Title Flesh Series --- Author Philip José Farmer Cover Art --- Publisher Signet Classics - 1969 First Printing Galaxy Publishing Corp - 1960 Category Science Fiction Warnings Explicit sex, homophobia Main Characters Peter Stagg, Churchill, Calthorp, Mary Casey Main Elements Post Apocalytic Website ---

After 800 years of exploring the stars, Space Commander Stagg had returned to Earth. But Earth had become a new world. Where science and technology had reigned, now there were agriculture and tribal warfare. And mankind worshiped the Goddess and was content.

Into this New Earth came Peter Stagg. They named him "Sunhero" and worshipped him acoordingly. The secret rites were performed, and Stagg found himself setting out on a cross-country, orgiastic jaunt, with foot-high antlers throbbing on his head and endowed with the virility of a nation.

Yes, Space Commander Peter Stagg was the Sunhero, king of the Earth and all its willing women. But how long he would hold his throne, only the Goddess could say...

Wow...what did I just read? Reading one of the reviews on Goodreads, apparently there is perhaps a point that Farmer was trying to make, discussing American sexuality, Farmer's religious concerns, matriarchy, male violence and "the psychology of the frustrated male writer of the 1960s". Not having any of this context I had to go with the reviewer's other statement - "It starts quite well with that wry satirical approach that a certain sort of American writer does well but almost exponentially degenerates into the ridiculous - both as theory and as sociology" and "this is a potboiler trying to shock and it shows".

Not someone alive in the 60's, lets see what I got out of this.

We start with Captain Stagg on a ship returning to Earth after an 800 year exploration of the galaxy. The crew spent most of the time asleep, so while centuries passed on Earth, only a relatively small amount of time passed for them. However its been a while, and it's an all male crew and the Captain is about to explode with sexual need *cough*. You come back to Earth after 800 years, knowing it must have changed in all kinds of interesting ways, and the only thought you have is how horny you are and can't wait to get laid first thing. Great start...as a female myself, it didn't exactly endear Stagg to me.

Now this is a short book, so somehow, absurdly quickly, everyone learns the language, sure its still English but I think it would take me a smidge bit longer to get fluent with Chaucer or Middle English. These people are illiterate and fragmented so language drift must be even worse than usual. Anyway, this isn't a book exploring how Earth might evolve over nearly a millenia, this is about sex.

See a fertitily religion popped up and they needed someone to be the Sunhero. They slap a pair of weird fleshy antlers on Stagg's head that pumps insane amount of hormones into this body so he turns into the lustful lunatic that has to hump a few hundred virgins a night as he's paraded around the East Coast. For a society that is anti-technology they have some pretty impressive bio-tech. In the mornings, he's horrified at what he's done the night before, by the afternoon they practically have to chain him up to stop him ravishing anything with boobs. But alright, I'm willing to give him some sympathy since he's doing this against his will and he wants to escape. As well he should because, unsurprisingly, the end of his tour will result in his sacrifice.

So he escapes, until he's captured by a different group. Only this society views sex differently, rather than madly mating with the opposite sex, they only come together to reproduce, enjoy homosexual sex instead. I'm not against the idea, that's what speculative fiction is about, however they were portrayed in a very negative, homophobic way. So much for exploring alternatives.

Escaping them, he is caught by a third society, a baseball team...but baseball these days involves balls with spikes and bats with sharpened edges. A proper game has several deaths and even more wounded. Wait what??? I know it was the 1960's...was LSD involved in coming up with this nonsense? And the idea that this already short book should have several pages dedicated to one such game?

Along the way Stagg battles with stag deer, wild boars, bears and other creatures to show off his pumped up hormones. On the side he tries to avoid raping the only woman who is nice to him and whom he is trying to help get home.

The one thing I guess I can say is that it is not erotica, the actual moment of sex is not really described much, its just all his urges that lead up to it, and the contemplation after the fact.

Oh, and you might be like, wait, wasn't there a crew with Stagg? Yes, yes there was. There was a whole section on one guy who was a religious zealot and thought he could change these people. He didn't feel sex should be acceptable topic of daily conversation, its a behind the doors thing between married couples only. He doesn't last too long. Then there's another guy who, not really wanting to fit in, at least tries since he doesn't want to die in the process. He does manage to fall in love with a girl and ingratiate himself with the head of that family (which is oddly still a man even though this is a matriachy??).

Eventually he gathers up the rest of the crew, who were hoping to leave America and go home to other continents, somehow stupidly thinking they would recognize their "home" and fit in better. Why would America have changed so much and the rest of the world not? It could, but unlikely, so seemed a really dumb goal given these were supposed to be intelligent scientists capable of exploring alien planets without getting themselves killed. Ridiculous "grass greener on the other side" I guess?

So instead, they manage to steal back their ship and decide to go settle one of the planets they found. But they can't do that with a just bunch of guys, after all, can't have icky sex with each other, let alone can't have kids. So they start kidnapping a few women, and snatch children from orphanages, put them in cold storage and off they go. Yep, real heroes.

So I got the shocking potboiler aspect, but I'm not sure I got any other point. It covered too much ground in less than 200 pages so I never did figure out what Farmer was trying to portray as good vs bad behaviour. There is a critique here I'm sure, I just didn't see it for all the testosterone and baseball violence.

*shrugs* The weird things one finds in those book exchange boxes in one's neighbourhood. This one is going back in...