The Lord of the Rings Project

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Internets: making lives and books with nearly incomprehensible family trees easier

http://www.lotrproject.com/

There is a book around by Philip Jose Farmer, which gives the family tree of a whole bunch of heroes,such as Doc Savage, The Shadow, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes,etc,etc: they are all related.

Far more interesting than watching nerds masturbate in public..

Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life is a fictional biography by Philip José Farmer about pulp fiction hero Doc Savage.
The book is written with the assumption that Doc Savage was a real person. Kenneth Robeson, the author of the Doc Savage novels, is portrayed as writing fictionalized memoirs of the real Savage's life. Farmer examines the psychological make up of Doc and his associates, based on close readings of the 181 novels. In an appendix, "The Fabulous Family Tree of Doc Savage", Farmer links Savage to dozens of other fictional characters as a member of the Wold Newton family.
The tone of the book, while occasionally tongue in cheek, is one of great fondness for the characters, and can be enjoyed by both the Doc Savage fan and the non-enthusiast.

The Wold Newton family is a literary concept derived from a form of crossover fiction developed by the science fiction writer Philip José Farmer. Farmer suggested in two "biographies" of fictional characters (Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life), that the (real) meteorite which fell in Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, on December 13, 1795, was radioactive and caused genetic mutations in the occupants of a passing coach. Many of their descendants were thus endowed with extremely high intelligence and strength, as well as an exceptional capacity and drive to perform good, or, as the case may be, evil deeds. The progeny of these travellers were purported to have been the real-life originals of fictionalised characters, both heroic and villainous, over the last few hundred years, such as Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan, Doc Savage, and Lord Peter Wimsey.
Other popular characters included by Farmer as members of the Wold Newton family are: Solomon Kane; Captain Blood; The Scarlet Pimpernel; Sherlock Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty; Phileas Fogg; The Time Traveller (main character of The Time Machine by H. G. Wells); Allan Quatermain; A.J. Raffles; Professor Challenger; Richard Hannay; Bulldog Drummond; the evil Fu Manchu and his adversary, Sir Denis Nayland Smith; G-8; The Shadow; Sam Spade; Doc Savage's cousin Patricia Savage, and one of his five assistants, Monk Mayfair; The Spider; Nero Wolfe; Mr. Moto; The Avenger; Philip Marlowe; James Bond; Lew Archer; Travis McGee; Monsieur Lecoq; and Arsène Lupin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wold_Newton_family


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His book on the REAL story of Tarzan,"Tarzan Alive" is great..

Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke (1972) is a fictional biography by Philip José Farmer. It presents the life story of Edgar Rice Burroughs' literary hero Tarzan as if he were a real person.
The book is written on the premise that Tarzan was an actual person with original author Burroughs having written highly fictionalized memoirs for him. Farmer is then telling the "real story". Farmer examines the psychological make up of John Clayton (Tarzan's real name in the novels) and his peers, based on close readings of the various Burroughs books, accepting some of Burroughs' concepts and rejecting others in an attempt at greater verisimilitude. Among his conceits is that, since the apes described by Burroughs had a spoken language that Tarzan learned, these animals must have been "pithecanthropoids": "a group of rare hominids who are probably now extinct" and "not great apes".
The most recent edition of Tarzan Alive includes an afterword by Win Scott Eckert and an introduction by Mike Resnick.
The text of Tarzan Alive links the characters from the Tarzan mythos to dozens of other fictional literary characters as members of Farmer's "Wold Newton family".