Crossover Cover: The Manifestations of Sherlock Holmes

 

Are you a Sherlock Holmes fan?

Then you'll love this anthology, which includes a story in which Holmes meets Professor Challenger, as well as alternate universe stories involving the Cthulhu Mythos and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde!

For more information, be sure to purchase 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: Atomic-Age Cthulhu

 

Are you a Cthulhu Mythos fan?

Then you'll love this anthology of Mythos stories set in the '50s, three of which contain crossovers!

For more information, be sure to purchase 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: All the Devils Are Here

 

In this story by Jonathan Maberry, Joe Ledger and rare book specialist Lizzie Corbett team up to stop cultists in Turkmenistan who worship Atlach-Nacha. Said cultists are trying to open a door to another world and unleash the Tripod Riders onto our world. Ledger speculates that H. G. Wells must have encountered the Tripods before he wrote his book. This crossover brings together two of Maberry’s series characters, Joe Ledger and Lizzie Corbett. Atlach-Nacha is from Clark Ashton Smith’s Cthulhu Mythos story “The Seven Geases.” The tripods are from H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.

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: The Book of Yig: Revelations of the Serpent

 

Are you a Cthulhu Mythos fan?

Then you'll love this anthology, which contains among other stories Mark Howard Jones' "Still Life with Death" (which has a nod to a Philip Marlowe story) and Peter Rawlik's "Revelations" (which references my all-time favorite television series, Twin Peaks, among other things)!

For more information, be sure to purchase my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! 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 1939 

THE SONG OF THE STORM 

A gangster’s henchman brings I. V. Frost the remains of a manuscript his boss burned, about one of Thomas Carnacki’s cases. In the manuscript, Carnacki identifies the charm on Sir Evan Chichester’s watch as the Talisman of Byagoona, which legend holds dates to antediluvian Stygia, and can allegedly switch one person’s mind into another’s body. The ancient sorcerer currently inhabiting the gangster’s body was given the Talisman by Byagoona. He tells Frost about some of his old foes, including the greatest swordsman in Spanish California and a famous gunfighter and his lover. The entity Rhagorthua taught him how to summon a storm by singing. 

Short story by Matthew Baugh in I. V. Frost: Tales of Mystery and Scientific Detection, Joe Gentile and Kim Perisin, eds., Moonstone Books, 2017. Thomas Carnacki is from William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. Byagoona is a Great Old One from James Ambuehl’s “The Bane of Byagoona.” Stygia is from Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories. The sorcerer wielding the Talisman battled Zorro in Baugh’s story “Zorro and the Bruja” (More Tales of Zorro, Richard Dean Starr, ed., Moonstone Books, 2010), and a fictionalized version of the historical gunfighter Mysterious Dave Mather in his tale “Trail of the Brujo” (Low Noon: Tales of Horror and Dark Fantasy from the Weird Weird West, David B. Riley, ed., Science Fiction Trails, 2012). Rhagorthua is from David Conyers’ “A Handful of Dust.” 

This crossover writeup is one of over a thousand included 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 Covers: Dept. of Monsterology: Sabbaticals

 

At Dunsany College, Professor Booker’s secretary, Mrs. Chandrasekeran, tells a caller that he is not in, and tries to remember where Emma Hampton is on an expedition with one of Dunsany’s field teams, naming the Leng Plateau and Westchester House as possible sites. Team Carnacki is in Scotland, while Team Challenger is on an expedition in South America, on a plateau inhabited by dinosaurs. Javier de Tovar refers to the Yiggian digs in North Africa and Sardinia. The Plateau of Leng is from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos stories. Westchester House is from the titular scenario for the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. Team Carnacki is named for Thomas Carnacki from William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. The South American plateau must be Maple White Land, which was discovered by Team Challenger’s namesake Professor George Edward Challenger in Doyle and Malone’s The Lost World. Yig is from Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop’s “The Curse of Yig” and “The Mound.”

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: Tomb of Ancient Evil

 

Are you a Cthulhu Mythos fan?

Then you'll love this novella by Frank Schildiner featuring Henry Kuttner's pulp hero Thunder Jim Wade that has ties to the Mythos, among other works!

For more information, be sure to purchase 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

March 58 BCE

LUCRETIUS’ MAZE

Titus Crow uses his alien clock to time travel to ancient Rome. Ariston tells Crow and Titus Lucretius Carus a story Rael told him involving a Lamia snatching a newborn. Crow and Lucretius are helped against some cultists by another time traveler, Setni, who serves the Great Brains. Crow begins to see Lucretius more and more as an equal to his friend, Henri-Laurent de Marigny. Yog-Sothoth is mentioned. The Great Brains of Kalapol have deprived Setni of his faithful Pentoser. Another time traveler summons Shub-Niggurath to destroy Rome. The defeated and dying villain identifies himself as Montbrison, who came from 1942 in a time-vest invented by a scientist named Noël Essaillon. Montbrison was previously exposed as a murderer by P.I. Nestor Burma. Setni thinks of Maïcha.

Short story by Jean-Guillaume Lanuque in Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 15: Trompe l’Oeil, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2018; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de l’Ombre (Tome 25), Jean-Marc Lofficier, ed., Rivière Blanche, 2019. Titus Crow and Henri-Laurent de Marigny are the protagonists of a series of Cthulhu Mythos novels by Brian Lumley. Yog-Sothoth is one of Lovecraft’s Outer Gods, while Shub-Niggurath is one of the Great Old Ones. Rael is from Genesis’ album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. Setni, the Great Brains of Kalapol, Pentoser, and Maïcha are from a series of science fiction novels by Pierre Barbet, which represent yet another of the many possible futures for the CU. Montbrison is from 120, Rue de la Gare, one of Léo Malet’s novels about private eye Nestor Burma. Noël Essaillon is from René Barjavel’s novel Future Times Three.

This crossover writeup is one of over a thousand included 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: Happy Forever

 

In this story by Simon R. Green, professional thief Gideon Sable is hired by the father of a former lover to rescue her from a house where Time stands still. The father asks Gideon if he really stole the Hand of Eibon. Gideon finds many references to the house in books about unusual places such as Undertowen, the world below. Eibon is from Clark Ashton Smith’s Cthulhu Mythos stories. London Undertowen is from Green’s Secret Histories novel For Heaven’s Eyes Only and his Ghost Finders novel Spirits from Beyond. It bears noting that following the events of this story another thief assumes the identity of Gideon Sable, acting as the protagonist of a series of novels by Green, which have crossovers of their own.

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: The Bride of the Hound

 

In this story by Joshua M. Reynolds, Charles St. Cyprian, Nadja Highmill, and Philip Wendy-Smythe attend a party at Myrdstone Manor. Carnacki’s death at Ypres is mentioned. Nadja has said barely two words to their host, Delilah Myrdstone, since Gussie’s Christmas party last year. Delilah’s fiancé Mueller tells St. Cyprian certain translations of the Bible reference “the ghouls that burrow.” Wendy-Smythe mentions the primitive buildings found at Exham Priory a few years ago and says von Juntz was right about ghouls. “The Myrdstone Witch-Cult” is mentioned in Lin Carter’s Anton Zarnak story “Curse of the Black Pharaoh.” Carnacki is from William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. Carnacki’s death was likely staged, given his post-World War I appearances in the CU. Gussie is Gussie Fink-Nottle from P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves books. The Biblical references to “the ghouls that burrow” are fictional and derived from Robert Barbour Johnson’s “Far Below.” Exham Priory is from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls.” Friedrich von Juntz, the author of Unaussprechlichen Kulten, is from Robert E. Howard’s Mythos fiction.

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: The Brotherhood of the Wheel

 

Jimmie Aussapile is a member of the Brotherhood of the Wheel, a secret society descended from the Knights Templar, now mostly consisting of bikers, truckers, drifters, and highway patrol, who protect the roads from threats supernatural and mundane. Jimmie meets a Louisiana policewoman named Lovina Marcou, whose sister was killed in the bayou by a cult that John Raymond Legrasse bested a century ago. Jimmie Aussapile first appeared in Belcher’s Nightwise, featuring southern wizard Laytham Ballard. The sequel to Nightwise is The Night Dahlia. Inspector John Raymond Legrasse is from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.”

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: Prisoner on Charon's Ferry

 

Are you a Cthulhu Mythos fan?

Then you'll love the Ibis the Invincible story in this issue, which has an appearance by the Necronomicon!

For more information, be sure to pick up my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it in August! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Cover: Dream a Little Dream of Me

 

Are you a fan of Jonathan Maberry's Joe Ledger series?

Then you'll love Maberry's story in this anthology, featuring his werewolf private eye Sam Hunter, which has several references to the Ledger books!

For more information, be sure to pick up a copy of my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Covers: Changing Faces

 

A stolen truck pulled out of the Miskatonic River is mentioned in this tale of Rufo the Clown. The Miskatonic River is from H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Rufo the Clown is a foe of Moore’s immortal monster hunter Jonathan Crowley. 

This crossover is one of hundreds covered 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

Winter 2005

BETTER THE DEVIL 

The members of Caballistics, Inc. must find who is targeting the organization for extermination. Appearing or mentioned are: the Templars Resurgent; the Starry Wisdom; Delta Green; the Cult of the Black Sun; Hobb’s End; the British Rocket Group; the Wild Hunt; The Carnacki-Silence spectrum generator; the Lamp of Alhazred; Exham Priory; Drax Industries; Flaxton Hall; Cavorite; Wenley Moor; Norrell; Stable Mews; Steed; the Ministry; Frank Marker; Arthur Daley; “Randall and...a partner’s name that had been scrubbed out long ago”; and the Brigadier. 

Novel by Mike Wild, 2000 AD, 2007. The Templars Resurgent are a reference to the Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici from Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum. The Starry Wisdom Church is from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Haunter of the Dark.” Exham Priory is from Lovecraft’s “The Rats in the Walls.” Delta Green is from the titular supplement for the role-playing game Call of Cthulhu. The Cult of the Black Sun is a CU version of the group seen in Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell’s superhero comic Zenith. Hobb’s End and the Wild Hunt are from the movie Quatermass and the Pit. Professor Bernard Quatermass is the head of the British Experimental Rocket Group. The Carnacki-Silence spectrum generator is named after the title characters of William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder and Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence. The Lamp of Alhazred is from August Derleth’s titular Cthulhu Mythos story. Drax Industries is from the film version of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel Moonraker. Flaxton Hall is from the television series The Flaxton Boys. Cavorite is from H. G. Wells’ The First Men in the Moon. Wenley Moor is from the Doctor Who serial “Doctor Who and the Silurians.” The Brigadier is the Doctor’s ally, Brigadier Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. Norrell is Gilbert Norrell from Susanna Clarke’s alternate history fantasy novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Wild describes Norrell as having “a kind of otherworldliness,” implying he comes from an alternate universe. In the television series The Avengers, Ministry agent John Steed lived at 3 Stable Mews. Frank Marker is from the TV series Public Eye. Arthur Daley is from the show Minder. “Randall and...a partner’s name that had been scrubbed out long ago” refers to the show Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). 

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: The Miskatonic University Spiritualism Club

 

Are you a fan of the Back to the Future films?

Then you'll love this Cthulhu Mythos novella by Peter Rawlik, which has ties to that series and a number of other works!

For more information, be sure to check out my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3 when Meteor House publishes it! All three volumes are AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover Covers: Dept. of Monsterology

 

Dunsany College’s Department of Cryptozoology, Mythological Studies, Parapsychology, and Fortean Phenomena, funded by the Hampton Foundation, has three field teams: Teams Challenger, Carnacki, and the long-lost Carter, whose members died on a space mission. The gold idol Indiana Jones lost in 1936 and the Lament Configuration are seen in Department head Professor Booker’s office. Team Challenger goes on an underwater expedition at 47°9’S 126°43’W, encountering fish men in the process, and recovering a squid-headed idol. Cryptogeographer Javier De Tovar says the markings on the idol are like those in the Ponape Manuscript. Meanwhile, Team Carnacki goes up against some jiangshi (Chinese vampires); a folk tradition from Szechuan suggests the hoofs of a black donkey as a weapon against the undead. Carnacki member Dominic Belasco is described as a “necronaut.” Miskatonic and “Kostabi’s people” are suggested among the parties who may have beat Carnacki to their next destination. In the Pacific, Challenger encounters a dinosaur, whose home De Tovar describes as late Pnakotic Era civilization ruins. A picture from Team Carter’s expedition to Yuggoth is seen. Dunsany’s first expedition to the Antarctic brought back a star-headed creature. The Department’s field teams are named after Arthur Conan Doyle’s Professor Challenger, William Hope Hodgson’s Thomas Carnacki, and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ warlord of Mars, respectively. The gold idol is from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. The Lament Configuration is from the Hellraiser films. 47°9’S 126°43’W are the coordinates of R’lyeh according to H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu.” The fish men are the Deep Ones from Lovecraft’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” The squid-headed idol is of Cthulhu. The Ponape Manuscript is from Lin Carter’s Cthulhu Mythos stories. Miskatonic University is mentioned in several of Lovecraft’s stories, as is Yuggoth. The Pnakotic Era refers to Lovecraft’s Pnakotic Manuscripts. The star-headed creature is an Elder Thing from Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness.” The idea of black donkey hooves being used to fight jiangshi comes from Zhang Muye’s Ghost Blows Out the Light. Necronauts is a comic by Rennie and Frazer Irving. “Kostabi’s people” refers to Rennie and Dom Reardon’s comic Caballistics, Inc. 

This crossover is one of hundreds covered 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: Castle Dark

 

Adventuress Frances West battles the vampire Drakkar alongside her friend and sometime lover Maxim Gunn. Drakkar controls creatures called diablosaurs. At the end, Drakkar relocates to Arkham, Massachusetts. Maxim Gunn appears in his own series of novels by Boving, which has several connections to the CU. The diablosaurs, created by Maurice Renard’s character Dr. Lerne, first appeared in Boving’s “Wings of Fear” (Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 9: La Vie en Noir, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2012). At the end of that story, the last surviving diablosaur escaped. Perhaps the diablosaurs seen here were the result of someone’s attempt to recreate Lerne’s experiment, since otherwise it’s unlikely the surviving one would have been able to reproduce. Arkham, Massachusetts is a recurring setting in H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos tales. 

This crossover is one of hundreds covered 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: The Hound's Daughter

This story by Josh Reynolds takes place in 1924. Charles St. Cyprian’s longtime foe Dr. Gottlieb Hochmuller, aka the Hound, was a member of the Kaiser’s sorcerous cabal alongside Professor ten Brinken. When Hochmuller’s daughter, Nadja Highmill, asks St. Cyprian if ghosts leave tracks, he replies, “Some. That unpleasant business at the Red Lodge comes to mind.” The Si-Fan lurk in every opium den not owned by the Sisterhood of Rats. Hochmuller’s notes are a cavalcade of horrors such as even Prinn and Alhazred might’ve blanched at. Dr. Wilfred Ptolemy, who is working with Hochmuller, mentions the Moreau Fallacy. Professor Jakob ten Brinken is from Hanns Heinz Ewers’ Alraune. The Red Lodge is from H. R. Wakefield’s ghost story of the same name. The Si-Fan is Dr. Fu Manchu’s organization. Abdul Alhazred is the author of the Necronomicon in H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. The Moreau Fallacy is named after the titular vivisectionist from H. G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau. 

This crossover is one of hundreds covered 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

Summer 2021

WHAT SONG THE SIRENS SANG 

A man calling himself Smith offers Gideon Sable and his lover Annie Anybody a stone that he says contains the last echoes of the sirens’ song. The stone is then stolen by Switch It Sally, the wife of crew member Lex Talon, aka the Damned, who was forced to do it by her abductor, a collector known as Coldheart. Gideon says the original Gideon Sable, whose name he assumed after his disappearance, specialized in stealing the kind of things others couldn’t, including jewels from the crown of the man who would be king. In disguise, Gideon and Annie visit Honest John’s Magical Emporium and World of Wonders, where the password of the day is “Swordfish.” Gideon and Annie pilfer Honest John’s Secret Stash, which includes Tom Pierce’s grimoire, which Gideon realizes transported several people to Widdicombe Fair, rather than an old grey mare doing so; the cocoon of a death’s-head were-moth; a pop-up edition of the Necronomicon; and Dracula’s skull, as well as the smaller skull of Dracula when he was a boy, which Gideon is skeptical about. Gideon and Annie have stolen Honest John’s swag for their own shop, Old Harry’s Place, which they inherited from the previous owner and the store’s namesake. Gideon says some of the stacks that used to fill up Old Harry’s went back so far he worried he’d end up in Narnia. Gideon says the rock has a special presence, like the Maltese Falcon or the last of the Anglo-Saxon Crowns. Gideon, Annie, and Lex visit Murray the Mentalist, whose other personae include Madame Osiris. Murray tells them to recruit Polly Perkins, a werewolf whose tracking talents will come in handy. Murray says he will transport the foursome to Seattle, where Coldheart is based, through the Low Road, the path the dead use to take them from this world to the next. Gideon says the Hagges are always watching the Low Road. 

Novel by Simon R. Green. The man who would be king is a reference to Rudyard Kipling’s story of the same name and its title character, Daniel Dravot. The use of “Swordfish” as a password is a nod to the Marx Brothers film Horse Feathers. Tom Pierce (or Pearce) is from the Devon folk song “Widecombe Fair.” The death’s-head were-moth is a nod to the film The Blood Beast Terror. The Necronomicon is the most infamous tome in H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Dracula needs no introduction. Narnia is from C. S. Lewis’ novels. The Maltese Falcon is from Dashiell Hammett’s titular detective novel. Madame Osiris and the Hagges are from Green’s Secret Histories novel Live and Let Drood. Polly Perkins was the alias used by a disguised elf in Green’s Nightside novel The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny. Presumably, the elf took the name from the real Polly. The Low Road first appeared in Green’s Ghost Finders series. 

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!