysses Singing Bear is revived to find that humanity has become extinct (in his corner of the Earth) and that intelligent speicies descended from other animals have taken their place.

20,000,000,000 AD DARK IS THE SUN
The last inhabitants of Earth face the prospect of the death of the sun.

Unknown date: THE RIVERWORLD SERIES
A group of renegade Thoans revive all the inhabitants of the WNU who died before 1983
 

Notes
1.  A Feast Unknown: For the purposes of this timeline, I am consdering it to be an open question as to whether Caliban and Grandrith ARE Doc Savage and Tarzan, or merely clever imitations, but I DO maintain that they are in the WNU.

2. Greatheart Silver: Likewise, the truth or falsehood of "Showdown at Shootout" is an open question.  I prefer to think of the entire story as disinformation planted by Kent Allard but there are other interpretations.  However, I do maintain that the rest of the Silver stories did happen in the WNU.

3. I am assuming that Ishmael returned from the future in time to appear in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

4. I have taken the liberty of changing the dates in Farmers future fiction in order to suit the general sweep of future history.  I must assume that Farmer changed the dates in a number of isntances for security purposes.

5. I have had to rule out, reluctantly, THE LOVERS and several other stories in that series, since I cannot reconcile them with the same future history of John Carmody.  I am still trying to find a way to include DAYWORLD.

6. The Volcano and The Problem of the Sore Bridge are stories written by PJF under the names of Paul Chapin and Harry Manders, two ‚fictional authors‘ who are WNU characters.

7. It is currently uncertain whether THE RIVER OF ENTERNITY was an early draft of the Riverworld series, with Farmer working from incomplete information, or if it was an earlier, unsuccessful experiment by the Thoans or the Preservers.

Thanks to Win Eckert and Dennis Power who were immense help with many of the dates for Farmers work.  Power’s essay "Ozdessey" provides such of the conceptual background for incorporating RIVERWORLD and BARNSTORMER OF OZ. Mark Brown has also played an important part in this essay.

Any errors, of course, are my own.
 

  Ó 2000 Art Bollman
 
 



Return to the Table of Contents