John
Taylor returns from the past to stop his mother from destroying the
Nightside. Appearing or mentioned are: Rollerball t-shirts (referring to William
Harrison’s story “Roller Ball Murder,” which depicts a
corporation-driven future that is one of several possible futures for
the CU); a cyborg
with golden eyes from an alternate future (one
of the Hadenmen from Green’s Deathstalker books); a sonic screwdriver (from
the TV series Doctor
Who); a
Water Baby (from Charles
Kingsley’s novel The
Water Babies); the Yellow Sign (from
Robert W. Chambers’ The
King in Yellow,
and incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos by H. P. Lovecraft in
the short story “The Whisperer in Darkness”; Sneaky Pete (Pete
Hutter from the television Western The
Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.); the Holy Hand Grenade of
St. Antioch (from
the movie Monty
Python and the Holy Grail,
although the events seen in that movie must have been exaggerated for
comedic effect) ; the Doormouse (a
member of a group of shapeshifting mouse hippies from Green’s novel
Drinking
Midnight Wine); the Bazaar of the Bizarre (from
Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser short story of the same
name); Shadows Fall (from Green's novel of the same name);
Carcosa (from
Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa,” which
H. P. Lovecraft incorporated into the Cthulhu Mythos); Old Father Time (from Shadows Fall); the Street of the Gods (from
Green’s Hawk and Fisher novellas Winner
Takes All and
The
God Killer); a Kandarian punch
dagger (connected
to the Kandarian demons from the Evil
Dead film
series); Julien Advent, the Victorian Adventurer (intended
to be Adam Adamant from the TV series Adam
Adamant Lives!; in
fact, at one point in the novel he is referred to as Adamant); Alf’s Button
Emporium (a
reference to W. A. Darlington’s fantasy novel Alf’s
Button); faeries hiding from the hordes of the Adversary (from
Bill Willingham and Lan Medina’s comic book series Fables,
which is set in an AU); the
Traveling Doctor (Doctor Who); Colonial Marines (from
the science fiction film Aliens,
setting up the Alien
franchise
as another possible future of the CU.); the Eaters of the Dead (from
Michael Crichton’s titular novel); Worms of
the Earth (from
Robert E. Howard’s short novel of the same name); Time Tower Square (from Shadows Fall); Elder Spawn (from Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos); Dead-Eye Dick, who was
featured in a series of dime novels (a
reference to an episode of the television Western The
Virginian entitled
“Dead-Eye Dick;” although the episode does not mention the
Dead-Eye Dick dime novels are based on the adventures of a real
person, it doesn’t say they aren’t either); Rats’ Alley (from
T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land”); Haceldama (from
Green’s Deathstalker
books); a blazer belonging to a retired secret agent, which
has a button with the number six on it (from
the cult TV series The
Prisoner); and the Prospero and Michael
Scott Memorial Library (Prospero being from
William Shakespeare’s The
Tempest.)
The Crossover UniverseTM is a companion blog to the books Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1-2 by Win Scott Eckert, and the forthcoming Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1-2 by Sean Levin. Material excerpted from Crossovers Volumes 1 & 2 is © copyright 2010-2014 by Win Scott Eckert. All rights reserved. Material excerpted from Crossovers Expanded Volumes 1 & 2 is © copyright 2014-present by Sean Levin. All rights reserved.
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Crossover Cover: Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
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How much of the Monty Python movie can be considered to be in the CU, beyond just the very general claim that King Arthur and his knights searched for the Holy Grail?
ReplyDeleteI'm also curious about the mention of the colonial marines. Do they simply appear as a glimpse of a possible future, or is time travel involved? And do they actually appear, or are they just name-dropped?
At one point, John Taylor's girlfriend Shotgun Suzie uses a Colonial Marine smart gun that "had fallen through a Timeslip from a particularly militaristic future" while protecting the Strangefellows bar from Lilith's army.
DeleteI'd say that the only thing you could say for certain about the Monty Python is that the Holy Hand Grenade is in the CU. That King Arthur existed has been mentioned in other works, but there are various conflicting counts of that. (The Nightside series portrays Arthur's return differently from the cartoon Gargoyles which is also in the CU.)
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