The Monster on Hold by Philip José Farmer and Win Scott Eckert

(Meteor House, 2021)

Reviewed by Dev Agarwal

The Monster on Hold grabs the reader up and hurls them bodily through a wild genre ride. Included are Philip José Farmer’s series works, the wider world of pulp fiction, Win Scott Eckert’s mission to carry on Farmer’s legacy, and the ecosystem of a novel that exuberantly melds and mixes its references.

The novel continues the adventures around Farmer’s covert society, the Nine. A warning, therefore, would be that The Monster on Hold is not the right starting point. The series began with A Feast Unknown, in 1969. Farmer (1918-2009), like many other writers, had a number of preoccupations that he returned to regularly. However, readers should bear in mind that Feast is the most extreme of this series. It explores what Theodore Sturgeon described as “ultimate sex combined with ultimate violence is ultimate absurdity.”

Continue reading…

Review from BSFA Review 16 - Download your copy here.