Crossover Covers: Adler

 

In 1902, nurse Jane Eyre returns from the Boer War and takes up rooms at Briony Lodge with Irene Adler. Soon, they must stop Ayesha, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, from destroying London. Along with various characters from the Holmes stories, also appearing are Estella Havisham (from Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations), Carmilla, Arthur Raffles, King Rudolf V of Ruritania, Queen Flavia, Rupert of Hentzau, Dr. Seward, the Demeter, Phileas Fogg, and Dr. Jekyll. Various anachronisms and reinterpretations of characters make this an AU. 

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from 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: Dracula's Ghost

 

Detective Jennifer Grail and occult investigator Carter Decamp once again do battle with Dracula. Jen borrows Kharrn’s sword from Decamp. Mircalla Karnstein, aka Carla Lim and Carmilla, seeks to resurrect Dracula. Decamp consults the Ruthvenian, and plans to check Pursuivant’s Vampiricon. Decamp arranges for Jen to meet with a contact of Wade Griffin, who is in a relationship with Decamp’s apprentice Charon. Decamp reminds Jen of what Victor told them about Dracula’s first resurrection. Jennifer Grail, Carter Decamp, and Kharrn are recurring characters in Rutledge’s work. Dracula should need no explanation. Mircalla “Carmilla” Karnstein is from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” The Ruthvenian is a tome of vampire lore from the connected works of Donald F. Glut. Judge Pursuivant is one of Manly Wade Wellman’s occult detectives. The Vampiricon is mentioned in the Pursuivant stories. Wade Griffin and Charon are from James A. Moore and Rutledge’s Griffin and Price series, in which Decamp is a supporting character. Dracula’s Revenge had Jen and Decamp fighting Dracula alongside the Frankenstein Monster, who had adopted his creator’s first name, Victor.

This crossover is one of over a thousand covered in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, coming this summer from 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

November-December 4, 1804

NAPOLEON’S VAMPIRE HUNTERS 

Jean-Pierre Séverin, the director of the Paris Morgue, and exorcist Franz von Karnstein are recruited by Napoleon Bonaparte to prevent the vampire Marquis de Saint-Evremonde and his army of werewolves from taking his life before he can be crowned Emperor. Appearing or mentioned are a harridan knitting as people were guillotined, Kronos, Grost, Vicomte de Meilcour, Countess Mircalla of Styria, Baron Vordenburg, the Scholomance, the Deep School, the Rue Morgue, Estaminet de l’Epi-Scié, Châteaupers, a man named Thénardier and his wife, the Dark Academy, the Brotherhood of the Ram, the Necronomicon, Bertrand des Amis, the Vicomte de Valmont. Geof, Cabot, the legendary Monsieur de Bergerac, the Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr, Father Sandor, a being in a pale robe of indeterminate color and a yellow mask, Saint-Evremonde's descendant, the Domdaniel, Dr. Patou, and the Countess Marcian Gregoryi. 

Novel by Frank Schildiner, Black Coat Press, 2017. Jean-Pierre Séverin, Dr. Germain Patou, and Countess Marcian Gregoryi are from Paul Féval’s The Vampire Countess. The Estaminet de l’Epi-Scié is from Féval’s novels about the criminal conspiracy known as the Black Coats. The Karnstein family, including Countess Mircalla, and the Barons Vordenburg are from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” The knitting harridan (Madame Defarge) and the Marquis de Saint-Evremonde's descendant (Charles Darnay) are from Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Captain Kronos and Professor Hieronymous Grost are from the movie Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter. The Vicomte de Meilcour is from Crébillon fils’ novel Strayings of the Heart and Mind, or Memoirs of M. De Meilcour. The Scholomance and the Deep School are supposedly real schools of magic mentioned in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Manly Wade Wellman’s John Thunstone stories, respectively. The Rue Morgue is from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Captain Phoebus de Châteaupers is from Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-dame. The Thénardiers are from Hugo’s Les Misérables. The Dark Academy is from the video game Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. The Brotherhood of the Ram is from Dennis Wheatley’s The Satanist. The Necronomicon is the most infamous tome of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Bertrand des Amis and the Marquis de la Tour d’Azyr are from Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche. The Vicomte de Valmont is from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ novel Dangerous Liaisons. “Cabot” is French for “Mutt,” making Cabot and Geof the title characters of Bud Fisher’s comic strip Mutt and Jeff. For an explanation of the duo’s longevity, see Dennis E. Power’s article “Immortal Befuddled,” found on the Wold Newton Universe: A Secret History website. Geof’s relative is the Vicomte de Valvert from Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac. Father Sandor is from the Hammer film Dracula: Prince of Darkness. Presumably the nineteenth century Sandor is a descendant of the eighteenth-century priest. The being in the pale robe and yellow mask is the King in Yellow, from Robert W. Chambers’ collection of the same name. The Domdaniel is from “Dom Chaves” (Denis Chavis) and Jacques Cazotte’s Arabian Tales; or, A Continuation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments. 

This crossover writeup is just one of the hundreds included in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3, which will be published by Meteor House! Much like its predecessors, this book is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: From a Drood to a Kill

Eddie Drood takes action when his beloved, Molly Metcalf, is abducted by the Powers That Be to take part in the Big Game. Appearing or mentioned are: the Merlin Glass, the London Knights; MI 13; the London Knights, Kayleigh's Eye, the Nightside, Saint Jude's Church, Strangefellows, Walker, Dead Boy, the Night Times, Castle Inconnu, Harry Fabulous, John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie, and the Hawk's Wind Bar and Grill (all from Green's Nightside series); Area 52 (probably the same one seen in the titular Image Comics miniseries); an old 1930s Hirondel (the same fictional car driven by Simon Templar, the Saint); Queen Mab (from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet); King Oberon and Queen Titania, and Puck (from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream); the original Fantom of the Paris Opera (from Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera); Charlotte Karstein, the Wilderness Witch (possibly a relative of Carmilla Karnstein from J. Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire tale "Carmilla"); Castle Frankenstein (from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and its many adaptations and sequels); the Ninteen Sixties Black Beauty (from the 1960s Green Hornet television series); a shocking pink Rolls-Royce (Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward's car, FAB 1, from the Supermarionation show Thunderbirds, which takes place in the 2060s; presumably the Droods acquired the car through time travel, and possibly dimensional travel as well); the only occasionally successful Lotus submersible (from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me); Julien Advent (from the Nightside books, but a thinly-veiled version of the title character of the television series Adam Adamant Lives!); Shadows Fall, Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat, and Old Father Time (from Green's novel Shadows Fall); the Carnacki Institute and Catherine Latimer (from Green's Ghost Finders series); Deathstalker (the protagonist of another series of novels by Green, which take place in an alternate future); Jason Royal (a thinly veiled version of the main character of the British television series Department S and Jason King); Lady Gaea (aka Gayle), Carrys Galloway, the Waking Beauty, and Bradford-on-Avon (from Green's novel Drinking Midnight Wine); the Doormouse and his House of Doors (from the Nightside series, though the Doormouse is a member of a group of hippies turned into mice first seen in Drinking Midnight Wine); Robot Archibald (meant to be Robot Archie, who appeared in the British weekly comic book Lion); knock-off Hyde (Dr. Henry Jekyll's formula from Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, used as a drug); Martian Red Weed (from H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds); and smoked black centipede meat (from William S. Burroughs' novel Naked Lunch.)

Crosssover Cover: Les Ogres de Montfaucon

A collection of short stories featuring Edgar Allan Poe’s sleuth C. Auguste Dupin. In “Les Ogres de Montfaucon,” Paris is struck by an epidemic of the Red Death from Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death.” No date is given for these events. In “Le Vampire de Prague” (“The Vampire of Prague,”) set in 1820, a twenty-year old Dupin hunts a vampire through Europe and meets Dr. Martin Hesselius from J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla.” In “Le Drame de Reichenbach” (“The Drama of Reichenbach,”) set in 1855, Dupin witnesses a duel at the Reichenbach Falls between Giacomo Moriarti, an Italian gentleman, and Sherrinford Holmes, the husband of Cornélia Vernet and father of Mycroft and Sherlock. Holmes accuses Moriarti of seducing his fiancée Cornélia ten years ago, resulting in a son, Jacques, who is being raised by Moriarti in Italy. According to Moriarti, he and Cornélia simply rescued the baby, who was a Parisian foundling, and he adopted him as his son. At the end of the duel, Moriarti falls from a cliff, and Holmes disappears. “Giacomo” is the Italian equivalent of the English name “James,” while “Jacques” is the French version of that name. A birthdate of 1800 does not fit with Dupin’s family history as outlined in Tarzan Alive, nor do the genealogies for Sherlock Holmes and Professor Moriarty given by Dôle fit with Farmer’s versions. Therefore, I place these stories in an AU.

Crossover Cover: The Vampire Almanac (Volume 1)

This anthology of vampire stories published by Black Coat Press consists of several reprinted tales and seven new stories. Frank J. Morlock's "Entretien with a Vampire," Rick Lai's "All Predators Great and Small," Frank J. Morlock's "The Adventure of the Beneficent Vampire," and Win Scott Eckert's "Les Lèvres Rouges" were included by Win in the first two volumes of Crossovers. I had already read Rick's "Vampire Renaissance," Michel Stéphan's "The Three Lives of Maddalena," Matthew Baugh's "Quest of the Vourdalaki," Brian Gallagher's "City of the Nosferatu," Frank Schildiner's "The Blood of Frankenstein," Christofer Nigro's "The Ultimate Prize" and "Requiem for a Regime," and David McDonald's "The Girl from Odessa" and "The Lesser of Two Evils" when they were originally published and written them up. Of the seven stories new to this collection, five have crossovers. In Matthew Dennion's "Hope for Forgiveness," the Scarlet Pimpernel attempts to provide safe passage out of France to a woman named Lenore (who, unbeknownst to him, is a vampire), but is prevented from doing so by Captain Kronos. The Scarlet Pimpernel is from Baroness Orczy’s novels. Lenore is the title character of a ballad by Gottfried August Bürger, first published in 1774. Captain Kronos is from the Hammer film Captain Kronos – Vampire Hunter.  In Martin Gately's "The Moon Hag," a metaphysician named Professor Quercus encounters Elsa Karnstein and her daughter Carmilla aboard a ship, and ultimately becomes their servant. Elsa and Karmilla initially claim to be Madame and Malicarla Strenkin of the House of Dolingen. Carmilla is the title character of the classic vampire story by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Carmilla’s mother Elsa and Professor Quercus also appear in Le Fanu’s story, though neither are referred to by name. The House of Dolingen is a reference to the vampire Countess Dolingen of Gratz from Bram Stoker’s story “Dracula’s Guest,” generally believed to be the deleted original first chapter of Dracula. In Matthew Dennion's "Predators and Prey," the Earthman Gullivar Jones reluctantly teams up with the vampires of Mars to rescue Princess Heru from the equally bloodthirsty Erloor. Gullivar Jones and Princess Heru are from Edwin L. Arnold’s novel Lieutenant Gullivar Jones: His Vacation. This story takes place a few days after the end of Arnold’s novel. The vampires of Mars and the Erloor are from Gustave Le Rouge’s novel The Vampires of Mars, which has been translated by Brian Stableford for Black Coat Press. In Artikel Unbekannt's "Blood and Fire," a libertine falls prey to two female vampires, one of whom is named Carody. The womanizer’s foe Dr. Orlof was also bitten by the two women. The Countess Nadine Carody is from Jesús Franco’s film Vampyros Lesbos, while Dr. Orlof (also spelled Orloff) is from Franco’s film The Awful Dr. Orloff and its sequels. In Nathan Cabaniss' "Schrodinger's Blood," Edward Delmont comes to the Sâr Dubnotal seeking help. The occult detective reveals that he is being slowly drained of blood via superposition by Alinska, a vampire in the 19^th century who has a grudge against his family. Alinska is from Etienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon’s novel The Virgin Vampire. Edward Delmont is descended from Edouard Delmont, Alinska’s fiancé who spurned her for another woman. The Sâr Dubnotal appeared in a 1909-1910 French pulp series by an anonymous author. He has apparently aged little, if at all, since the early 20^th century, as this story takes place in the present day.