Crossover Cover: Strange Incursions

 

This chapbook contains two stories by Jason Scott Aiken.

"The Blood of Raizor" is set in 11,550 BCE. In Northeast Africa, the lion Raizor and his sons, Tyton and Rohrdeth, battle a leopard-like alien. Raizor is killed, but his sons are changed by devouring the flesh of their foe. Tyton finds himself invulnerable, possessing more powerful claws, and unaging. In Nemea, he is slain by Heracles. Rohrdeth and his descendants possess a golden hide and enhanced intelligence and senses. The alien is of the same race as Coeurl from A. E. van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer.” According to Philip José Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift, Heracles was really John Gribardsun, an immortal time traveler from the future. One of Rohrdeth’s descendants will have a connection to Gribardsun.

In "Galazi in the Enchanted City," Galazi the Wolf investigates the murders of three members of his tribe of “ghost-wolves,” not far from the village of the People of the Axe, led by his friend Umslopogaas. Galazi sees a baobab tree that bears the images of the so-called demons of Lake Tanganyika: Loubari, Mgoussa, and Mousammouria. Galazi is captured and taken to a temple whose roof bears a grey stone sphere with a winged marble woman atop it. He is brought before Queen Touloumia of Mkinyaga. Long ago, the capital of Touloumia’s nation, Akribanza, was just one of a hundred cities in the vast empire of Kôr. A cavern wall bears the image of a man with a knife and a bow. The witch Nomma receives visions from the waters of a crystal basin. Among these visions are a muscular bronze-skinned youth breaking a leopard’s back, a bronze-skinned swordsman and a bearded giant battling soldiers, another bronze-skinned young man and a one-eyed dwarf, a white man wielding a cat-headed staff, a giant looking much like the earlier one battling what appears to be an older version of Umslopogaas, and a black warrior wielding the same type of sword as the bronzed swordsman fighting alongside a grey-haired white man and a robed bronze-skinned man battling beastly creatures near a giant crystalline stalk. Galazi the Wolf is from H. Rider Haggard’s Nada the Lily. Umslopogaas appears in not only that book, but the Allan Quatermain series as well. Loubari, Mgoussa, Mousammouria, and Queen Touloumia are from Eugène Hennebert’s The Enchanted City. The statue of the winged woman is a symbol of Truth seen in Haggard’s She and Philip José Farmer and Christopher Paul Carey’s The Song of Kwasin. Kôr is the city ruled by Ayesha, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. The man with the knife and bow is Sahhindar from Farmer’s Khokarsa series. Sahhindar is also the immortal time traveler John Gribardsun from Farmer’s Time’s Last Gift, but he is best known as the lord of the apes. The crystal basin is from Haggard’s She and Allan. The bronze-skinned youth is King Minruth from the Ancient Opar books in his younger years. The bronze-skinned swordsman and the bearded giant are Hadon of Opar and his cousin Kwasin from the Ancient Opar series. The other bronze-skinned young man is Hadon’s son Kohr, while the one-eyed dwarf is Paga, whom Farmer meant to be Pag from Haggard’s Allan and the Ice-Gods. The white man with the cat-headed staff is Robert E. Howard’s Puritan adventurer Solomon Kane. The battle between Umslopogaas and the bearded giant Rezu (whose description is identical to Kwasin’s, whose fate is left open-ended at the end of The Song of Kwasin) is depicted in She and Allan. The black warrior, N’desi, is from Carey and Win Scott Eckert’s “Iron and Bronze.” The grey-haired man is Hareton Ironcastle from J.-H. Rosny Aîné’s Hareton Ironcastle’s Amazing Adventure, adapted and translated by Farmer as Ironcastle. The bronze man is Doc Ardan from Guy d’Armen’s Doc Ardan: City of Gold and Lepers, who Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier’s translation identified with a certain bronze-skinned doctor and crimefighter. The beastly creatures are the Wandarobo from John Peter Drummond’s Ki-Gor pulp stories, who Carey and Eckert implied to be exiles from Opar, originally from the Tarzan novels. The crystalline stalk is an extension of the mineral-vegetable-king from Ironcastle, and related to the Crystal Tree of Time from Farmer’s Tarzan and the Dark Heart of Time.

These crossovers are two 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: Doc Ardan: The Abominable Snowman

 

Are you a French pulp fan?

Then you'll love this anthology of reprinted and new stories featuring Guy d'Armen's hero Francis "Doc" Ardan!

For more information, be sure to preorder 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: Doc Ardan: The Troglodytes of Mount Everest/The Treasure of Black Lake

 

Are you a French pulp fiction fan?

Then you'll love this collection of two linked novels by Guy d'Armen featuring his character Francis "Doc" Ardan, which has shout-outs to a number of characters and places from French, British, and American popular fiction!

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 of the Week

Autumn 1940

RED SHAMBHALA 

Jim Anthony battles a Russian villain called Koschei. Appearing or mentioned are: Xonira; the Heart of Fortune; the Bugle; the Globe; the New York Inquirer; Sovereign City; Maple White Land; Richard Upton Pickman’s infamous painting “Subway Accident”; Campalans; the Brainerd punch-card automata; Thunder Jim Wade; Doc Ardan; Hanoi Xan and his World Crime League; the Si-Fan; the Brotherhood of the Golden Chrysanthemum; the Vampires of Paris; the Order of the Cosmic Ram; Commissioner Warner; the Black Bat; the Kingscote School for Girls; St. Trinian’s; and a Freiburg dance academy of dubious reputation. 

Novel by Joshua Reynolds, Pro Se Productions, 2015. Jim Anthony appeared in the pulp magazine Super Detective. Xonira is from Derrick Ferguson’s Dillon series. The Heart of Fortune is the riverboat home and gambling casino of Ferguson’s character Fortune McCall. The Daily Bugle and the Daily Globe are from Marvel’s Spider-Man comics. The New York Inquirer is from the classic film Citizen Kane. Sovereign City is the setting of a book imprint from Pro Se; Fortune McCall is one of the city’s heroes. Maple White Land is from Arthur Conan Doyle and Edward Malone’s The Lost World. Richard Upton Pickman and his painting “Subway Accident” are from H. P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model.” The fictional cubist painter Jusep Torres Campalans was the subject of a biography by Max Aub. The Brainerd punch-card automata are based on technology invented by Johnny Brainerd in Edward S. Ellis’ The Steam Man of the Prairies. Thunder Jim Wade appeared in stories by “Charles Stoddard” (Henry Kuttner) in the pulp magazine Thrilling Adventures. Doc Ardan is from Guy d’Armen’s Doc Ardan: City of Gold and Lepers. Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier’s adaptation and translation of that novel implied Ardan was really a famous American pulp hero. Hanoi Xan and the World Crime League are from the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. The Si-Fan is from Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels. The Brotherhood of the Golden Chrysanthemum is mentioned in several works by Reynolds. The Vampires of Paris are from the serial Les Vampires. The Order of the Cosmic Ram is from Reynolds’ Royal Occultist series. Commissioner Jerome Warner is from the Black Bat stories. The Kingscote School for Girls is from Antonia Forest’s Marlow novels. St. Trinian’s is the setting of a comic strip by Ronald Searle. The Freiburg dance academy is from the movie Suspiria.

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: Doc Ardan: The Fall of Inramonda

 

Are you a fan of Guy d'Armen's Doc Ardan stories?

Then you'll love this novel, which has ties to both Henri Vernes' Bob Morane series and the Cthulhu Mythos!

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! Like its predecessors, this latest volume is an official and AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2!

Crossover of the Week

August 17, 1939

BRONZE LADY DOWN

            Doctor Omega and his companion Madeline travel to the year 1939 in the Cosmos to attend the premiere of the film version of The Wizard of Oz. However, a temporal alteration causes the people around them to become poverty-stricken and hostile. They are saved by a man in black wearing a fedora and scarf and wielding submachine guns, who says that “the weed of exploitation bears bitter fruit.” Omega says that he felt the timeline realign as they traveled back from Oz, but someone else has altered it again. Omega blends in with a mob led by Dick Benson, a short, thickly-built man with pale, expressionless features, who is attacked by a man wearing a fringed black cape and a mask with bat ears, who says that “commies are a superstitious and cowardly lot.” Madeline learns that many human beings and livestock were killed by the von Hessel plague during the Great War. With agriculture destroyed, industry boomed, and the lower classes were adversely affected by the stock market crash. Violence erupted, and criminals with scientific weaponry arose. Omega says that the change to the timestream involves the Ardans and Bogg. At the Library of Congress, Omega has little luck finding reference to the names Wildman, Savage, or Ardan. Finally, he finds a story in a 1922 edition of the New York Daily Bugle about the marriage of Francis Ardan to Catherine Maxwell, daughter of Senator Maxwell. Omega believes that he must ensure that someone dies, and Madeline and he travel to the Caribbean circa June 12, 1902. In November 2 of that year, they witness a woman being saved from an aquatic monster by a blond man. A disheartened Doctor Omega then travels to 1936 to prevent the man who saved the woman from traveling to 1902. The Cosmos materializes on the 86^th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building. There, he accosts Phineas Bogg, and reveals that Bogg’s actions lengthened and intensified the Great Depression. Suddenly, a talking dog named Ralph and a woman named Josie appear. When Omega says that Josie is a member of an organization that polices time, Madeline asks if she knows Manse. Josie responds that she does, but Manse is in the Time Patrol, whereas she is a member of the Time Police. She also states that the temporal anomaly Bogg caused drew her and Ralph there. Omega reveals that Bogg was trying to save Doc Ardan’s mother. Finally, they settle upon a solution: removing Ardan’s mother from her proper time period and placing her in another, while merely allowing the world to believe her dead. When they retrieve Arronaxe Ardan, she asks whether they are Capellean or Eridanean. After Omega incapacitates Ardan, they deposit her in the 29^th Century with false identification papers. As Omega and Madeline depart once again for 1939, Bogg asks if Madeline is Jeffrey’s daughter. Josie responds in the affirmative, referring to Madeline as “Mama.” Madeline asks Omega what the new alias he chose for Arronaxe was, and he replies that it was Clarissa MacDougal.

            Short story by Dennis E. Power in Doctor Omega and the Shadowmen, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2011; reprinted in French in Les Compagnons de L’Ombre (Tome 10), Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2012. This story serves as a sequel to Power’s earlier story “The Deadly Desert Gnome” (Glimmerglass: The Creative Writer’s Annual, Volume 1, John Allen Small, ed., 2009) Doctor Omega is from the novel of the same name by Arnould Galopin; Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier’s adaptation and translation of Galopin’s novel implied that Omega was the CU counterpart of the time and dimension-traveling Doctor, of Doctor Who fame. Madeline is from the children’s books by Ludwig Bemelmans. The man in black with the fedora and scarf is the Shadow. Dick Benson is better known as Paul Ernst’s pulp hero the Avenger. The bat-eared man in the cape and mask is the Batman. Von Hessel is Baron von Hessel from Philip José Farmer’s Doc Savage novel Escape from Loki. Phineas Bogg and his companion Jeffrey Jones are from the television series Voyagers! Francis “Doc” Ardan Jr. is from Guy d’Armen’s novel Doc Ardan: City of Gold and Lepers. The Lofficiers’ adaptation and translation of d’Armen’s novel implied that Ardan was a young Doc Savage. Philip José Farmer revealed that Savage’s real name was James Clarke Wildman Jr., and that his mother was the former Arronaxe Larsen, in his biographies Tarzan Alive and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. The Capelleans and the Eridaneans are the warring alien races seen in Farmer’s novel The Other Log of Phileas Fogg. Doc’s headquarters is on the 86^th floor of the Empire State Building. The Daily Bugle is the New York newspaper Peter Parker (aka Spider-Man) works for as a photographer. Catherine Maxwell is the wife of Bingham Harvard, alias the Night Wind, from the novels by Frederic van Rennselaer Dey and others. Josie Bauer is the adopted daughter of Philip José Farmer and an agent of the Time Police in Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon books. Ralph Von Wau Wau’s career as a detective alongside such capable allies as Dr. Johann H. Weisstein and Cordwainer Bird was chronicled by Jonathan Swift Somers III. Manse Everard is an agent of the Time Patrol in books by Poul Anderson. Clarissa MacDougal is from E.E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensmen novels.

Crossover of the Week

1925

THE DREADFUL CONSPIRACY (L’ABOMINABLE CONSPIRATION)

            Inspector Ménardier interrogates murder suspect and medical student Francis Ardan, aka Clark Savage, Jr. Ardan instructs the Inspector to contact his lawyer, Mr. Theodore Marley Brooks of New York, and refers to the income generated by the Hidalgo Trading Company. One of the victims transferred billion of francs into Ardan’s account at the Depository Bank of Zurich before he died. Judex disguises himself as Vallières, secretary to a banker who took part in a swindle in China with the murdered men. Brooks, nicknamed “Ham,” and Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair walk through Paris. The duo came to France after Colonel John “Renny” Renwick received a letter revealing that Ardan had been arrested. Renny passed the news on to Thomas J. “Long Tom” Roberts and William Harper “Johnny” Littlejohn. Ham is acquainted with Mr. Ferval, the head of the Police Judiciare. Ham and Monk meet with the man presiding over the autopsy of one of the victims, Doctor Jules de Grandin. Ham produces a letter from Judge Coméliau authorizing Ardan to sit in on de Grandin’s analysis of an object found in the skull of the man the de Grandin examined. Ham tells the surving conspirator that two years ago a colleague of Ardan’s, Dr. Lyndon Parker, encountered a Chinese tong called the Si-Fan. One of those who were adversely affected by the conspiracy was Ming Tsai Tsai Tsu, head of the secret society known as the Shin Tan. De Grandin tells Ardan that a man known as Anton Zarnak spent twenty years in Tibet studying the occult with those he called the “Masters of A’alshirie.” Chantecoq, the “king of detectives,” previously identified one of the Shin Tan’s few French agents, Leclerc, whose family had been in the group’s service for several generations according to a report written in the last century by Chevalier Dupin. Monk, Ham, and Ménardier search the Paris catacombs, accompanied by a squad of policemen dispatched by Commissaire Valentin of the notorious Brigades du Tigre. The men sent by Valentin include Inspectors Pujol and Terrasson. One of Ming’s subordinates is his sister, Ivana Orloff, who is related to the Counts Boehm of Germany. Ming used a “Mega Wave” to enslave his victims; an English physician named Doctor Septimus wrote a book on the device.

            Short story by Vincent Jounieaux appearing as “L’Abominable Conspiration” in Les Compagnons de L’Ombre (Tome 10), Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2012, and then in English in The Shadow of Judex, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2013; reprinted in L’Ombre de Judex, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Rivière Blanche, 2013. Inspector Ménardier, Ferval, and Chantecoq are from Arthur Bernède’s novel Belphégor and its simultaneous adaptation as a film serial. Francis Ardan is from Guy d’Armen’s novel Doc Ardan: City of Gold and Lepers. Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier’s adaptation and translation of d’Armen’s novel implied that Ardan was an really a young Clark “Doc” Savage, Jr. Brooks, Mayfair, Renwick, Roberts, and Littlejohn will become Doc’s aides in his future battles against the forces of evil. Although Jounieaux indicates that Ardan/Savage and company are based out of the Empire State Building, that structure had yet to be built in 1925. Doc uses the name of the Hidalgo Trading Company as a front for the warehouse where he stores his vehicles. Judex is from the serial of the same name directed by Louis Feuillade. Doctor Jules de Grandin appeared in several pulp tales by Seabury Quinn. Judge Ernest Coméliau is from the Maigret novels by Georges Simenon. Dr. Lyndon Parker is the best friend and biographer of August Derleth’s sleuth Solar Pons. Pons and Parker’s 1923 encounter with the Si-Fan (from Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu novels) was recounted in “The Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders”; Pons and Parker would have many more encounters with the secret society in the years to come. Ming Tai Tsou, aka Monsieur Ming and the Yellow Shadow, is the leader of the Shin Tan in Henri Vernes’ Bob Morane novels. Ming is aided in the Morane books by his niece Tania Orloff, Ivana’s daughter. Anton Zarnak is an occult detective created by Lin Carter, whose further exploits have been chronicled by several other writers. The Masters of A’alshirie are from Zarnak stories by C.J. Henderson. Leclerc’s ancestor Honoré Leclerc appeared as an agent of the Shin Tan in Dennis E. Power’s story “No Good Deed…” (Tales of the Shadowmen Volume 6: Grand Guignol, Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier, eds., Black Coat Press, 2009.) The Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin appeared in a trio of stories by Edgar Allan Poe. The Brigades du Tigre was the subject of a titular television series from 1974-1983, which featured Valentin, Pujol, and Terrasson as its leads. The Counts Boehm are from Paul Féval’s novel John Devil. The Mega Wave and Doctor Septimus are from The Yellow “M,” a story in Edgar P. Jacobs’ comic book series Blake and Mortimer.