The controversial Kilgore Trout episode was neither the first nor the last time Farmer would impishly slip out of his own skin and assume the persona of another author. In Venus on the Half-Shell and Others, Philip Jose Farmer transforms himself into fictional personalities as compelling as they are diverse: Cordwainer Bird, Paul Chapin, Rod Keen, Harry "Bunny" Manders, Leo Queequeg Tincrowdor, John H. Watson, M.D. and even the real-life author William S. Burroughs.