Crossover Cover: Dead Man Walking

 

Are you a fan of Victorian ghost stories?

Then you'll love this novel by Simon R. Green, which has nods to F. Marion Crawford's "The Screaming Skull" and Oscar Wilde's "The Canterville Ghost"!

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

Autumn 1902

THE IGNOBLE SPORTSMEN 

Sherlock Holmes investigates the inexplicable deaths of members of the Fellowship of Herne, a club that hunts humans. The Fellowship’s members include Englishmen, Americans, Canadians, and a few Russians. When Watson idly suggests an invisible animal could be responsible for the deaths, Holmes replies, “There was a strange case, out in the American Southwest, a year or two ago. A man named Morgan was found dead, out among the chaparral. The local constabulary thought it was murder, at first, but...The human eye is an imperfect instrument, Watson. Some things are beyond its perception. There’s supposedly a fellow in West Sussex who’s doing some interesting research into such matters, but for the moment we are forced to rely on it.” The Great Detective and his Boswell have visited Bluegate Fields often, most recently during an investigation into the disappearance of a young aristocrat named Gray. Holmes and Watson crack the case with the help of a Pinkerton named Leverton, who mentions the Red Circle. 

Short story by Dr. Watson, edited by Josh Reynolds in Gaslight Gothic: Strange Tales of Sherlock Holmes, J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, eds., EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2018. One of the Russian members of the Fellowship of Herne is probably General Zaroff from Richard Connell’s story “The Most Dangerous Game.” Hugh Morgan is from Ambrose Bierce’s story “The Damned Thing.” The fellow in Sussex is Griffin from H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. Gray is the title character of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Leverton is from Doyle and Watson’s “The Adventure of the Red Circle,” which Baring-Gould placed in 1902. “The Damned Thing” was first published in 1893, and the events of The Invisible Man take place in 1896. Therefore, Watson must have been engaging in his recurring chronological misdirection by changing Holmes’ words to make the events regarding Morgan and Griffin seem more recent. 

This crossover write up 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

Winter 2017

THE LIBRARIANS AND THE MOTHER GOOSE CHASE 

The Librarians must stop an individual claiming to be Mother Goose from getting her hands on all three of the original volumes of Mother Goose’s Melodies, written by Elizabeth Goose as a book of rhyming spells, and using it to reassemble the World Egg (“putting Humpty Dumpty back together again”) and undo the Big Bang. The team works with descendants of the original author to find the pieces. Cassandra Cillian is offered a drink at a music club, but declines, remembering her inebriated exploits at Dorian Gray’s club in London not too long ago. Eve Baird asks Jenkins about their current predicament caused by the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs, “How much does this suck?” He responds, “More than Vlad Tepes’ family reunion.” Jake Stone, exploring the inside of a well, counts himself lucky he hasn’t spied any rats yet, “unlike that one time in Sumatra.” Cassandra and one of the Goose descendants, tree-trimmer and part-time rapper George “Bo-Peeps” Cole, look for one of the volumes in the library of George’s great-grandfather Ezra Wilshire, which includes several occult volumes, one of which is Mysteries of the Worm. Jenkins dons an old-fashioned jet pack resting on the floor of the Library’s Annex, at the base of a glass display case containing the Maltese Falcon. In a flashback, Flynn Carsen, returning to the Annex from the Even More Forbidden City through the Magic Door, thinks he’ll have to consult Dragomiloff’s Guide to Lethal Implements regarding a jade dagger he has just evaded. He hangs his pith helmet on a hat rack that contains, among other headwear, a deerstalker cap. Flynn wouldn’t trade his job for all the Jewels of Opar. Jenkins contemplates putting the spell book alongside The Secret Memoirs of Tom Thumb and Rip Van Winkle’s Dream Journal. 

2017 novel by Greg Cox. The Librarians encountered Dorian Gray (from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray) in the episode “The Librarians and the Image of Image.” Flynn Carsen battled Dracula (or rather one of his soul-clones) in the TV movie The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice. Although The Librarians treated Professor Moriarty as a Fictional character brought to life, and indeed he is referred to as such here, the Sumatran rat and deerstalker references suggest Sherlock Holmes is every bit as real as the Librarians themselves. Mysteries of the Worm is a Cthulhu Mythos tome created by Robert Bloch. The Maltese Falcon is from Dashiell Hammett’s detective novel. Ivan Dragomiloff is from Jack London and Robert L. Fish’s The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. The Jewels of Opar are from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels. Rip Van Winkle is the title character of Washington Irving’s story. 

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

Winter 2018
THE LIBRARIANS AND THE POT OF GOLD 
The Librarians must find a leprechaun’s long-lost pot of gold before their old foes the Serpent Brotherhood can get their hands on it. Before that, the team deals with a seeming haunting at the Paris Opera House by a party that is seeking the only copy of the Phantom’s concerto, Don Juan Triumphant. The new Opera Ghost reveals to Jake Stone and Ezekiel Jones that he is the descendant of Erik and Christine Daaé, the consummation of whose relationship Gaston Leroux left out of his novel. Cassandra Cillian, before directly encountering the new Opera Ghost, wonders if the book was based on a real person who is still around, like with Dorian Gray. The Librarians’ Guardian, Colonel Eve Baird, having trouble reaching Jake and Ezekiel on her phone, remembers running into the same problem while buried alive beneath the Mountains of Madness. The Librarians play Trivial Pursuit; all three of them have mastered the Geography category, though Baird doubts there are too many Geography questions concerning Shangri-La, El Dorado, or the Bermuda Triangle. The Library holds everything from Penelope’s unfinished tapestry to Prufrock’s intimidating peach. Included in the Hibernian Wing is a copy of Bram Stoker’s book The Lair of the White Worm, which Jenkins describes as, “One of his lesser works, to be frank, but not nearly as fictional as generally believed.” Serpent Brotherhood member Max Lambton knows that magic wishes, be they granted by fairies, devils, djinns, or a mummified monkey’s paw, almost invariably backfire on the wisher, no matter how carefully the wish is phrased. Jenkins says a chasm he and Cassandra encounter reminds him of a bottomless pit he once encountered while in pursuit of a certain grail. Stone, battling Max, adopts a fighting stance taught to him by none other than the Monkey King himself. Ezekiel cracks a Glenn-Rieder X-3000 vault. 
2018 novel by Greg Cox. Erik the Opera Ghost, Christine Daaé, and Don Juan Triumphant are from Gaston Leroux’s The Phantom of the Opera. Dorian Gray is from Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. The Mountains of Madness are from H. P. Lovecraft’s novella “At the Mountains of Madness.” Shangri-La is from James Hilton’s Lost Horizon. Penelope’s unfinished tapestry is from Homer’s The Odyssey. Prufrock’s intimidating peach is from T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The events of Bram Stoker’s novel The Lair of the White Worm have been established as part of the CU. The mummified monkey’s paw is from W. W. Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw.” The mention of a bottomless pit in conjunction with the Holy Grail is a reference to the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, is from Wu Cheng’en’s Journey to the West. Glenn-Rieder security systems are from the TV series Leverage. 

This crossover writeup is one of hundreds found in my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3! As with the first two volumes, this one is an AUTHORIZED companion to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 and will be published by Meteor House!

Crossover Cover: Love is the Winner

 

Are you a Sherlock Holmes fan?

Then you may enjoy this romance novel, which has appearances by not only Holmes and Watson, but also a character from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest!

For more details, see my book Crossovers Expanded: A Secret Chronology of the World Volume 3! Much like the first two volumes, this latest edition is an AUTHORIZED companion to Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Volumes 1 and 2 by Win Scott Eckert!

Crossover TV Episode: Age Before Beauty

Hey, like Oscar Wilde's classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray?

Then you'll love this episode of the TV series Warehouse 13 that shows Dorian's portrait as one of the items in the Warehouse!

All the info on this and other crossovers on the show can be found in my books Crossovers Expanded Vols. 1 and 2, AUTHORIZED companions to Win Scott Eckert's Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World Vols. 1 and 2, debuting at the Meteor House booth at FarmerCon/PulpFest in Columbus, OH on July 21-24! Both I and Win (who provided the foreword to Vol. 1) will be on hand to sign copies, as will William Patrick Maynard (who provided the foreword for Vol. 2) and Keith Howell (who did the absolutely stunning covers for both volumes).

Crossover Cover: All the Tea in China

In 1839, Carolus Mortdecai “Karli” van Cleef arrives in England with the intention of selling fine china, and is befriended by John Jorrocks, MFH, merchant of Great Coram Street. Karli’s first customer is a Lord Windermere. Mr. Jorrocks is proud of having established an Honourable Wooster as a customer of his own. Karli is the ancestor of Bonfiglioli’s series character Charlie Mortdecai, whom I've written about in previous posts. Mr. Jorrocks is from R. S. Surtees’ Jorrocks’ Jaunts and Jollities. Lord Windermere must be an ancestor of the holder of that title seen in Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. The Honourable Wooster must be related to Bertie Wooster.

Crossover Cover: Sherlock Holmes and the Treasure Train

At one point in this novel, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson attend a shooting competition. Lord Arthur Seville is the contest's announcer, and Lady Windermere and the Duchess of Paisley are also in the audience. Lord Arthur Seville (or Savile), Lady Windermere, and the Duchess of Paisley are from Oscar Wilde's story "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime." This Lady Windermere may be the same one seen in Wilde's play Lady Windermere's Fan. Watson says of financier Burton Hananish, "With a treasure like Monte Cristo's at his fingertips, he might well have pictured himself as the second coming of Moriarty." Watson's comment could be interpreted as a reference to the real Count of Monte Cristo. This novel takes place after Thomas' Sherlock Holmes and the Sacred Sword (which Win placed in 1895 in Vol. 1) and before Otto von Bismarck's death (1898.) I have chosen 1896 as the year.