I don’t know how this very sad news has stayed off my radar screen for the past few weeks. Earlier tonight I had read that the Sci-Fi Channel (or Syfy, whatever it’s supposed to be now) is making another attempt to adapt the Riverworld saga for television. Well, as these things happen, one thing led to another and…

Philip José Farmer was the very first “hard science fiction” writer that I ever read. It was a 1990 interview he did with Starlog that piqued my curiosity about him. Wasn’t long afterward that I went out looking for a copy of To Your Scattered Bodies Go, the first Riverworld novel. It remains one of the most original books that I’ve ever read. Let’s face it: you gotta respect a man who writes a novel starring every single person who ever lived. Then my already-demented young brain came across his Venus ...