Crossover Cover: The Further Crossovers of Sherlock Holmes

 

Are you a fan of Sherlock Holmes?

Than you'll love this anthology, which consists of stories teaming the Great Detective with not only historical figures, but also fictional ones such as Catherine Louisa Pirkis' Loveday Brooke, Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, and Arthur B. Reeve's Craig Kennedy!

For more information, check out 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: The Uncrowned King

 

In the winter of 1794, a tall Englishman brings the young Dauphin, Louis XVII, to the Priory Church of Gmünd. In 1860, Louis’s widow conspires to place their son on the throne of France. When he is captured and imprisoned by Napoleon III’s secret police, his maternal half-brother must assume his identity. The tall Englishman is the Scarlet Pimpernel, whose rescue of the Dauphin was seen in Orczy’s Eldorado.

For lots more cool crossovers like this, check out 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: The Bronze Eagle

The Comte de Cambray and his family were rescued from the guillotine by the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. The references to the Scarlet Pimpernel bring this standalone novel by Baroness Orczy, which begins with Napoleon’s return from exile and ends on the date of the Battle of Waterloo, into the CU.

Crossover Cover: A Joyous Adventure

Martin Saint-Denys, a former member of the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, becomes involved in a scheme to restore the royal house of Bourbon to the throne of France. The Pimpernel is mentioned several times in this standalone novel by Baroness Orczy, bringing it into the CU.

This crossover is only one of thousands that receive write-ups in my books Crossovers Expanded Vols. 1 and 2, which are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's superb books Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Vols. 1 and 2. Both volumes will debut at the Meteor House booth at PulpFest/FarmerCon in Columbus, OH on July 21-24. Win (who provided the foreword for Vol. 1) and I will be on hand to sign copies, as will William Patrick Maynard (who provided the foreword to Vol. 2, and is the author of the excellent continuations of the Fu Manchu series published by Black Coat Press) and Keith Howell (who provided the cover art for both volumes, as well as Win's Pat Wildman novella The Scarlet Jaguar, Meteor House's edition of Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, and a host of other cool books)!

Crossover of the Week

February 1920

THE STRIX SOCIETY

            Two policemen are standing on the stoop of No. 427 Cheyne Walk as Charles St. Cyprian, Britain’s Royal Occultist, speaks to Lord Curzon, the country’s Foreign Minister. St. Cyprian thinks that Curzon’s future son-in-law Oswald Mosley is, “in the words of the honourable Freddie Threepwood, an absolutely perfect perisher.” St. Cyprian asks Curzon why he does not hire a detective to investigate Mosley’s involvement with the hedonistic Strix society, saying “You can find them in practically every A.B.C. teashop and Piccadilly flat. I have that fellow Blake’s number, if you’d like.” The two discuss an affair in Persia during the War, one of St. Cyprian’s last cases as Carnacki’s assistant. Going up against the Sisterhood of the Rats or the Si-Fan when, by and large, they adequately police themselves, is not something St.Cyprian looks forward to. St. Cyprian remembers how he tried to lose himself in parties and drink after the war, snatching policemen’s helmets with the Wooster crowd and swimming in the Trafalgar fountains with the Runcible set. St. Cyprian traces the sacred shape of the Voorish Sign in the air with a finger and lets his inner eye flicker open. He recalls his encounter in Seven Dials with the mummy of a pharaoh awakened by the Esoteric Order of Thoth-Ra. St. Cyprian uses the powder of Ibn Ghazi to view the members of the Strix Society, who have taken the forms of vampire-spirits. One of St. Cyprian’s predecessors’ journals has a few Greek flowers that turn people into such wraiths pressed between its pages, “plucked from the lonely mountain grave of Sir Francis Varney himself.”

            Short story by Josh Reynolds in Occult Detectives, Ron Fortier, ed., Airship 27 Productions, 2014. No. 427 Cheyne Walk and Thomas Carnacki are from William Hope Hodgson’s short story collection Carnacki the Ghost-Finder. Freddie Threepwood is from P.G. Wodehouse’s Blandings novels, while the Wooster crowd is a reference to Bertie Wooster from Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster books. The A.B.C. teashop reference is an allusion to the titular detective from Baroness Orczy’s The Old Man in the Corner. The Piccadilly flat reference is to Dorothy L. Sayers’ sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. Blake is Sexton Blake, the most famous of all British penny dreadful detectives. The Si-Fan is the criminal organization run by Sax Rohmer’s Dr. Fu Manchu. The Runcible set is a reference to Agatha Runcible from Evelyn Waugh’s novel Vile Bodies. The Voorish Sign and the powder of Ibn Ghazi are from H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Dunwich Horror.” The pharaoh awakened by the Esoteric Order of Thoth-Ra was Nephren-Ka from Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark,” whom St. Cyprian battled in “The Unwrapping Party.” Sir Francis Varney is from James Malcolm Rymer’s serialized horror story Varney the Vampire. The year is specifically given as 1920, and Curzon refers to St. Cyprian’s handling of “that disturbance at the Voyagers Club last week.” In Reynolds’ novel The Jade Suit of Death, set in March of the same year, the Voyagers Club affair is said to have taken place “last month.” Therefore, “The Strix Society” takes place in February of 1920.

Crossover Cover: The Jade Suit of Death

The Jade Suit of Death is Josh Reynolds' second full-length novel featuring his series character Charles St. Cyprian, England's Royal Occultist handling supernatural threats to Queen and Country, and his assistant, Ebe Gallowglass. As with most of the other Royal Occultist stories, there are plenty of crossovers in this one. Once again, St. Cyprian's predecessor Thomas Carnacki (from William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost-Finder) is mentioned several times. Lady Molly Robertson-Kirk, the title character of Baroness Orczy's Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, has a supporting role. New Pulp author Jim Beard's occult detective Sgt. Janus is alluded to. A character is described as part of the "Kensington Circle" of occultists, which also included John Silence (from Algernon Blackwood's collection of the same name), the Sar Dubnotal (a French pulp character created by an anonymous author), and Flaxman Low (from E. and H. Heron's Ghosts; Being the Experiences of Flaxman Low.) St. Cyprian has a figurine of a falcon in his Cheyne Walk home (the Maltese Falcon, of course.) There are others that will be covered in my writeup for the novel in the book. Josh Reynolds is a wonderful writer, and I highly recommend his work.