Subject: The Image of the Beast by Philip Jose Farmer

From: [email-masked] (Michael Lichter)
Date: 16 Jun 1994 00:20:21 GMT

The Image of the Beast 
by Philip Jose Farmer
Rhinoceros Books, 1994 [original 1968]

Reviewed by Michael Lichter

This is an *old* book, but I'm a sucker for stories that feature Los
Angeles, my home sweet home.  

Private investigator Matthew Colbin and the rich man he's been tailing
both disappear.  The LAPD receives a film in the mail showing a series
of bizarre sexual encounters between a bound Colbin and a disguised
woman.  These encounters climax (sorry) in Colbin's penis being bitten
off by a woman wearing sharp steel dentures while a man dressed as a
caricature of a vampire stands by and laughs.

Enter Herald Childe, Colbin's P.I. partner, who's going to have to
solve this one himself.  The obstacles?  First, no real clues.  Second,
a thick green choking smog has settled on the city, fouling
transportation and demanding all the LAPD's attention.  Third, ... well
the list gets bigger as the story clunks along, and as Childe begins to
suspect that the man in the vampire get-up may not be an imposter after
all.

Part hard-boiled detective story, part horror story, and part porno
novel (although I found the book in the Evil Bookstar's SF section, it
comes from an Adult Fiction publisher and is listed as such on the
spine), the book is an intermittently entertaining mish-mash.  

[Editor's note: A British paperback edition from Panther Books, an
imprint of non-"adult" Granada Publishing, was published in 1985.]

Although the sleuthing around and the Creatures of the Night were
probably intended mainly as a cover and setup for the shocking (for
1968) sex scenes, Farmer has handled those elements competently.  On
the other hand, SF readers are likely to find the "erotic" aspects of
the book either offensive or silly.

On the topic of "silly", Farmer packs in more than one novel's share.
Several characters remark that Herald Childe looks like Lord Byron
(remember that Byron wrote about Childe Harold?)  The film sent to the
LAPD is literally the image of the beast who committed the crime --
thus the title is a pun.  I could go on, but will spare you.

The one interesting idea in the book has to do with man-beast
changelings, such as werewolfs and vampires (man-bat).  What if, Farmer
asks, such beings really come, perhaps accidentally, from other
universes where their forms exist along different dimensions than
normally exist in this universe?  Initially their appearance here is
indeterminate, but as they interact with humans, the limits of human
cognition not only determine how they are seen by humans but also
shapes their existence in this universe.  Something like that.

In the end, though, unless you're a collector of L.A. novels or are
looking for weird sex, this book is mainly of historical interest.  Be
forewarned.

%A Farmer, Philip Jose
%T The Image of the Beast
%I Rhinoceros Books
%C New York
%D February 1994 [original 1968]
%G ISBN 1-56333-166-7
%P 277 pp
%O paperback, US$6.95