Introduction to
RIDERS OF THE PURPLE WAGE:

Philip José Farmer is one of the few truly good people I have ever met. He is a kind man, with the intonations of that word that connote strength and judiciousness and humanity. He is also indestructible. He has been stomped by masters and somehow managed to come away from the imbroglios undefeated. He has been cheated by schlock publishers, criminally mismanaged by inept agents, shamefully ignored by sententious critics, assaulted by the Furies of Chance and Bad Luck, and still, still managed to produce fifteen books of such singular eminence that he is considered a "writer's writer" in a field where jealousy and the snide kris in the ribs is s.o.p.

Phil Farmer is in his late forties, a soft-spoken man whose wealth of information on everything from archaeology to the nocturnal habits of Sir Richard Burton (not the actor) is formidable. He is a walker of streets, a drinker of coffee, a smoker of cigarettes, a lover of grandchildren. But most of all, he is a writer of stories. Stories like "The Lovers" that burst on the science fiction field in a 1952 issue of Startling Stories like an explosion in a fresh-air factory. Until Phil Farmer took a long look at the subject, sex was something confined to Bergey covers involving heavily thighed young ladies in brass brassieres. He has examined every facet of abnormal psychology—it seems—in an adult and extrapolative manner most editors would have denied was possible, in 1951. Anyone who cares to deprecate this achievement, in a field where Kimball Kinnison's lack of genitalia never seemed to bother editors or aficionados, need only consider that, until Farmer and the vigor of his work, the closest thing the genre had to psychological explorations were the stories of Dr. David H. Keller, which fall somewhat short of the levels attained by, say, Dostoevsky or Kafka.

An editor should never show favoritism. Yet I am compelled by my awe of the story you are about to read, by my incredulity at the pyrotechnic writing, by my jealousy at the richness of thought and excellence of structure, to say simply that this is not merely the longest story in the book—something over 30,000 words—it is easily the best. No, make that the finest. It is a jewel of such brilliance that re-examination and rereading will reveal facet after facet, ramification after ramification, joy after delight that were only partially glimpsed first time around. The explanation of the bases of this story is fully detailed in Phil Farmer's excellent Afterword, and to attempt an original and pithy comment about what he is saying here would be ludicrous. The man speaks for himself more than well enough. I should like to take a moment, however, to address myself to three elements of Farmer's work that I think need explication.

The first is his courage. In the face of rejections from editors who are not fit to carry his pencil case, he has persisted in writing stories that demanded considerable cerebration and the knocking down of previous ways of thinking. Though his work has been met with the blank stares of readers accustomed to soft pink and white bunny rabbit stories, he has doggedly gone after one dangerous vision after another. Knowing he could make a substantial living writing pap, knowing the deeper and more unnerving topics would be met by animosity and stupidity, he still held firm to his styles, his concepts, his muse, if you will.

Second is his inability to let go of an idea. The smallest scintilla of a concept leads him outward and ever outward to extrapolations and consequences lesser writers would milk for a tetralogy. He is in the great tradition of all original thinkers. There is no mystery too complex for Farmer to unravel. No line of thought too bizarre for him to attempt a re-evaluation with the tools of logic. No story too big for him to write, no character too obscure for him to incorporate, no universe too distant for him to explore. Tragically, while Farmer writes immense orbits around lesser talents who endlessly examine the nits in their bearded reputations, the field on which he has chosen to shower his gifts largely ignores him.

Third is his style. Which is never the same twice. Which grows geometrically with each new story. Which demands of the reader a kind of intellectual mastication reserved for the best in literature. His work is steak, to be chewed thoroughly and digested; not tapioca pudding that can be gummed without effort.

I have gone on, I realize, at somewhat greater length than I had intended. The reader may chalk this up to the editor's enthusiasm for the story that follows. It was submitted upon commission, of course, as were all the pieces herein presented. But when it was completed, at 15,000 words, Farmer came to the editor and asked if he might rewrite it, expand it, without payment, for the ideas in it needed room to breathe. Farmer was paid, naturally, and the rewrite was done. But he was not paid nearly enough. Quote an estimate on originality and verve and an unflinching look at tomorrow. Further residuals are due Phil Farmer in the form of comment by the readers. Not to mention a Hugo or six, which would look remarkably as though they had been cast specifically to sit on the mantel of his Beverly Hills apartment. A word to the wise.