Philip José Farmer, a prolific and popular science fiction writer who shocked readers in the 1950s by depicting sex with aliens and challenged conventional pieties of the genre with caustic fables set on bizarre worlds of his own devising, died on Wednesday, February 25th. He was 91 and lived in Peoria, Illinois.
Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) was an American author, principally known for his science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories. He 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 fascination for and reworking of the lore of legendary pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonyminous works written as if by fictional characters.