Crossover Cover: Tales from the Hanging Monkey

This anthology from Airship 27 features the island of Motugra and its inhabitants, many of whom frequent the Hanging Monkey bar. All four stories in the collection have crossover references. In Joshua Reynolds' "The Devil's Crater," pilot Jimmy Dolan flies a group from Miskatonic University to the island of Ghora to find Professor Tyler Freeborn. Nearly all of the Miskatonic faculty members seen in the story are from Lovecraft's work, including Freeborn, who first appeared in "The Shadow Out of Time." Jimmy is also mentioned as once having been to the Waldorf-Anthony Hotel in New York, which is the hotel owned by the pulp hero Jim Anthony, whom Josh Reynolds has featured in several new stories. Bill Craig's "The Eye of Ka" mentions an archaeologist named Jones, obviously Indiana Jones. A villain called Chi Pei appears; he is also a recurring character in Craig's Jack Riley books and his Hardluck Hannigan appears. Interestingly, Chi Pei has green eyes, employs a dacoit as a henchman, and is sometimes known as "the Devil Doctor." However, descriptions of him as pale and mustachioed argue against him really being Fu Manchu, though there is probably some kind of connection between the two. In Tommy Hancock's "Motugra's Revenge," Captain Nick Fortune says that he has heard policeman Gilhooley ranting about joining the army, and that he has probably already left the island. Hancock's afterword identifies the policeman as Thomas Aloysius "Boats" Gilhooley, Lee Marvin's character in the movie Donovan's Reef. Finally, Derrick Ferguson's story "The Knobloch Collection Assignment" has several crossovers. One of the characters, the Magician, has a cameo in Derrick's novel The Vril Agenda, co-written with Josh Reynolds, and the Magician's boss Intelligence One is also mentioned in Derrick's book The Adventures of Fortune McCall. Besides these ties to Derrick's other works, there are also references to: Collinsport, Maine (from the television series Dark Shadows); New York's fabled Cobalt Club (from the Shadow pulps); the Baltimore Gun Club (from Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon); the Midnight Star Saloon in the town of Silverado (from the movie Silverado); and the Russian Count Zaroff (from Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game.") A highly entertaining anthology, even setting aside all the crossovers.