Secrets Of The Nine - A Feast Unknown!

It's a bit hard to describe A Feast Unknown to those readers who might be already inclined to read it. Those readers would be fans of either Tarzan of the Apes or Doc Savage or both. But this novel is not really about them while at the same time it is. (I told you this was complicated.) Philip Jose Farmer had a vivid imagination fueled by his adoration for pulp adventures and the heroes who dominated them. He has written about Tazan many times and put forth the theory that Tarzan was in fact a real live person. (As he says about his theory, he's serious but not "deadly serious".) Likewise for Doc Savage, though neither man is exactly like their "biographers' have described them. The fictional characters are based on these real men so to speak. This is all part of Farmer's elaborate Wold-Newton Family Theory which creates an immense family tree with all sorts of familiar literary names included. But the universe of A Feast Unknown actually precedes all of that.

 

In the universe of A Feast Unknown written and set in 1968 or thereabouts we meet John  Cloamby, Lord Grandrith who despite looking to be in his twenties is actually nearly ninety years old. He has taken an elixir provided by "The Nine" an impossibly ancient cult which guards its secrets with deadly force and uses its influence and wealth to secretly affect world affairs. In this story which is presented as merely one volume in the chronicles of Lord Grandrith we meet him when he comes under attack from Kenyan military forces. Grandrith will spend much of this adventure naked and discovers to his dismay that killing causes him to become sexual aroused. This proves to be a side effect of the elixir which as made him nearly immortal. Another person who has taken the drug is Doc Caliban who as this narrative beings believes that Grandrith has killed his cousin Trish Wilde. Caliban (also suffering the sexual problem) spends much of the novel trying to kill Grandrith. At some point they are both summoned to the lair of the Nine to find out they are candidates to join the Nine, but only one can it is determined the one who kills the other will get the nod. And that's it, but not really. 

Before reading A Feast Unkown you must realize it was originally published by Essex House, famous for its pornographic productions. And on some level A Feast Unknown is pornography with much space devoted to describing sexual acts between men and women and other alternatives as well. It's blunt and all of it functions within the boundaries of the plot, which at its heart is a rousing pulp adventure. Farmer writes in a style which encourages momentum, and it's actually difficult to stop reading A Feast Unknown once you commit to it. I guarantee you will see Tarzan of the Apes and Doc Savage in a new light after you've finished. But that was Farmer's point really I think. 

There were two conjoined sequels to A Feast Unknown -- Lord of the Trees and The Mad Goblin. These were issued as an ACE Double paperback originally and while they pick up the action of A Feast Unknown are not pornographic in any way, though this is definitely the same universe. There was a fourth novel titled The Monster on Hold, projected by Farmer which remained a fragment at his death but which has now been finished by Win Scott Eckert. I'll be taking a gander all three of these novels as this week rolls along. 

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