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COVER
TEXT:
The
Other in the Mirror brings together three classic novels
by Philip José Farmer: Fire
and the Night, Jesus
on Mars, and Night
of Light. All three are united by one of SF’s
central tropes, that of The Other.
Fire and the
Night
is a mainstream novel so rare that even many of Farmer’s most
dedicated fans have never read it. First published in 1962, it is also
one of the author’s most daring works, exploring the issue of
racial Otherness in a mesmerizing tale of temptation and entrapment in
a small industrial Midwestern town.
In Jesus on Mars,
Richard Orme and the crew of the Barsoom
embark on the first manned mission to the Red Planet, intent on
investigating what seemed to be evidence of life beamed back to Earth
by a robotic survey satellite. But Orme discovers in the hollowed-out
Martian caverns what he and the scientists back home least expect: a
group of aliens, as well as humans transplanted from first century A.D.
Earth, led by a being who claims to be Jesus of Nazareth Himself. Soon
Orme and his crew are shocked to find that The Other they face is made
all that more alien because of its similarity to humanity’s
past.
Night of
Light is
not only one of Farmer’s most psychologically gripping SF
tales,
it is also the novel which inspired Jimi Hendrix’s
psychedelic
rock classic “Purple Haze.” John Carmody is a
fugitive from
Earth, condemned to exile for brutally murdering his wife. Hired by the
galactic Church on a mission to squelch a burgeoning rival religion,
Carmody must take the Chance on the planet Dante’s Joy and
risk
his worst nightmares becoming reality. But that’s not the
worst
of it: the Fathers of Algul and the Fathers of Yess have their own
plans for the conscienceless Carmody—for to the inhabitants
of
Dante’s Joy, Carmody himself is The Other...and they need his
alien flesh to give birth to God.
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 "Bob Eggleton")
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