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Image of the Beast #1-2
Image of the Beast / Blown
Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso
336 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published January 1, 1979
6 people are currently reading
180 people want to read
About the author
Philip José Farmer
620 books882 followersPhilip José Farmer was an American author, principally known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. He was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, but spent much of his life in Peoria, Illinois.
Farmer is best known for his Riverworld series and the earlier World of Tiers series. He is noted for his use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for and reworking of the lore of legendary pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters.
Farmer is best known for his Riverworld series and the earlier World of Tiers series. He is noted for his use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for and reworking of the lore of legendary pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
November 24, 2015
Imagine Dracula, if Jonathan Harker ran around the castle naked, killing monsters while randomly ejaculating due to something Dracula had shoved in his ass. So, basically Masturvania.
That’s the synopsis for the first part of Image of the Beast, which collects two novels of bizarre erotic horror. I’ve done more Goodreads updates and quotes for this book than any other because I cannot believe what I’m reading.
I mean, I’ve read Philip José Farmer before. Yes, he wrote a book series that justifies every human in history getting naked at once, but that seemed like a plot necessity. Reading this, two possibilities suggest themselves. Maybe Farmer had some weird issues to work out, the kind that the Internet was invented for. Alternately, he was giggling as he leaned over his typewriter, wondering exactly what craziness he could get Playboy Press to pay him by the word for.
The plot begins (and stays, for as long as it bothers to remember) on Harold Childe, a private eye whose partner’s been killed. The murder involved a the poor schmuck being strapped down and orally pleasured by woman with something visible hiding inside her vagina. As a Dracula look alike enters the scene and laughs, the woman puts in a pair of razor-sharp dentures and…
Let’s be clear. This is what you’re in for, people. It doesn’t get any saner.
Childe hits the beat, eventually suspecting a reclusive Baron who lives in a secluded mansion in the Hollywood hills. He infiltrates said mansion, and the naked horror show begins.
All through the book, I get the feeling that Farmer is playing with our emotions, trying to see how we’ll react to the increasing absurdity. I imagine his though process being something like:
“Here’s a sexy woman! How’d you like that? Okay, now she’s having sex with a talking goat! Still turned on? No? Bam, the goat has a woman’s head now. You into it yet?”
I made up that example, of course. The real stuff is weirder.
Moving on, let’s discuss (and I feel weird even typing these words) the female love interest. I should put that in so many quotes, a copy of The Elements of Style spontaneously combusts somewhere.
Dolores the Ghost Girl is our main character’s masturbatory aid. She’s a ghost with incomprehensible motives. Everyone except our protagonist is terrified of her for reasons we never learn. She doesn’t speak English, so even though our hero has lots of sex with her in order to help her materialize, we never get an idea of her personality. She is harshly fridged and disposed of in a scene so shocking I started laughing.
I’ve heard of the Sexy Lamp principle, but Dolores is much more representative of a webcomic I’ve recently read with a fascinating observation. That comic opined that most Bond Girls could be replaced with a fleshlight that had a post-it note with exposition attached. Thus, Dolores is a spooky fleshlight that wanders the mansion.
Let’s address this head-on. Along the way, there’s undoubtedly some type of sexual politics that will make most readers uncomfortable. I don’t mean women having a three-way where one of the participants is her own vagina snake, in a world with decades of Internet and anime, that’s almost passé. Specifically, things get a little misogynist and rapey at times, especially in most scenes dealing with our hero's ex-wife. I honestly can’t tell if that’s Farmer deliberately trying to shock us, an artifact of the times, or just the result of the complete unreality of the book. It’s there, and make no mistake: Image of the Beast is the nuclear football of trigger warnings.
That’s the first novel, which offers a chapter of backstory while throwing weird-ass sex horror after sex horror at you again and again. It's an effective weird tale. The second novel decides to be a pulp science fiction story and completely overwrites the world-building in book one, yet no character blinks an eye.
Then again, the world-building does come from a vampire who films people getting their junk bitten off with razor dentures and mails copies to the LAPD for the lulz. He just might be considered unreliable.
So, what are you getting with this book?
You are getting this man…
…beloved science fiction fan and Famous Monsters of Filmland creator Forrest J (no period, as the book reminds us) Ackerman, as a pulp action hero that’d fit in a Heinlein novel. Farmer gives a moving and tribute to Forry so touching that I was nearly tearing up just after reading a chapter with a vagina on legs, John Carpenter style.
Then, when his Bram Stoker original painting of Dracula disappears, Forrest J Ackerman throws himself head first into car chases and vampiric mind control because He Has Had Enough of This Shit. He came to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and he has to get home in time to mail off next month’s issue of Vampirella.
You are getting a naked fight scene that climaxes where one character slips and knocks themselves out on the other character’s panic shit.
You are getting a woman who can collapse into a group of semi-sentient organs and body parts on legs. Later, people will have sex with at least two of those parts, possibly more.
You are getting the word “spermatic” written more times than you’ve ever seen it before.
You are getting porn Dracula that somehow turns into Porn First Lensman.
Bravo, Philip Jose Farmer. You got paid for this and a sequel. This must’ve been balls-out fun to write, and I can’t imagine what old Forry’s reaction is.
Let’s be clear. This book is meant to be absorbed as cheerfully berserk shock after shock. Hey, it was apparently good enough for Theodore Sturgeon to write an introduction.
So, how should you best decide whether you want to spend irretrievable moments of your life reading this book? Scroll down. Look at my progress updates. If that's the kind of experience you want, go for it. I can think of none other like it.
That’s the synopsis for the first part of Image of the Beast, which collects two novels of bizarre erotic horror. I’ve done more Goodreads updates and quotes for this book than any other because I cannot believe what I’m reading.
I mean, I’ve read Philip José Farmer before. Yes, he wrote a book series that justifies every human in history getting naked at once, but that seemed like a plot necessity. Reading this, two possibilities suggest themselves. Maybe Farmer had some weird issues to work out, the kind that the Internet was invented for. Alternately, he was giggling as he leaned over his typewriter, wondering exactly what craziness he could get Playboy Press to pay him by the word for.
The plot begins (and stays, for as long as it bothers to remember) on Harold Childe, a private eye whose partner’s been killed. The murder involved a the poor schmuck being strapped down and orally pleasured by woman with something visible hiding inside her vagina. As a Dracula look alike enters the scene and laughs, the woman puts in a pair of razor-sharp dentures and…
Let’s be clear. This is what you’re in for, people. It doesn’t get any saner.
Childe hits the beat, eventually suspecting a reclusive Baron who lives in a secluded mansion in the Hollywood hills. He infiltrates said mansion, and the naked horror show begins.
All through the book, I get the feeling that Farmer is playing with our emotions, trying to see how we’ll react to the increasing absurdity. I imagine his though process being something like:
“Here’s a sexy woman! How’d you like that? Okay, now she’s having sex with a talking goat! Still turned on? No? Bam, the goat has a woman’s head now. You into it yet?”
I made up that example, of course. The real stuff is weirder.
Moving on, let’s discuss (and I feel weird even typing these words) the female love interest. I should put that in so many quotes, a copy of The Elements of Style spontaneously combusts somewhere.
Dolores the Ghost Girl is our main character’s masturbatory aid. She’s a ghost with incomprehensible motives. Everyone except our protagonist is terrified of her for reasons we never learn. She doesn’t speak English, so even though our hero has lots of sex with her in order to help her materialize, we never get an idea of her personality. She is harshly fridged and disposed of in a scene so shocking I started laughing.
I’ve heard of the Sexy Lamp principle, but Dolores is much more representative of a webcomic I’ve recently read with a fascinating observation. That comic opined that most Bond Girls could be replaced with a fleshlight that had a post-it note with exposition attached. Thus, Dolores is a spooky fleshlight that wanders the mansion.
Let’s address this head-on. Along the way, there’s undoubtedly some type of sexual politics that will make most readers uncomfortable. I don’t mean women having a three-way where one of the participants is her own vagina snake, in a world with decades of Internet and anime, that’s almost passé. Specifically, things get a little misogynist and rapey at times, especially in most scenes dealing with our hero's ex-wife. I honestly can’t tell if that’s Farmer deliberately trying to shock us, an artifact of the times, or just the result of the complete unreality of the book. It’s there, and make no mistake: Image of the Beast is the nuclear football of trigger warnings.
That’s the first novel, which offers a chapter of backstory while throwing weird-ass sex horror after sex horror at you again and again. It's an effective weird tale. The second novel decides to be a pulp science fiction story and completely overwrites the world-building in book one, yet no character blinks an eye.
Then again, the world-building does come from a vampire who films people getting their junk bitten off with razor dentures and mails copies to the LAPD for the lulz. He just might be considered unreliable.
So, what are you getting with this book?
You are getting this man…
…beloved science fiction fan and Famous Monsters of Filmland creator Forrest J (no period, as the book reminds us) Ackerman, as a pulp action hero that’d fit in a Heinlein novel. Farmer gives a moving and tribute to Forry so touching that I was nearly tearing up just after reading a chapter with a vagina on legs, John Carpenter style.
Then, when his Bram Stoker original painting of Dracula disappears, Forrest J Ackerman throws himself head first into car chases and vampiric mind control because He Has Had Enough of This Shit. He came to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and he has to get home in time to mail off next month’s issue of Vampirella.
You are getting a naked fight scene that climaxes where one character slips and knocks themselves out on the other character’s panic shit.
You are getting a woman who can collapse into a group of semi-sentient organs and body parts on legs. Later, people will have sex with at least two of those parts, possibly more.
You are getting the word “spermatic” written more times than you’ve ever seen it before.
You are getting porn Dracula that somehow turns into Porn First Lensman.
Bravo, Philip Jose Farmer. You got paid for this and a sequel. This must’ve been balls-out fun to write, and I can’t imagine what old Forry’s reaction is.
Let’s be clear. This book is meant to be absorbed as cheerfully berserk shock after shock. Hey, it was apparently good enough for Theodore Sturgeon to write an introduction.
So, how should you best decide whether you want to spend irretrievable moments of your life reading this book? Scroll down. Look at my progress updates. If that's the kind of experience you want, go for it. I can think of none other like it.
May 20, 2024
One of the weirdest books I've ever read. Occult Erotica with snuff films, snakes, werewolves, vampires, and etc. This was written in the 1960's well ahead of it's time.
Read
May 31, 2010A union official loaned me his copy as we prepared to oversee a strike. He was an unusual guy (I know he was the one who put the graffiti on the union hall bathroom wall saying his opponent was a “hermorphidite”) and this was a truly unusual book. I had begun to doubt I had ever read it until I tracked it down in Goodreads.
November 9, 2023
Pretty fun
April 3, 2013
I really enjoyed this despite Farmer's uneven writing. Most reviewers like to point out the excessive sexual content, yeah, it's there, and like a porno, is shoehorned into almost every key event in the book. But what I really take issues with, is Farmer's inability to keep his own dick up. He comes up with some really off-the-wall concepts, rushes to to put them down on paper, but then goes flaccid before the reader can reach a proper climax. He never knew how to end this, so he makes up for that by throwing in some resolution that very obviously was not intended from the start.
Anyway, why did I like it? Sheer inventiveness. He puts in Forry Ackerman, a real person in a completely fictional setting. There is also a penis monster with a beard, a walking vagina, apocalyptic smog, man-rape using an alien suppository, ghost sex, and the excessive use of the words: cunt, glans, and, prick. Good times.
Anyway, why did I like it? Sheer inventiveness. He puts in Forry Ackerman, a real person in a completely fictional setting. There is also a penis monster with a beard, a walking vagina, apocalyptic smog, man-rape using an alien suppository, ghost sex, and the excessive use of the words: cunt, glans, and, prick. Good times.
December 30, 2010
This is the second book I ever read by Farmer and it blew my mind. Again, this work was written specifically for Playboy and again, it's full of erotica. Now, that aside, the story is actually pretty layered and there's a third part of the saga, sans the erotica, that only hints that it's related to these two.
Now, if you like bizarre science fiction, this is for you. It's all here. Aliens. Ghosts. Vampires. Werewolves. The kitchen sink. Okay, not that last bit but seriously, there's a lot going on here. However, Farmer explains it all and does it in a manner that fits in with the story.
I wish I hadn't lost my copy of this. It was one of those books you got out when the drivel in front of you just couldn't hold your attention.
Now, if you like bizarre science fiction, this is for you. It's all here. Aliens. Ghosts. Vampires. Werewolves. The kitchen sink. Okay, not that last bit but seriously, there's a lot going on here. However, Farmer explains it all and does it in a manner that fits in with the story.
I wish I hadn't lost my copy of this. It was one of those books you got out when the drivel in front of you just couldn't hold your attention.
February 16, 2014
At the time I read this, it was possibly the most disturbing book I had ever read -- although to be fair, I have always stayed strictly away from all types of horror. It's kind of horror and sci-fi all mixed up with some erotic elements that are fairly unpleasant. Gave me nightmares a little. But I've never forgotten about it. Once in a while I pull my copy out of the big box of old sci-fi that's stashed way back in the garage and look at the cover and wonder if it would still be as disturbing today...
October 11, 2021
Wow. What a doozy of a read.
The sheer absurdity of the sexual acts in this book is comical at times, especially in the second book, Blown. Farmer knows how to write science fiction, and is known for his tales of sexual escapades with otherworldly beings, but this really takes the cake. I don't regret my time with the books, though I doubt I'll read them again any time soon.
The copy I read is from Playboy books, loaned to me by a friend. I would like to add a copy to my bookshelf, sadly it seems that there isn't a definitive edition of the books. The Playboy edition isn't bad, but there is no break separating the books. The tone just suddenly changes, time has moved forward, but without any reason given. I do wish some publisher, such as Quirk, would print these books again, but do the material, as bizarre as it is, justice.
The sheer absurdity of the sexual acts in this book is comical at times, especially in the second book, Blown. Farmer knows how to write science fiction, and is known for his tales of sexual escapades with otherworldly beings, but this really takes the cake. I don't regret my time with the books, though I doubt I'll read them again any time soon.
The copy I read is from Playboy books, loaned to me by a friend. I would like to add a copy to my bookshelf, sadly it seems that there isn't a definitive edition of the books. The Playboy edition isn't bad, but there is no break separating the books. The tone just suddenly changes, time has moved forward, but without any reason given. I do wish some publisher, such as Quirk, would print these books again, but do the material, as bizarre as it is, justice.
October 5, 2020
Okay, yes, it's transgressive. So what?
August 19, 2018
IMAGE OF THE BEAST: *****
BLOWN: ***
Outrageous filth!
BLOWN: ***
Outrageous filth!
January 21, 2015
I read the 1981 playboy publishing version of the story which contains both 'image' and 'blown'. I treated the story as one book and read them in quick succesion but i might have been better off taking a break between the two parts. The first part is far more based in horror. It's based on a perverted murder and has a nasty atmosphere that makes the whole thing very seedy. Very enjoyable though. It shows some great imagination. There's no clear explanation of what has been going on by the end of the book but that wasnt particularly disappointing. The second part of the tale, 'blown', is more science fictiony. It's still very nasty and odd and i think theres probably more weird sex acts in this part than the first. 'Blown'explains the first part of the book but not in a completely satisfactory way. Its just as weird but definitely not as grim. I would have preferred it to go deeper into sick snuff film side of things but instead it goes into outer space. Both parts of the book contain needless amounts of geographical detail. The book must contain every street name in southern california.
I really enjoyed the book. Parts were flawed but over all it was damn weird and worth reading.
I really enjoyed the book. Parts were flawed but over all it was damn weird and worth reading.
June 10, 2013
This has to be the most weird and bizarre book I have ever read! It was a mixture of horror, science fiction, crime novel, and very hard core erotica. Some of the things described in this novel were just too strange and shocking. I think Farmer was out to pull all the strings in this one just to see how far he could take it and far he did. I have been a fan of Farmer's sci-fi ever since I read the first Riverworld novel, To Your Scattered Bodies Go back in the early 70s. This novel was written in 1968 and takes place in the then not-to-distant future Los Angeles which is choked in smog and torrential rains. The novel starts out with a horrific description of a snuff film and doesn't let up along the way. Included are aliens from another dimension that are the source of legendary beings including vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. The story definitely kept my attention up until the last third or so which sort of devolved into a 30's pulp science fiction tale of two warring groups of aliens. Overall I would recommend this if you are not easily offended!
January 31, 2009
Sci-fi porn or porn sci-fi? Take your pick. It's sex, gross sex, and snuff sex. This book has it all. Immortal shape shifting aliens crash landed on earth thousands of years ago and have been living in human form among us. They've been waiting for a human with a rare "pilot" gene that can operate a device that will get them home. The device is powered by the sexual energy of a huge orgy. I kid you not!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 10, 2017
Not for the faint of heart, PJF writes outside of the boundaries of mundane taste. Bizarre, violent, sexually provocative; fantasy, horror, crime noir, science-fiction, all pooled together in an orgy of speculative fiction strangeness. Farmer's works aren't for everybody, but if you dig old fashioned literary weirdness, you'll dig him.
November 27, 2009
Farmer puts a sexually explicit SF twist on the classic monsters of Horror fiction, but all in good fun, more or less.
March 16, 2015
This is Great. A fantastic story. Like a "bad Acid" trip , without the drugs. Read it....
July 13, 2015
The most transgressive work to come from the SF world. Masterpieces.
January 29, 2018
I haven't quite figured Plilip Jose Farmer out yet. The only other book of his besides this one that I have tried to read is "Flesh", and I hated it so much I couldn't finish it and swore to never read another one of his books ever again.
Well, I am glad I broke my word because I absolutely loved Image of the Beast and Blown. These are some of the weirdest and most genuinely disturbing books that I have ever read, and I am not that easy to unsettle. If I had to complain about anything in this collection it would be that Image of the Beast is FAR superior to Blown and a lot more fun, and that he retconned a lot of the story from Image of the Beast when he wrote Blown and it really shows. Some of the changes are pretty far fetched, such as .
But, despite the slightly lower quality of the second book, I had a lot of fun with these stories and gained a renewed appreciation for Philip Jose Farmer.
Well, I am glad I broke my word because I absolutely loved Image of the Beast and Blown. These are some of the weirdest and most genuinely disturbing books that I have ever read, and I am not that easy to unsettle. If I had to complain about anything in this collection it would be that Image of the Beast is FAR superior to Blown and a lot more fun, and that he retconned a lot of the story from Image of the Beast when he wrote Blown and it really shows. Some of the changes are pretty far fetched, such as .
But, despite the slightly lower quality of the second book, I had a lot of fun with these stories and gained a renewed appreciation for Philip Jose Farmer.
January 23, 2021
An "interesting" read. Not offended, but there were some interesting ideas here, buried between the ghost-sex and all kinds of thing that you wouldn't think of normally, but they don't achieve the potential. The plot, such as it is, is something about space aliens engaging in a war on our planet and, basically, they all look gorgeous and their natural form is vampire, werewolf or something akin to that. The first book is endlessly smoggy; the second, endlessly raining, to the point it actually interrupted the "plot" at one point. Could have been so much better. Some interesting ideas, but flaccid delivery at times and confusion.
March 20, 2018
Whoa. It is weird, and thought provoking... and definitely takes you on a very wild ride!
June 26, 2019
Just wow.
Part 1 Image of the Beast is great.
Part 2 Blow blows.
Part 1 Image of the Beast is great.
Part 2 Blow blows.
May 28, 2021
My dad lent this to me when I was in high school; I'm not sure what he was thinking.
September 25, 2023
More like 3 1/2 stars. It kept my interest and certainly had a lot of eroticism
March 11, 2020
This book is wild...Farmer is an interesting figure for his willingness to embrace and blend elements of perceived "high" and "low" culture, mixing literary allusion with pulp sci-fi concepts with, in the case of this book, straight-up pornography. It's hard to tell throughout the book just how firmly within his cheek Farmer's tongue is planted: did he intend the book to come across as funny as it frequently does? The writing is overwrought and subtlety is nowhere in evidence. Still, parts of this read as the work of a legitimately talented writer.
The imagery is frequently shocking, especially for something written in the 1960s. Farmer conjures up pretty much every possible sexual configuration you could think of, and several that I would hope no one would ever think of. The narrative is a pretty straightforward supernatural mystery for the first installment, "Image of the Beast," but pivots hard into nonsensical sci-fi territory during the second, "Blown".
Your enjoyment of this will pretty much be based on how strong your stomach is, as well as how humorous you find graphic depictions of overwrought, highly strange erotica. I'm not sure what Farmer's target audience for this was. It was published by Playboy, which implies an intended erotic element, but while the book is continuously, graphically, gratuitously sexual, there's really nothing "sexy" in it. If anything, this reads as the author's very..."specific" fantasy. Overall, worth reading for the shock value and for some pretty great laughs, specifically in the first half, but by the time "Blown" rolls around the joke has worn pretty thin.
The imagery is frequently shocking, especially for something written in the 1960s. Farmer conjures up pretty much every possible sexual configuration you could think of, and several that I would hope no one would ever think of. The narrative is a pretty straightforward supernatural mystery for the first installment, "Image of the Beast," but pivots hard into nonsensical sci-fi territory during the second, "Blown".
Your enjoyment of this will pretty much be based on how strong your stomach is, as well as how humorous you find graphic depictions of overwrought, highly strange erotica. I'm not sure what Farmer's target audience for this was. It was published by Playboy, which implies an intended erotic element, but while the book is continuously, graphically, gratuitously sexual, there's really nothing "sexy" in it. If anything, this reads as the author's very..."specific" fantasy. Overall, worth reading for the shock value and for some pretty great laughs, specifically in the first half, but by the time "Blown" rolls around the joke has worn pretty thin.
March 16, 2022
In the 1960s it was suddenly became OK to have sex in science fiction, this book has the distinction of being the first SF book published by Playboy. It takes place in a hellish LA, either the smog is so thick, you can't see across the street or it's raining so hard that the houses are surfing the resultant mudslides and everything is flooded. Herald Childe is working as a private detective, his partner's been murdered in an especially heinous way and the perpetrators send a film of it to the police.
Thus begins Childe's quest which leads him through the dark side of SF fandom and into a world of shape-shifting, sex maniac aliens and drugs. Is it bestiality if they are intelligent? Also, no matter how you cut it, murder and rape aren't cool. Body fluids are exchanged in amazing quantities and there's just too much sex.
At the end Childe wakes up to the fact he is a half Human space captain and after a massive orgy is able to exile the vile aliens to a desert planet, keeping one of the 'nice' ones for himself. Also the alien Forrest Ackerman wanabee stays behind to torment the real Forry. A bizarre novel that aged poorly.
Thus begins Childe's quest which leads him through the dark side of SF fandom and into a world of shape-shifting, sex maniac aliens and drugs. Is it bestiality if they are intelligent? Also, no matter how you cut it, murder and rape aren't cool. Body fluids are exchanged in amazing quantities and there's just too much sex.
At the end Childe wakes up to the fact he is a half Human space captain and after a massive orgy is able to exile the vile aliens to a desert planet, keeping one of the 'nice' ones for himself. Also the alien Forrest Ackerman wanabee stays behind to torment the real Forry. A bizarre novel that aged poorly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Read
August 7, 2011Very bizarre and pornographic tale of ghosts, werewolves, vampires and extraterrestrials.
January 28, 2022
SF horror porn/gorn. Opened my mind to things I'd never considered.
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