Sunday, July 14, 2024

Crossover of the Week

Summer 1940

WALKING ON FOREIGN GROUND, LIKE A SHADOW 

Judex travels to New York at the request of Kent Allard, the Shadow, whose parents were friends with Judex’s mother, Julia Orsini. A gangster named Tony Rico has learned the Shadow possesses the twin jewels of the Russian Czar. Rico received information on the Shadow from his old foe Benedict Stark. The Shadow asks Judex to impersonate him, with Mary Gillespie, the owner of the Gillespie Circus and the daughter of Colonel Gillespie, posing as Margo Lane. Rico is chauffeured by a man named Otero. Learning about Stanford Marshall, aka the Black Tiger, Rico killed him and stole his invisibility belt, invented by a pair of scientists named Stanford and Van Dorn. Rico also targeted Professor Adam Strang, who read Reggie Ogden novels, and was involved in a caper with a criminal engineer called Sparks who created a machine to kill people by radio control, based on television technology invented by a Dr. Houghland. Judex meets with Mary Gillespie at Rusterman’s. Mary has an ex-husband named Jim. “Rainbow” Benny Loomis likes to hang out at Rusterman’s. Loomis tells Judex and Mary that Rico thinks he’s the new Enrico Bandello, and his birth name is Chris Jorgenson. A wounded Mary says her uncle Leonard will treat her. The Shadow saw Judex with his wife Jacqueline, and felt his loneliness deepen. 

Short story by Atom Mudman Bezecny in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 17: Noblesse Oblige, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2020; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 29), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2022. Judex and his wife, the former Jacqueline Aubry, are from Louis Feuillade’s film serial Judex. Arthur Bernède’s novelization of the serial identified Judex’s mother, the Comtesse de Tremeuse, as the former Julia Orsini. The shadowy pulp hero and his companion need no introduction. The vigilante battled Stark, the so-called “Prince of Evil,” in four novels by Theodore Tinsley. Tony Rico is from the 1933 film The Shadow Laughs. Bezecny identifies Rico with Chris Jorgenson from Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man; in the film adaptation, Jorgenson was played by Cesar Romero, the same actor who played Tony Rico. Mary Gillespie, her father the Colonel, her ex-husband Jim Quinn, and the Gillespie Circus are from the 1937 film The Shadow. Otero and Enrico Bandello are from the movie Little Caesar. The Black Tiger is from the 1940 serial The Shadow. Stanley Stanfield and Professor Carl Van Dorn are from the serial The Vanishing Shadow. Professor Adam Anton Strang and Sparks are from the serial The Whispering Shadow. Reggie Ogden is from the 1933 movie The Shadow. Dr. James Houghland is from the movie Murder by Television. Rusterman’s is from Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels. “Rainbow” Benny Loomis is from the movie Shadow of the Thin Man. Except for the 1940 serial, none of the films with “Shadow” in the title involve Walter Gibson’s pulp hero. Dr. Leonard Gillespie is from Max Brand’s Dr. Kildare stories. Although this case is dated to 1928, the shadowy hero began his crimefighting career in 1929, and his four battles with Stark took place in 1939, and so I would place it in the early 1940s instead. 

This crossover writeup is one of over a thousand appearing in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

Crossover Cover: Strange Incursions

 

This chapbook contains two stories by Jason Scott Aiken.

"The Blood of Raizor" is set in 11,550 BCE. In Northeast Africa, the lion Raizor and his sons, Tyton and Rohrdeth, battle a leopard-like alien. Raizor is killed, but his sons are changed by devouring the flesh of their foe. Tyton finds himself invulnerable, possessing more powerful claws, and unaging. In Nemea, he is slain by Heracles. Rohrdeth and his descendants possess a golden hide and enhanced intelligence and senses. The alien is of the same race as Coeurl from A. E. van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer.” According to Philip José Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift, Heracles was really John Gribardsun, an immortal time traveler from the future. One of Rohrdeth’s descendants will have a connection to Gribardsun.

In "Galazi in the Enchanted City," Galazi the Wolf investigates the murders of three members of his tribe of “ghost-wolves,” not far from the village of the People of the Axe, led by his friend Umslopogaas. Galazi sees a baobab tree that bears the images of the so-called demons of Lake Tanganyika: Loubari, Mgoussa, and Mousammouria. Galazi is captured and taken to a temple whose roof bears a grey stone sphere with a winged marble woman atop it. He is brought before Queen Touloumia of Mkinyaga. Long ago, the capital of Touloumia’s nation, Akribanza, was just one of a hundred cities in the vast empire of Kôr. A cavern wall bears the image of a man with a knife and a bow. The witch Nomma receives visions from the waters of a crystal basin. Among these visions are a muscular bronze-skinned youth breaking a leopard’s back, a bronze-skinned swordsman and a bearded giant battling soldiers, another bronze-skinned young man and a one-eyed dwarf, a white man wielding a cat-headed staff, a giant looking much like the earlier one battling what appears to be an older version of Umslopogaas, and a black warrior wielding the same type of sword as the bronzed swordsman fighting alongside a grey-haired white man and a robed bronze-skinned man battling beastly creatures near a giant crystalline stalk. Galazi the Wolf is from H. Rider Haggard’s Nada the Lily. Umslopogaas appears in not only that book, but the Allan Quatermain series as well. Loubari, Mgoussa, Mousammouria, and Queen Touloumia are from Eugène Hennebert’s The Enchanted City. The statue of the winged woman is a symbol of Truth seen in Haggard’s She and Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey’s The Song of Kwasin. Kôr is the city ruled by Ayesha, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. The man with the knife and bow is Sahhindar from Farmer’s Khokarsa series. Sahhindar is also the immortal time traveler John Gribardsun from Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift, but he is best known as the lord of the apes. The crystal basin is from Haggard’s She and Allan. The bronze-skinned youth is King Minruth from the Ancient Opar books in his younger years. The bronze-skinned swordsman and the bearded giant are Hadon of Opar and his cousin Kwasin from the Ancient Opar series. The other bronze-skinned young man is Hadon’s son Kohr, while the one-eyed dwarf is Paga, whom Farmer meant to be Pag from Haggard’s Allan and the Ice-Gods. The white man with the cat-headed staff is Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane. The battle between Umslopogaas and the bearded giant Rezu (whose description is identical to Kwasin’s, whose fate is left open-ended at the end of The Song of Kwasin) is depicted in She and Allan. The black warrior, N’desi, is from Carey and Win Scott Eckert’s “Iron and Bronze.” The grey-haired man is Hareton Ironcastle from J.-H. Rosny Aîné’s Hareton Ironcastle’s Amazing Adventure, adapted and translated by Farmer as Ironcastle. The bronze man is Doc Ardan from Guy d’Armen’s Doc Ardan: City of Gold and Lepers, who Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier’s translation identified with a certain bronze-skinned doctor and crimefighter. The beastly creatures are the Wandarobo from John Peter Drummond’s Ki-Gor pulp stories, who Carey and Eckert implied to be exiles from Opar, originally from the Tarzan novels. The crystalline stalk is an extension of the mineral-vegetable-king from Ironcastle, and related to the Crystal Tree of Time from Farmer’s Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time.

These crossovers are two of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2

Monday, July 8, 2024

Crossover Cover: Jason Gridley of Earth: Across the Moons of Mars

 

Are you an Edgar Rice Burroughs fan?

Then you'll love Geary Gravel's bonus story in this book, featuring ERB's recurring character Jason Gridley, among other Burroughsian people and places!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Crossover of the Week

Early Autumn 1926 

A WHISPER OF SOFT WINGS 

Noticing parallels between his current case and a previous affair, Charles St. Cyprian asks Inspector Moxley if he was acquainted with Inspector Quennell. Not long after solving that case, Quennell turned over his notes to St. Cyprian’s predecessor, Carnacki. Quennell’s main suspect was Dr. Mallinger. The Voyagers Club resides on Dover Street, alongside others of its ilk, such as the Albermarle, the Drones, and the Diogenes. The late Geoffrey Botkin was one of the few who has been to Maple White Land, a few years after the Challenger expedition, with Lord John Roxton in 1913. According to a newspaperman named Malone, Botkin was almost eaten by a giant spider. The Voyagers’ bar has a bust of Quatermain over the door. St. Cyprian discusses an alchemist and member of the Order of the Cosmic Ram who engaged in experiments like Mallinger’s with another member of the Order, who also belongs to the Bollinger Club. St. Cyprian’s friend Bertie lives on Berkley Street. 

Short story by Josh Reynolds on the website Curious Fictions. Inspector Quennell and Dr. Carl Mallinger are from the movie The Blood Beast Terror. Thomas Carnacki is from William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. The Drones Club is from the works of P. G. Wodehouse. Bertie is Bertie Wooster. The Diogenes Club is from Doyle and Watson’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Maple White Land, Professor George Edward Challenger, Lord John Roxton, and Edward D. Malone are from Doyle’s The Lost World. Allan Quatermain is from H. Rider Haggard’s novels and stories. The Bollinger Club is from Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall

This crossover writeup is one of over a thousand included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Friday, July 5, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Dictionary of Snow Hill

 

Are you a fan of author Jess Nevins?

Then you'll love his alternate universe novel The Dictionary of Snow Hill, which features analogues for a number of fictional characters, as well as some nods to undisguised fictional people, places, and things!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Thursday, July 4, 2024

Crossover Cover: Campaign of Destruction

 

In this story by Whit Howland, the Phantom Detective works with FBI agent Dan Fowler to battle a wave of attacks in New York City related to the upcoming mayoral election. Fowler meets with a group of officials that includes Commissioner Warren and Captain McGrath. Dan Fowler appeared in the pulp magazine G-Men Detective. Commissioner Jerome Warner (mistakenly called “Warren” here) and Captain McGrath are from the Black Bat stories in Black Book Detective.

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Wednesday, July 3, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Duelist

 

Are you a Jonathan Maberry fan?

Then you'll love his story in this anthology, which has a nod to his Pine Deep trilogy!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Tuesday, July 2, 2024

Crossover Covers: Omega One

 



During World War II, Shi works with the superhuman task force Omega One to acquire one of the three pieces of a Nazi superweapon. Liberty Girl also appears. In this universe, Hitler committed suicide after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which does not gel with the CU’s history, which largely mirrors our world’s. Furthermore, Liberty Girl’s world has already been established as an alternate reality to the CU. 

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Monday, July 1, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Best Thing You Can Steal

 

Are you a C. S. Lewis fan?

Then you'll love the first novel in Simon R. Green's Gideon Sable series, which has a shout-out to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, among other crossovers!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Sunday, June 30, 2024

Crossover of the Week

Autumn 1882

THE MISSION OF SHANGHAI JOE 

The bounty hunter Major Sabbath teams up with the Chinese martial artist Shanghai Joe to rescue Indios enslaved by rancher Stanley Spencer, a member of the Black Coats. An outlaw whose bounty the Major collects realizes he is not Bart Maverick, though the Major says they share the same tailor. The Countess, another member of the Black Coats, reprimands Spencer, saying the All-Father is displeased with his actions. Spencer is a widower with a son making his own wealth in Mexico. Shanghai Joe is trained in the Five Deadly Venoms of the Poison Claw Clan. 

Story by Frank Schildiner in Rick Lai’s Major Sabbath, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2016. Major Sabbath is a combination of the title character of the films Sabata and Return of Sabata with Colonel Mortimer from For a Few Dollars More. Shanghai Joe and Stanley Spencer are from the movie My Name is Shanghai Joe. There was a sequel to the original film, The Return of Shanghai Joe, but it shares no continuity with the original, nor does it resolve any of its dangling plot threads, so it must be an AU. My Name Is Shanghai Joe takes place in 1882, so this story probably takes place in that year or not long after. Bart Maverick is from the TV series Maverick. Marguerite Sadoulas, the Countess of Clare, is from Paul Féval’s Black Coats novels. The All-Father is the group’s leader. Stanley Spencer’s son is Samuel Spencer, the corrupt mine owner from I Am Sartana, Trade Your Pistols for a Coffin. Besides having the same surname, both characters were played by Piero Lulli and dressed alike. The Five Deadly Venoms are from the Chinese martial arts film of the same name. 

Thisn crossover writeup is one of over a thousand appearing in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Saturday, June 29, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Night Trade

 

Sex crimes investigator Livia Lone works with former Marine sniper Dox to take down her own former trafficker. Dox is a character from Eisler’s John Rain series, which is in the CU through Rain’s meeting with M. J. Rose’s character Dr. Morgan Snow in Rose’s “Decisions, Decisions.” 

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Friday, June 28, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes

 

Are you a Sherlock Holmes fan?

Then you'll love this anthology, which includes a story in which Holmes meets Professor Challenger, as well as alternate universe stories involving the Cthulhu Mythos and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Thursday, June 27, 2024

Crossover Cover: Robert B. Parker's Angel Eyes

 

Spenser briefly runs into Robert Crais’ P.I. Joe Pike. By the time this novel takes place, Spenser would be in his eighties, and likely retired. It stretches credibility that he and his entire supporting cast would have access to an immortality elixir. The novel is also based heavily on Dashiell Hammett’s Continental Op novel The Dain Curse, with some of the characters having the same names and roles. Since the Op is in the CU, this further cements the novel as an AU.

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Crossover Cover: Atomic-Age Cthulhu

 

Are you a Cthulhu Mythos fan?

Then you'll love this anthology of Mythos stories set in the '50s, three of which contain crossovers!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Crossover Cover: Thubway Tham and Simon Trapp's Trap

 

The lisping pickpocket Thubway Tham meets Simon Trapp, a pawnshop owner who runs various criminal scams from his shop’s backroom. Johnston McCulley’s pickpocket Thubway Tham is in the CU, so this crossover brings in Roy W. Hinds’ Simon Trapp, who also appeared in Detective Story Magazine. This story originally appeared in that magazine's June 27, 1925 issue, but I have chosen not to show the cover of that issue here, as its text includes an anti-Japanese slur.

This story is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Monday, June 24, 2024

Secrets, Crossovers, and the Full Account

 

I will be on the panel "Secrets, Crossovers, and the Full Account" at PulpFest on August 3, talking about CROSSOVERS EXPANDED VOLUME 3 and THE LAZARUS CABAL. Keith Howell will be moderating, and Paul Spiteri and Win Scott Eckert will also be on the panel. Hope to see you there! 

Sunday, June 23, 2024

Crossover of the Week

Autumn 1888-Winter 1892

THE PHANTOM MASQUERADE 

Appearing or mentioned are: the Phantom of Truth; Baptiste Severn; the Repairer of Reputations (aka Jean Grimoire and Johann Grimm); Carcosa; the King in Yellow; Thomas Fane (aka the Pallid Mask, Sir George Burnwell, and Fantômas); the Yellow Sign; Dr. Antonio Nikola; Maître de Grandin; Cardec; Le Roi en Jaune; the Lake of Hali; Joseph Clampin; the Black Coats; Professor Hern; Verschwinden und Seine Theorie; End House; Appledorn; Captain Tobias; Morryster’s Marvells of Science; Trauvells in Ye Easte; Parapelius Necromantius; Joseph de Quincey; Lionel Dacre; Mary Holder; the Saaamaaa Ritual; Yian; John Clay; the Sigsand Manuscript; Emile Le Brun; Cassilda; Boris Yvain; Juve; the Red Offering; the Disposer of Souls; the Thirteenth Covenant; Hendrika Pienaar; Colonel Beltham; Orianne Coyatier; Thomas Carnacki; the Shrine of Erlik; and the Scarlet Lake. 

Short story by Rick Lai in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 14: Coup de Grace, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press 2017; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 24), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2018. The Phantom of Truth, Severn, the Repairer of Reputations, Carcosa, the King in Yellow, the Yellow Sign, Le Roi en Jaune, the Lake of Hali, Cassilda, and Boris Yvain are from Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. Jean Grimoire is an alias for John Grimlan from Robert E. Howard’s “Dig Me No Grave.” “Thomas Fane” is Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre’s villain Fantômas. Inspector Juve is one of Fantômas’ greatest foes. Hendrika Pienaar is the Lord of Terror’s unnamed Boer wife mentioned in The Daughter of Fantômas. Her surname suggests she is related to Peter Pienaar, Richard Hannay’s Boer friend in John Buchan’s novels. Colonel Beltham, aka Lord Edward Beltham, is also from the Fantômas books. Sir George Burnwell and Mary Holder are from Doyle and Watson’s Sherlock Holmes tale “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet.” John Clay is from “The Adventure of the Red-Headed League.” Le Brun is from “The Adventure of the Illustrious Client.” Although his first name is given as Emile here, Matthew Ilseman’s “A Theft of China” has it as Anton. Perhaps his full name is Anton-Emile Le Brun. Dr. Antonio Nikola is Guy Boothby’s criminal scientist. Maître de Grandin is Dr. Jules de Grandin’s grandfather mentioned in Seabury Quinn’s “Clair de Lune.” Cardec is from Marie-François Goron and Emile Gautier’s Spawn of the Penitentiary. Joseph “Pistolet” Clampin and the Black Coats are from Paul Féval’s novels. Orianne Coyatier is the granddaughter of Jean-François Coyatier, aka the Marchef, the bodyguard and executioner of the Black Coats’ leader, the Colonel. Professor Hern and Verschwinden und Seine Theorie are from Ambrose Bierce’s “Mysterious Disappearances.” End House, Appledorn, Captain Tobias, the Saaamaaa Ritual, the Sigsand Manuscript, and Thomas Carnacki are from William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. Morryster’s Marvells of Science is from Bierce’s “The Man and the Snake,” and is also mentioned in H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Festival.” Trauvells in Ye Easte is from Bierce’s The Devil’s Dictionary. Parapelius Necromantius is from Bierce’s “Beyond the Wall.” Joseph de Quincey is from Evangeline Walton’s Witch House. Lionel Dacre is from Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Leather Funnel.” Yian and the Kuen-Yuin Oath are from Chambers’ The Maker of Moons. The Red Offering is from Lin Carter’s story of that name. The Disposer of Souls is Zukala, from a series of poems by Howard. The Thirteenth Covenant is from Robert Bloch’s “The Mannikin.” The Shrine of Erlik and the Scarlet Lake are from Chambers’ The Slayer of Souls. The Dark Star of Yrimid is from Chambers’ The Dark Star and The Slayer of Souls.

This crossover writeup is one of over a thousand appearing in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Lazarus Cabal

 

Are you a pulp fan?

Then you'll love my just-announced chapbook The Lazarus Cabal, coming this summer from Meteor House! You can preorder it at their website, and also as part of a package deal with Crossovers Expanded Volume 3! I will be signing all copies of both at FarmerCon in August!

Friday, June 21, 2024

Crossover Cover: Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Volume 12

 

This anthology includes three stories with crossovers.

In I. A. Watson's "The Nottingham Crakster," Holmes is visited by a police inspector who seeks a gem belonging to Lord Roger Roxton, which has been stolen by criminal and “crakster” (a Northern slang expression for a trickster) Jemmy Wilson, and which he believes Holmes himself has stolen. Holmes deduces that the so-called policeman is in fact Wilson himself. A footnote to this story suggests that Lord Roger Roxton may be the father of Lord John Roxton from Doyle and Malone’s The Lost World and other Professor Challenger tales. To square this with Philip José Farmer’s genealogy for Lord John in Tarzan Alive, we must conclude that “Lord Roger Roxton” is a Watsonian pseudonym for George Wimsey, the 14th Duke of Denver, Lord John’s adoptive father. Obviously, Edward D. Malone used the same coded surname as Watson in his written accounts of his, Roxton, and Challenger’s exploits. Jemmy Wilson is from Doyle’s “Selecting a Ghost: The Ghosts of Goresthorpe Grange.”

In Barbara Doran's "The Adventure of the Counterfeit Secretary," Holmes and Watson team with Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, aka the Thinking Machine, and his companion journalist Hutchinson Hatch to thwart sabotage of the Berlin International Trade Exposition. Professor Van Dusen and Hutchinson Hatch are from Jacques Futrelle’s detective stories and novels. 

In Brad Mengel's "The Adventure of the Stolen Tattoo," Watson has dinner with Dr. Stamford and his new wife, who honeymooned in Australia, where they were robbed by the bushranger known as the Stingaree. During the Second Opium War, a chap by the name of Flashman came by the Barrington house and told Richard Francis Barrington’s mother of her husband’s death. The Stingaree is from E. W. Hornung’s Irralie’s Bushranger and Stingaree. Flashman is Harry Flashman, whose service in the Second Opium War is described in George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman and the Dragon.

These crossovers are among over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Thursday, June 20, 2024

Crossover Cover: Growing Up

 

Are you an Alexandre Dumas fan?

Then you'll love this novel by Angela Thirkell set in Anthony Trollope's English county of Barsetshire, which has a reference to the Count of Monte Cristo, among other crossovers!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Devil's Dust

 

Sherlock Holmes’ latest case brings he and Dr. Watson into contact with Allan Quatermain and Umslopogaas, who are trying to discover the true circumstances of the death of Quatermain’s son Harry. Quatermain talks about his encounter with Ayesha, She Who Must Be Obeyed. Holmes and Quatermain have never met before, and Holmes denies being related to Quatermain’s friend Lady Ragnall, nee Luna Holmes. Both these details differ from Thomas Kent Miller’s various Holmes/Quatermain crossover pastiches, which have been included in the CU. Also, Lovegrove’s version of Quatermain brags about his abilities, the opposite of the humble and self-effacing character H. Rider Haggard portrayed. Consequently, I consider this novel an AU.

This novel is one of over a thousand crossovers covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Crossover Cover: The Hunting of Philip Ackroyd

 

Are you an Algernon Blackwood fan?

Then you'll love Josh Reynolds' Royal Occultist story in this anthology, which has a nod to one of Blackwood's Dr. John Silence stories, among other crossovers!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Monday, June 17, 2024

Crossover Cover: Black Tide

 

In this story by James A. Moore and Charles R. Rutledge, the monster hunter Jonathan Crowley and the barbarian Kharrn, both immortals, battle the Deep Ones. Moore’s character Jonathan Crowley and Rutledge’s character Kharrn first met in the chapbook What Rough Beast. This story is a sequel to Moore’s Deeper, itself a sequel to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth.”

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Crossover of the Week

Early June 2015

TOMMY HANCOCK’S BRANSON NON-ADVENTURE 

While New Pulp publisher and author Tommy Hancock is being treated at the Nettles Clinic for congestive heart failure, assassin and master of disguise Mirror Image is targeting another patient, Morton Vickers, an analyst for a multiagency task force operating against various loosely allied organized crime organizations. Vickers is the grandson of legendary 1930s G-Man Lynn Vickers. After hearing about the assassination plot, the Voice, long semi-retired, called Curt Van Loan’s covert network for help. A woman equally adept at disguise pits herself against Mirror Image. Lemuel Barnes of the Treasury Department is monitoring Vickers’ operation. The woman, Emily, later introduces herself to Hancock. 

Short story by Erwin K. Roberts in Legends of New Pulp Fiction, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2015. Tommy Hancock is a real person, and this story is inspired by a medical crisis he suffered in real life on June 8, 2015. Lynn Vickers, Agent G-77, appeared in nine stories by Bryan James Kelly in the pulps Public Enemy and Federal Agent from 1935-1938. The Voice is the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by Roberts. The hero is implicitly the son of Secret Agent X. Curt Van Loan, another of Roberts’ creations, is the son of Richard Curtis Van Loan, aka the Phantom Detective, and Muriel Havens. Emily is the Pulptress, a second-generation heroine who has appeared in novels and anthologies from Hancock’s company, Pro Se Productions. Lemuel Barnes is likely a descendant of Bromley Barnes, a Treasury Department agent who appeared in stories, novels, and collections by George Barton from 1909-1920. 

This crossover writeup is one of over a thousand included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Saturday, June 15, 2024

Crossover Cover: All the Devils Are Here

 

In this story by Jonathan Maberry, Joe Ledger and rare book specialist Lizzie Corbett team up to stop cultists in Turkmenistan who worship Atlach-Nacha. Said cultists are trying to open a door to another world and unleash the Tripod Riders onto our world. Ledger speculates that H. G. Wells must have encountered the Tripods before he wrote his book. This crossover brings together two of Maberry’s series characters, Joe Ledger and Lizzie Corbett. Atlach-Nacha is from Clark Ashton Smith’s Cthulhu Mythos story “The Seven Geases.” The tripods are from H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!