Thursday, April 9, 2015

Crossover Cover: Daemons are Forever

The second novel in the Secret Histories series. Eddie Drood, now leading the Drood Family, must find a way to drive out the Loathly Ones, demons that were brought to Earth during World War II to help fight the Nazis, before they summon the Hungry Gods to destroy the world. Appearing or mentioned are: a Hirondel sports car (from Leslie Charteris' Saint novels); Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat (from Green's novel Shadows Fall); Merlin’s Glass (from Green's Nightside series); Vril Power, Inc. (a reference to the Vril from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's The Coming Race); Harry Fabulous (also from the Nightside books); a ghost named Ash (Leonard Ash from Shadows Fall); a minor Norse godling (Jimmy Thunder from Green's Drinking Midnight Wine); the Many-Angled Ones (a term originally used by Grant Morrison to describe the Lloigor of the Cthulhu Mythos in the superhero comic book Zenith, which must take place in an AU, but it has been adopted by other Mythos authors over the years); the Celestials (an alien race with untold cosmic power appearing in various series published by Marvel Comics); Renfield’s (named after Dracula's zoophagous servant, of course); a couple of Baron Frankenstein’s more successful creations; Melmoth the Wanderer (from Charles Robert Maturin's novel of the same name); Dracula; a French demon hunter named Mallorie (possibly a reference to the French horror film Bloody Mallory); the Kandarians (from the Evil Dead films); Dr. Syn’s Fly by Night Delivery Service (a reference to Russell Thorndike's Dr. Syn novels); “this American gentleman and his giant rabbit” (Elwood P. Dowd and Harvey from the movie Harvey); Giles Deathstalker (from Green's Deathstalker series, which takes place in one of many potential futures for the CU); a giant mechanical spider confiscated from an American mad genius in the Wild West (from the film version of The Wild Wild West); the Kessel run (from the Star Wars films); and an Old One (from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.)

5 comments:

  1. I'm guessing that Dr. Syn's descendents (or successors) started a Delivery Service since you know he was a smuggler.

    How is the Kessel run mentioned? It seems odd (but not impossible) that someone would know about something from a galaxy far, far way.

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  2. It's stated that the Time Train that the Droods use to travel to the future can “do the Kessel run in under five centuries.”

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  3. It's probably possible that the Droods know about the Star Wars Galaxy.

    I imagine the reference is a joke on Han Solo's claim he could do the Kessel run in under three parsecs. George Lucas, apparently, did not know a parsec is a measurement of distance, not time.

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  4. What is the context for the mention of the Celestials? Is it just the name, or is there description sufficient to show that it's the Marvel aliens that are being referenced? If the former, then perhaps the reference is actually to the Celestials from Star Wars instead: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Celestials

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  5. The exact quote is "The Celestials are coming to judge us all, in their million-mile-long space-ships, and we shall be as ants before them..." Since Marvel's Celestials are famous for judging other races' worths, something that's not mentioned in the Star Wars Wiki's entry on that franchise's Celestials, I'm quite certain it's a reference to the comic Celestials.

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