The Alley Man

"The Alley Man" (1959) is a science fiction short story by American writer Philip José Farmer (1918-2009). It relates the life of Old Man Paley, who may or may not be the last Neanderthal — or "Paleolithic" man, as his name suggests[1] — still alive in the 20th century.

"The Alley Man" was originally published in the June 1959 issue of F & SF, with a cover illustration by Ed Emshwiller.

Publication history

"The Alley Man" was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in June 1959. It was subsequently republished by Ballantine Books in the 1962 compilation The Alley God, by DAW Books in the 1973 compilation The Book of Philip José Farmer, by Crown Publishers in the 1984 compilation The Classic Philip José Farmer 1952-1964, and in the 2006 anthology The Best of Philip José Farmer by Subterranean Press.

Critical reception

"The Alley Man" was nominated for a Hugo Award for Short Fiction in 1960, coming in second.[2]

P. Schuyler Miller called "The Alley Man" a "robust, rambling comic tragedy of a dying species, trying to keep its heredity straight, clinging to its old legends, holding its own against the G'yaga, the False Folk who have inherited the Earth", described Paley as "Alley Oop as seen by Eugene O'Neill", and said that although the story itself was "negligible", the character of Paley "is everything".[3]

Sam Moskowitz considered the story to be Farmer's emulation of L. Sprague de Camp's 1939 "The Gnarly Man".[4]

References

The Magic Labyrinth of Philip José Farmer (The Milford Series, Popular Writers of Today, Vol. 38), by Edgar Chapman; published 1984 by Borgo Press; "Paley claims to be the last true descendant of the paleolithic or neanderthal men (hence the name "Paley")"
1960 Hugo Awards at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved June 23, 2013
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, August 1962 (archived at http://pjfarmer.com/reviews.htm)
Moskowitz, Sam. Seekers of Tomorrow: Masters of Modern Science Fiction (New York : Ballantine Books, 1967), p. 160.

Works by Philip José Farmer
Novels series	World of Tiers (1965-1993) Riverworld (1971-1983) Herald Childe (1968-1979) Traitor to the Living (1973) Secrets of the Nine (1969-1988) A Feast Unknown Lord of the Trees The Mad Goblin Tarzan (1974-1999) Khokarsa (1974-2012) Dayworld (1985-1990) Dungeon (1988-1990)
Other novels	The Green Odyssey (1957) Flesh (1960) A Woman a Day (1960) The Lovers (1961) Cache from Outer Space (1962) Fire and the Night (1962) Inside Outside (1964) Tongues of the Moon (1964) Dare (1965) The Gate of Time (1966) Night of Light (1966) Lord Tyger (1970) Love Song (1970) The Stone God Awakens (1970) The Wind Whales of Ishmael (1971) The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973) Venus on the Half-Shell (1975) Jesus on Mars (1979) Dark Is the Sun (1979) The Unreasoning Mask (1981) Stations of the Nightmare (1982) Greatheart Silver (1982) A Barnstormer in Oz (1982) Escape from Loki (1991) The Caterpillar's Question (1992) Nothing Burns in Hell (1998) Naked Came The Farmer (1998) Up From the Bottomless Pit (2005–2007) The City Beyond Play (2007) The Evil in Pemberley House (2009)
Story collections	Strange Relations (1960) The Alley God (1962) The Celestial Blueprint: And Other Stories (1962) Down in the Black Gang (1971) The Book of Philip José Farmer, or the Wares of Simple Simon’s Custard Pie and Space Man (1973) Riverworld and Other Stories (1979) Riverworld War: The Suppressed Fiction of Philip José Farmer (1980) The Cache (1981) Father to the Stars (1981) Stations of the Nightmare (1982) The Purple Book (1982) The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1952-1964 (1984) The Classic Philip José Farmer, 1964-1973 (1984) The Grand Adventure (1984) Riders of the Purple Wage (1992) Myths for the Modern Age: Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe (2005) The Best of Philip José Farmer (2006) Strange Relations (2006) Pearls from Peoria (2006) Up from the Bottomless Pit and Other Stories (2007) Venus on the Half-Shell and Others (2008) The Other in the Mirror (2009) The Worlds of Philip Jose Farmer: Protean Dimensions (2010) Up the Bright River (2010) The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 2: Of Dust and Soul (2011) The Worlds of Philip José Farmer 3: Portraits of a Trickster (2012) Tales of the World Newton Universe (2013)
Stories	"O'Brien and Obrenov" (1946) "Duo Miaule" (anii 1950) The Lovers (1952) "Sail On! Sail On!" (1952) "The Biological Revolt" (1953) "Mother" (1953) "Moth and Rust" (1953) "Attitudes" (1953) "Strange Compulsion" (1953) "They Twinkled Like Jewels" (1954) "Daughter" (1954) "Queen of the Deep" (1954) "The God Business" (1954) "Rastignac the Devil" (1954) "The Celestial Blueprint" (1954) "The Wounded" (1954) "Totem and Taboo" (1954) "Father" (1955) "The Night of Light" (1957) "The Alley Man" (1959) "Heel" (1960) "My Sister's Brother" (1960) "A Few Miles" (1960) "Prometheus" (1961) "Tongues of the Moon" (1961) "Uproar in Acheron" (1962) "How Deep the Grooves" (1963) "Some Fabulous Yonder" (1963) "The Blasphemers" (1964) "The King of the Beasts" (1964) "Day of the Great Shout" (1965) "Riverworld" (1966) "The Suicide Express" (1966) "The Blind Rowers" (1967) "A Bowl Bigger than Earth" (1967) "The Felled Star" (1967) "The Shadow of Space" (1967) "Riders of the Purple Wage” (1967) "Don't Wash the Carats" (1968) "The Jungle Rot Kid on the Nod" (1968) "Down in the Black Gang" (1969) "The Oogenesis of Bird City" (1970) "The Voice of the Sonar in my Vermiform Appendix" (1971) "Brass and Gold" (1971) "The Fabulous Riverboat" (1971) "Only Who Can Make a Tree?" (1971) "The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World” (1971) "Seventy Years of Decpop" (1972) "Skinburn" (1972) "The Sumerian Oath" (1972) "Father's in the Basement" (1972) "Toward the Beloved City" (1972) "Mother Earth Wants You" (1972) "Sketches Among the Ruins of My Mind" (1973) "Monolog" (1973) "After King Kong Fell" (1973) "Opening the Door" (1973) "The Two-Edged Gift" (1974) "The Startouched" (1974) "The Evolution of Paul Eyre" (1974) "Passing On" (1975) "A Scarletin Study, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1975) "The Problem of the Sore Bridge - Among Others, as Harry Manders" (1975) "Greatheart Silver" (1975) "The Return of Greatheart Silver" (1975) "Osiris on Crutches, as Leo Queequeg Tincrowder" (1976) "The Volcano, as Paul Chapin" (1976) "The Doge Whose Barque Was Worse Than His Bight, as Jonathan Swift Somers III" (1976) "Fundamental Issue" (1976) "The Henry Miller Dawn Patrol" (1977) "Greatheart Silver in the First Command" (1977) "Savage Shadow as Maxwell Grant" (1977) "The Impotency of Bad Karma as Cordwainer Bird" (1977) "It's the Queen of Darkness, Pal, as Rod Keen" (1978) "Freshman" (1979) "The Leaser of Two Evils" (1979) "J.C. on the Dude Ranch" (1979) "Spiders of the Purple Mage" (1980) "The Making of Revelation, Part I" (1980) "The Long Wet Dream of Rip Van Winkle" (1981) "The Adventure of the Three Madmen" (1984) "UFO vs IRS" (1985) "St. Francis Kisses His Ass Goodbye" (1989) "One Down, One to Go" (1990) "Evil, Be My Good" (1990) "Nobody's Perfect" (1991) "Wolf, Iron and Moth" (1991) "Crossing the Dark River" (1992) "A Hole in Hell" (1992) "Up the Bright River" (1993) "Coda" (1993) "The Good of the Land" (2002) "The Face that Launched a Thousand Eggs" (2005) "The Unnaturals" (2005) "Who Stole Stonehenge?" (2005) "That Great Spanish Author, Ernesto" (2006) "The Essence of the Poison" (2006) "The Doll Game" (2006) "Keep Your Mouth Shut" (2006) "The Frames" (2007) "A Spy in the U.S. of Gonococcia" (2007) "A Peoria Night" (2007) "The First Robot" (2008) "Getting Ready to Write" (2008) "My Summer Husband" (2010) "What I Thought I Heard" (2011) "Kwasin and the Bear God" (2011)

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