Crossover of the Week

December 24, 1783; December 24, 1928 

THE GIFT THAT KEPT ON TAKING 

In 1783, young Ebenezer Scrooge receives a monkey’s paw that will supposedly grant wishes as a Christmas gift from his father but abandons it after making two wishes. On Christmas Eve 1928, Fascinax investigates the deaths over the years of schoolchildren who have suffered the same fates as the subjects of Scrooge’s wishes more than a century ago. He believes the murderer to be a creature variously identified as the Krampus, Hans Trapp, Belsnickle, and Père Fouettard. The occult investigator believes the first victim this Christmas will be Pinkie Brown. The spirit of Scrooge tells Fascinax that toward the end of his life, an old friend and three spirits showed him the error of his ways, that a Mr. White and his wife have another monkey’s paw, and that this paw can undo the curse that has lasted for over a century. 

Short story by Matthew Dennion in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 18: Eminences Grises, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2021. Ebenezer Scrooge is from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The Monkey’s Paw is from W. W. Jacobs’ story of the same name. Fascinax is the title character of a 1920s French pulp magazine by an anonymous author. The Krampus, Hans Trapp, Belsnickle, and Père Fouettard are all from European folklore. Pinkie Brown is from Graham Greene’s novel Brighton Rock, in which Pinkie takes over the gang of the late Kite, whose murder is described in Greene’s novel A Gun for Sale. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

Spring 2008

NEKROPOLIS 

Ex-Cleveland policeman Matthew Richter is now a zombie P.I. in Nekropolis, a city founded centuries ago by wizards and monsters within a pocket dimension of eternal night where monsters live openly. Appearing or mentioned are Carl; Erich Zann; a Gill-Man; the Transparent Woman; the Mariner; Dr. Moreau; the Phantom of the Paradise; Victor Baron; a female descendant of Dr. Jekyll who uses a version of her forebear’s formula to change genders; and Marley’s ghost. 

2009 novel by Tim Waggoner. Carl is Carl Kolchak, who now runs a newspaper in Nekropolis. Erich Zann is from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann.” The Gill-Men are from the movie Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels. The Transparent Woman is a descendant of H. G. Wells’ Invisible Man who botched her ancestor’s formula so that only her skin turned invisible, not her organs and skeleton. The Mariner is from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Dr. Moreau is either the doctor from H. G. Wells’ novel or a descendant. The Phantom of the Paradise is from the movie of the same name. Victor Baron is one of the monsters created by the Frankenstein family, now living in the Nekropolis and carrying on his creator’s work. Dr. Jekyll needs no introduction. Jacob Marley’s ghost is from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Nekropolis is similar to the Nightside, from Simon R. Green’s series of novels, but the relationship between the two has yet to be revealed. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Artful

The Artful Dodger and young Abraham “Bram” Van Helsing struggle against vampires seeking to rule England. The Baker Street Irregulars also appear, and it is stated that their leader is always called Wiggins. Apparently the concept of the Irregulars predates Sherlock Holmes’ involvement with them. In the preface, A Christmas Carol is described as a biographical study. David, explaining how the Dodger avoided being shipped off to Australia, writes “By now, you are doubtless becoming impatient in wondering just how it was that the Artful was walking the streets of London rather than striding the deck of a ship bound for the land of Oz (an excursion not to be confused with his later unexpected journey to the Land of Oz, an astoundingly unlikely sequence of events that will remain unexplored for the duration of this history.”) The portrayal of Fagin as a vampire, and the revelation in the novel’s final sentence that he will later become Jack the Ripper, place this novel outside CU continuity.

Crossover Cover: Hoare and the Matter of Treason

Captain Bartholomew Hoare makes conversation with Horatio Hornblower, who has just come out of the Port Officer's office. Hoare first met Hornblower (from C.S. Forester's novels) in Perkins' story "Hoare and the Frog Prince." Vice Admiral Sir Hugh Abercrombie asks Hoare to look into the disappearance of one of his senior confidential clerks, after his underling Lestrade fails to turn up any results. Given his investigative work and his description as resembling a ferret, this Lestrade is probably meant to be an ancestor of Inspector Lestrade from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Abercrombie also has a meek clerk named Cratchit, presumably a relative of the equally mild-mannered clerk Bob Cratchit from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Hoare and his gunner’s mate, Titus Thoday, find a figurine of a falcon inside the man’s room. Hoare “had seen a similar figurine before, somewhere in the Med, in ninety-one or thereabouts—in Malta, if memory served him correctly.” The figurine Hoare previously encountered was the Maltese Falcon, of course.

Crossover Cover: Hoare and the Headless Captains

In this novel by Wilder Perkins, the second of three naval mysteries featuring Bartholomew Hoare, one of Hoare's men uses the phrase "the lesser evil," which reminds Hoare of “the jape invented by one of the more successful frigate captains—Bolitho? Cochrane? He was wont to challenge a new acquaintance to a wager upon which of two beetle larvae, chosen at random from among those tapped from a piece of ship’s biscuit, would be the first to reach the edge of the table. The unwitting newcomer naturally chose the larger grub. When it lost, as it always did, Captain Whoever would joyfully advise the stranger ‘always to select the lesser of two weevils’ and nearly burst his breeches with laughter at his own paltry jest. Aubrey. That was the joker’s name. Lucky Jack Aubrey, they called him, from the wealth of prize money he had won at sea—and squandered ashore.” Lucky Jack Aubrey appeared in a series of novels by Patrick O'Brian, and was brought into the CU by a reference in Jess Nevins' story "Rocambole: Red in Tooth and Claw." The "lesser of two weevils" quote first appeared in O'Brian's The Fortunes of War. Richard Bolitho is the protagonist of a series of novels by Alexander Kent, and this crossover brings him in as well. Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald, is not a fictional character, but a real person who served as a Naval captain during the Napoleonic Wars. In the third Hoare book, Hoare and the Matter of Treason, which I have not yet read, Hoare encounters Horatio Hornblower, a clerk named Cratchit (presumably a relative of the Cratchit family from Dickens' A Christmas Carol) and a man named Lestrade (who is described as resembling a ferret, as was Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes stories, suggesting that Perkins' Lestrade is an ancestor of Doyle's character.)