"Philip Jose Farmer - The Book of Philip Jose Farmer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Farmer Phillip Jose)

Thus, the stories and extracts herein are samples of the spectrum, not the
complete spectrum.




My Sister's Brother
 Of all my shorter fiction, this is, after my "Riders of the Purple Wage," my favorite. A curious
story, it has a curious history. It first went to John Campbell, then editor of Astounding (now Analog).
He rejected it with the message that it made him nauseated, not because it was a bad story but because
of its vivid biological details and its premises. He believed that the readers of Astounding would react
as he did. I wasn't surprised; this wasn't the first story of mine that had sickened John.
Sadly, because I liked Astounding word rates, I mailed it out to a lesser-paying market. I
bypassed Horace Gold, editor of Galaxy, an equally good payer, because Horace's editorial stomach
was, I knew from experience, no stronger than John's. John was supposed to be a flaming reactionary,
and Horace was supposed to be a flaming liberal. Actually, both were individuals, proteans who would
wriggle out of the grasp of anyone who tried to hold them down while pinning a label on them. In this
case, the compelling reason for rejection was their fear of their readers' reactions.
Bob Mills, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, also bounced it. He liked
it but thought it too strong for his readers. However, Leo Margulies was planning a new science fiction
magazine, Satellite, and, hearing of "My Sister's Brother," then titled "Open to Me, My Sister," asked
Bob if he could read it. He purchased it, and the story, retitled "The Strange Birth," was set up in galley
sheets and illustrated for the first issue. But Leo's plans collapsed; Satellite though, was canceled.
Bob Mills, meanwhile, had changed his mind. He would take a chance on it. He paid the
difference between Leo's check to me and his and published it with my original title. Most of the
readers were less queasy than any of the editors would have expected. This was in 1960, when the
gears of the Zeitgeist were shifting into overdrive. The makeup of the general readership had changed
somewhat; there were many more flexible-minded people than in the 1950's.
I'll note that the reactions of the editors who rejected this story, or, in the case of Gold, would
have, are similar to the reactions of the protagonist to the strange society of Mars and the even stranger
visitor to Mars, "Martia." This story is a hardcore science fiction tale, but it is also about an Earthman's
hangups, extraterrestrial ecosystems, sexobiological structures, and religion.
Also, when the story was written, Hawaii was not yet the fiftieth state. But it seemed likely.
Also, the reproductive-phallic system of Martia's people is an original concept, just as
Jeannette Rastignac's was in The Lovers. At the time I wrote the two stories, I was in my
sexobiological phase. Which may come again, no pun intended.
Come to think of it, the phase did descend upon me again briefly in the 60's when I wrote the
novels Image of the Beast and Blown.

The sixth night on Mars, Lane wept.
He sobbed loudly while tears ran down his cheeks. He smacked his right fist
into the palm of his left hand until the flesh burned. He howled with loneliness. He
swore the most obscene and blasphemous oaths he knew.
After a while, he quit weeping. He dried his eyes, downed a shot of Scotch,
and felt much better.
He wasn't ashamed because he had bawled like a woman. After all, there had
been a Man who had not been ashamed to weep. He could dissolve in tears the
grinding stones within; he was the reed that bent before the wind, not the oak that
toppled, roots and all.
Now, the weight and the ache in his breast gone, feeling almost cheerful, he