The Tiers series chronicles the adventures of both Robert Wolff, a man from our world transported through space-time to a cosmos with dimensions and laws different from our own, and Kickaha the Trickster (a.k.a. Paul J. Finnegan, also from our contemporary world). Separately and together, the two heroes contend against the Lords who rule the separate universes, of which the marvelous many-leveled World of Tiers is the center. Mythological and legendary creatures and characters abound: centaurs and harpies, mermaids and Indians, aliens and beautiful women. “The greatest science fiction writer ever.” ― Leslie Fiedler “Farmer offers his audience a wide-screen adventure that never fails to provoke, amuse, and educate...his imagintaion is certainly of the first rank.” ― Time “Philip Jose Farmer owes a fair measure of his fame to the World of Tiers series, based on the notion of immortal Lords whose ancestors made a host of pocket universes (including ours) and then lost the technological skills to make more.” ― Analog The Tiers series chronicles the adventures of both Robert Wolff, a man from our world transported through space-time to a cosmos with dimensions and laws different from our own, and Kickaha the Trickster (a.k.a. Paul J. Finnegan, also from our contemporary world). Separately and together, the two heroes contend against the Lords who rule the separate universes, of which the marvelous many-leveled World of Tiers is the center. Mythological and legendary creatures and characters abound: centaurs and harpies, mermaids and Indians, aliens and beautiful women. Hugo award-winning author Philip José Farmer (1918-2009) was one of the great science fiction writers of the 20th Century, and the Riverworld books are generally considered his masterpiece. He lived in Peoria, Illinois. The World of Tiers: Volume One By Farmer, Philip Jose Tor Books Copyright © 1996 Farmer, Philip Jose All right reserved. ISBN: 9780312857615 1     Kickaha was a quicksilver Proteus . Few could match his speed in adapting to change. But on Earth and on other planets of the pocket universes, the hills, mountains, valleys, plains, the rivers, lakes, and seas, seldom altered. Their permanence of form and location were taken for granted. There were small local changes. Floods, earthquakes, avalanches, tidal waves reshaped the earth. But the effects were, in the time scale of an individual, in the lifetime of a nation, minute. A mountain might walk, but the hundreds of thousands of generations living at its foot would not know it. Only God or a geologist would see its movements as the dash of a mouse for a hole. Not here. Even cocksure, unfazed Kickaha, who could react to change as quickly as a mirror reflects an image, was nervous. But he wasn’t going to let anyone else know it. To the others, he seemed insanely cool. That was because they were going mad.   Behind the Walls of Terra , Copyright © 1970, 1982 by Philip José Farmer Continues... Excerpted from The World of Tiers: Volume One by Farmer, Philip Jose Copyright © 1996 by Farmer, Philip Jose. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.