Venus on the Half-Shell

Disaster sends a man across the universe in search of answers to life's big questions in this humorous classic adventure by a Science Fiction Grand Master.

When a massive flood wipes out Earth and spoils his date, lone survivor Simon Wagstaff finds refuge in an abandoned Chinese spaceship, the Hwang Ho. Accompanied by three new companions-a dog, an owl, and a beautiful robot-and his electric banjo, Wagstaff sets off on an extraterrestrial adventure. He travels from planet to planet, seeking the definitive answer to the ultimate question: Why are we created if only to suffer and die?

Of course, after he drinks an elixir granting him eternal life, the real question is what to do for the rest of eternity after he answers his first question . . .

"Lively and inventive and goes by faster than a holiday weekend." -The Washington Post

"A comedy of sexual mores, an investigative search for Love, a lampoon of people who require answers to imponderable questions." -Science Fiction Review "Not only a science-fiction epic of the most incredible proportions, but it is also a satiric-fantasy, a clever parody of its own genre." -The Daily Eastern News

Auteur

Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) was born in North Terre Haute, Indiana, and grew up in Peoria, Illinois. A voracious reader, Farmer decided in the fourth grade that he wanted to be a writer. For a number of years he worked as a technical writer to pay the bills, but science fiction allowed him to apply his knowledge and passion for history, anthropology, and the other sciences to works of mind-boggling originality and scope. His first published novella, "The Lovers" (1952), earned him the Hugo Award for best new author. He won a second Hugo and was nominated for the Nebula Award for the 1967 novella "Riders of the Purple Wage," a prophetic literary satire about a futuristic, cradle-to-grave welfare state. His best-known works include the Riverworld books, the World of Tiers series, the Dayworld Trilogy, and literary pastiches of such fictional pulp characters as Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes. He was one of the first writers to take these characters and their origin stories and mold them into wholly new works. His short fiction is also highly regarded. In 2001, Farmer won the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and was named Grand Master by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.