The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

1973 novel by Philip José Farmer
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0-8125-2468-3OCLC221324590Preceded byTime's Last Gift Followed byTraitor to the Living 

The Other Log of Phileas Fogg is a science fiction novel written by American author Philip José Farmer in 1973. Reviving the Phileas Fogg character created by Jules Verne, the novel has also been classified as steampunk and a parallel novel. It was originally published by DAW Books and later reprinted in 1979 by Hamlyn and again in 1982 by Tor Books. Tor has subsequently reissued the novel in 1988 and 1993.

Plot introduction

The story takes place within the internal reality first imagined in the 1872 Jules Verne novel, Around the World in Eighty Days. Farmer includes many of the story's original characters, including Phileas Fogg and his French valet, Passepartout. He establishes that all of Verne's published works take place within the same shared continuity. He includes elements of crossover fiction, incorporating the Arthur Conan Doyle characters of Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty into his setting. These elements place Phileas Fogg and his entire supporting cast into the Wold Newton family of literary characters.

In an introduction, Farmer posits that Verne's story was not simply an article of fiction, but the chronology of actual events, which Verne later decided to adapt into a fictional setting. In the book's epilogue, Farmer playfully alludes to the notion that Phileas Fogg is still alive, and may in fact be the actual author of the story (Farmer notes that they both share the same initials, suggesting that Philip Farmer is actually an alias for Phileas Fogg).

From Farmer's perspective, Jules Verne revealed only a small and significantly subdued portion of the actual background and exploits of Phileas Fogg. He establishes that the events surrounding Around the World in Eighty Days is actually a singular aspect of a greater conflict taking place between two immortal alien races, the Eridani and the Capellas. Farmer's story does not challenge any of the elements of the original text, but rather it adds an ambitious secondary tale taking place behind (and often in between) the scenes of Verne's material.

Plot summary

Phileas Fogg is a mysterious British gentleman who lives with his valet Passepartout at No. 7 Saville Row in Burlington Gardens during the latter half of the 19th century. Unbeknownst to his peers, he is also the immortal foster child of a race of humanoid aliens known as the Eridani. A man of great intellect and affluence, Fogg enters into a wager with a fellow Eridanian citing that he can circumnavigate the globe in exactly eighty days. Although witnesses feel that his claim is little more than the boasting of a rich eccentric, Fogg is in fact undertaking a secret mission on behalf of his Eridanian colleagues.

Along with Passepartout, Fogg begins a quest to find a piece of stolen alien technology – a teleportation device that had recently fallen into the hands of the Eridani rivals, an alien race known as the Capellas. His journey brings him face to face with the infamous sea scourge Captain Nemo, a Capellan agent who is also known in British circles by his nom de guerre – James Moriarty. The two combatants match wits with one another at several key locations, including the mysterious ghost ship known as the Mary Celeste.

The journey climaxes with a final battle at Fogg's home in London, mere moments before meeting the deadline required to win his world-spanning wager.

See also

Notes

The novel concludes with a twenty-one page addendum written by H.W. Starr entitled "A Submersible Subterfuge or Proof Impositive". It originally appeared in Leaves from the Copper Beeches and published for the Sons of the Copper Beeches Scion Society of the Baker Street Irregulars; Livingston Publishing Company, Narberth, 1959.

Starr exhaustively details the irreconcilable inconsistencies that take place within Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and its companion novel, The Mysterious Island (which likewise features the character of Captain Nemo). He further contrasts the life and personality of Nemo, as originally presented by Verne, with that of James Moriarty – nemesis of Sherlock Holmes. Information contained within the addendum actually challenges Farmer's merging of both characters, citing specific comparisons of age, personality and lineage.

References

  • v
  • t
  • e
Characters
Films
Television
Video games
  • Nagagutsu o Haita Neko: Sekai Isshū 80 Nichi Dai Bōken (1986)
  • Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
  • 80 Days (2005)
  • 80 Days (2014)
Other
  • v
  • t
  • e
Novels
series
Other
novels
Story
collections
  • Strange Relations (1960)
  • The Alley God (1962)
  • The Celestial Blueprint: And Other Stories (1962)
  • Down in the Black Gang (1971)
  • The Book of Philip José Farmer, or the Wares of Simple Simon’s Custard Pie and Space Man (1973)
  • Riverworld and Other Stories (1979)
  • Riverworld War: The Suppressed Fiction of Philip José Farmer (1980)
  • The Cache (1981)
  • Father to the Stars (1981)
  • Stations of the Nightmare (1982)
  • The Purple Book (1982)
  • The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1952-1964 (1984)
  • The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1964-1973 (1984)
  • The Grand Adventure (1984)
  • Riders of the Purple Wage (1992)
  • Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe (2005)
  • The Best of Philip José Farmer (2006)
  • Strange Relations (2006)
  • Pearls from Peoria (2006)
  • Up from the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories (2007)
  • Venus on the Half-Shell and Others (2008)
  • The Other in the Mirror (2009)
  • The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer: Protean Dimensions (2010)
  • Up the Bright River (2010)
  • The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2: Of Dust and Soul (2011)
  • The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster (2012)
  • Tales of the World Newton Universe (2013)
Stories
  • "O'Brien and Obrenov" (1946)
  • "Duo Miaule" (anii 1950)
  • The Lovers (1952)
  • "Sail On! Sail On!" (1952)
  • "The Biological Revolt" (1953)
  • "Mother" (1953)
  • "Moth and Rust" (1953)
  • "Attitudes" (1953)
  • "Strange Compulsion" (1953)
  • "They Twinkled Like Jewels" (1954)
  • "Daughter" (1954)
  • "Queen of the Deep" (1954)
  • "The God Business" (1954)
  • "Rastignac the Devil" (1954)
  • "The Celestial Blueprint" (1954)
  • "The Wounded" (1954)
  • "Totem and Taboo" (1954)
  • "Father" (1955)
  • "The Night of Light" (1957)
  • "The Alley Man" (1959)
  • "Heel" (1960)
  • "My Sister's Brother" (1960)
  • "A Few Miles" (1960)
  • "Prometheus" (1961)
  • "Tongues of the Moon" (1961)
  • "Uproar in Acheron" (1962)
  • "How Deep the Grooves" (1963)
  • "Some Fabulous Yonder" (1963)
  • "The Blasphemers" (1964)
  • "The King of the Beasts" (1964)
  • "Day of the Great Shout" (1965)
  • "Riverworld" (1966)
  • "The Suicide Express" (1966)
  • "The Blind Rowers" (1967)
  • "A Bowl Bigger than Earth" (1967)
  • "The Felled Star" (1967)
  • "The Shadow of Space" (1967)
  • "Riders of the Purple Wage” (1967)
  • "Don't Wash the Carats" (1968)
  • "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod" (1968)
  • "Down in the Black Gang" (1969)
  • "The Oogenesis of Bird City" (1970)
  • "The Voice of the Sonar in my Vermiform Appendix" (1971)
  • "Brass and Gold" (1971)
  • "The Fabulous Riverboat" (1971)
  • "Only Who Can Make a Tree?" (1971)
  • "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World” (1971)
  • "Seventy Years of Decpop" (1972)
  • "Skinburn" (1972)
  • "The Sumerian Oath" (1972)
  • "Father's in the Basement" (1972)
  • "Toward the Beloved City" (1972)
  • "Mother Earth Wants You" (1972)
  • "Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind" (1973)
  • "Monolog" (1973)
  • "After King Kong Fell" (1973)
  • "Opening the Door" (1973)
  • "The Two-Edged Gift" (1974)
  • "The Startouched" (1974)
  • "The Evolution of Paul Eyre" (1974)
  • "Passing On" (1975)
  • "A Scarletin Study, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1975)
  • "The Problem of the Sore Bridge - Among Others, as Harry Manders" (1975)
  • "Greatheart Silver" (1975)
  • "The Return of Greatheart Silver" (1975)
  • "Osiris on Crutches, as Leo Queequeg Tincrowder" (1976)
  • "The Volcano, as Paul Chapin" (1976)
  • "The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1976)
  • "Fundamental Issue" (1976)
  • "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" (1977)
  • "Greatheart Silver in the First Command" (1977)
  • "Savage Shadow as Maxwell Grant" (1977)
  • "The Impotency of Bad Karma as Cordwainer Bird" (1977)
  • "It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal, as Rod Keen" (1978)
  • "Freshman" (1979)
  • "The Leaser of Two Evils" (1979)
  • "J.C. on the Dude Ranch" (1979)
  • "Spiders of the Purple Mage" (1980)
  • "The Making of Revelation, Part I" (1980)
  • "The Long Wet Dream of Rip Van Winkle" (1981)
  • "The Adventure of the Three Madmen" (1984)
  • "UFO vs IRS" (1985)
  • "St. Francis Kisses His Ass Goodbye" (1989)
  • "One Down, One to Go" (1990)
  • "Evil, Be My Good" (1990)
  • "Nobody's Perfect" (1991)
  • "Wolf, Iron and Moth" (1991)
  • "Crossing the Dark River" (1992)
  • "A Hole in Hell" (1992)
  • "Up the Bright River" (1993)
  • "Coda" (1993)
  • "The Good of the Land" (2002)
  • "The Face that Launched a Thousand Eggs" (2005)
  • "The Unnaturals" (2005)
  • "Who Stole Stonehenge?" (2005)
  • "That Great Spanish Author, Ernesto" (2006)
  • "The Essence of the Poison" (2006)
  • "The Doll Game" (2006)
  • "Keep Your Mouth Shut" (2006)
  • "The Frames" (2007)
  • "A Spy in the U.S. of Gonococcia" (2007)
  • "A Peoria Night" (2007)
  • "The First Robot" (2008)
  • "Getting Ready to Write" (2008)
  • "My Summer Husband" (2010)
  • "What I Thought I Heard" (2011)
  • "Kwasin and the Bear God" (2011)