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

Spring 2008

NEKROPOLIS 

Ex-Cleveland policeman Matthew Richter is now a zombie P.I. in Nekropolis, a city founded centuries ago by wizards and monsters within a pocket dimension of eternal night where monsters live openly. Appearing or mentioned are Carl; Erich Zann; a Gill-Man; the Transparent Woman; the Mariner; Dr. Moreau; the Phantom of the Paradise; Victor Baron; a female descendant of Dr. Jekyll who uses a version of her forebear’s formula to change genders; and Marley’s ghost. 

2009 novel by Tim Waggoner. Carl is Carl Kolchak, who now runs a newspaper in Nekropolis. Erich Zann is from H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Music of Erich Zann.” The Gill-Men are from the movie Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequels. The Transparent Woman is a descendant of H. G. Wells’ Invisible Man who botched her ancestor’s formula so that only her skin turned invisible, not her organs and skeleton. The Mariner is from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Dr. Moreau is either the doctor from H. G. Wells’ novel or a descendant. The Phantom of the Paradise is from the movie of the same name. Victor Baron is one of the monsters created by the Frankenstein family, now living in the Nekropolis and carrying on his creator’s work. Dr. Jekyll needs no introduction. Jacob Marley’s ghost is from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Nekropolis is similar to the Nightside, from Simon R. Green’s series of novels, but the relationship between the two has yet to be revealed. 

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 Covers: The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde

Inspector Thomas Adye releases Henry Jekyll, alias Edward Hyde, from his imprisonment beneath Scotland Yard headquarters to help him track down Jack the Ripper. Jekyll’s friend Moreau appears in a flashback and Jekyll refers to his experiments on his pet beasts. At the conclusion of this tale, Adye begins investigating reports of an invisible man. The implication seems to be that Adye is the Colonel Adye seen in H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. However, Wells’ Adye was the chief of police for Port Burdock, rather than being based in London. According to this story, Hyde was arrested five years ago for his crimes, and Scotland Yard allowed the public to believe him dead. Also, Jekyll’s former friend Gabriel Utterson is identified as the Ripper. These details conflict with CU continuity, and therefore I place this series in an AU.

Crossover Cover: Of Monsters and Men

This prose anthology from Moonstone Books features pulp heroes battling monsters. Five stories have crossovers in them. In "Bump in the Night" by Tommy Hancock, Frederick C. Davis' hero the Moon Man battles the Invisible Man, who specifically identifies himself as the same individual of whom H.G. Wells wrote. However, it seems unlikely that John Hawley Griffin would have survived his brutal assault at the hands of Edward Hyde in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II. Most likely, this Invisible Man is an unidentified individual who has replicated Griffin’s formula for his own misdeeds. Adam Lance Garcia's "The Daemon's Kiss" mentions that the Green Lama and Jean Farrell have been a couple ever since their encounter with Cthulhu. The Lama and Jean battled Cthulhu in Garcia's novel The Green Lama Unbound. In Eric Fein's "The Phantom's Ghost," the Green Ghost (George Chance), visiting France, battles a successor to Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, who has apparently stolen the original Erik’s remains. The remains in this story cannot be those of the real Erik from Gaston Leroux’s novel, as he survived at least until the year 2003, when he appeared in Simon R. Green’s Nightside novel Hex and the City. In Sean Taylor's "Golden Amazon Versus Quasimodo, the Hunchback of Notre Dame," John Russell Fearn's character the Golden Amazon, visiting Notre Dame Cathedral, tussles with a cult that has brainwashed Quasimodo into doing its bidding. Apparently Victor Hugo was lying when he referred to Quasimodo’s death in his novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Quasimodo actually acquired extended longevity somehow. Wold Newton scholar Matthew Baugh's story "Sycorax" features Captain Future battling the witch Sycorax (from William Shakespeare's The Tempest) on Titan. There are also references to Segir and Black Pharol from C.L. Moore's Northwest Smith stories, Tsathoggua from Cthulhu Mythos fiction by Clark Ashton Smith, and Jekkara (or Jakkara) from Leigh Brackett's Mars stories. The Captain Future stories take place in an alternate universe where all the planets in the Solar System are inhabited by various sentient species in the 21^st century.