The two, half-brothers with the same father (the infamous Victorian era serial killer Jack the Ripper) share a horrible affliction thanks to the powerful elixir that gives them near-eternal life.

By the end of the novel, Grandrith and Caliban will have grappled with each other in the nude, punching, clawing and biting, each of them sporting massive erections.

However, Caliban and Grandrith ultimately find a common enemy among the Nine that is revealed to be controlling the world, and to have been manipulating their own lives, and indeed, the entire preceding battle between the two.

This is on par with the idea that Farmer intended the novel largely as satire of pulp fiction, deliberately exaggerated to the point of absurdity, as Sturgeon puts it.

[2][3] This fact was lost on both the original publisher, Essex House, who produced "quality porn" novels,[4] and many reviewers, including one who condemned A Feast Unknown as "drivel" and "a worthless book".

At the same time, the Wold Newton versions do not have Jack the Ripper as their father, nor do they suffer, visibly, the sexual aberration that Grandrith and Caliban do.

Farmer himself said that the best route was to "let the reader decide", but Wold Newton fan and "scholar" Dennis E. Power has written three essays relating to the subject.

Power surmises that he became numerous figures from history, myth, and legend, and the Nine bred Lord Grandrith specifically to live out the destiny as foretold by The Undying God, which was, of course, the story of Tarzan himself.