New Treasures: Sherlock Holmes vs. Cthulhu: The Adventure of the Deadly Dimensions, by Lois H. Gresh
I know, I know. Call this one a guilty pleasure. Bob Byrne, our resident Sherlock guru, is probably rolling over in his grave, and he ain’t even dead.
What can I tell you? Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu, together again. A whole lot of promising novels from bright young faces got shoved aside this week in my eagerness for this one. Titan Books, you’re deranged, and I love you for it.
Titan has made quite an industry of Sherlock Holmes pastiches over the years, publishing novels by Sam Siciliano, Mark A. Latham, Steven Savile, David Stuart Davies, Cavan Scott, Barrie Roberts, William Seil, Richard L. Boyer, and others. This isn’t even their first Holmes/Cthulhu crossover — I believe that honor goes to The Cthulhu Casebooks trilogy by James Lovegrove. How well did that turn out? Here’s Bob from his BG review:
Lovegrove, who has written several non-Holmes books, is part of Titan’s stable of new Holmes authors. Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows is the first of a trilogy, with Sherlock Holmes & The Miskatonic Monstrosities due out in Fall of 2017 and Sherlock Holmes and the Sussex Sea Devils to wrap things up in November of 2018.
The basic premise of the book (yea, the trilogy) is that Watson made up the sixty stories in the Canon. He did so to cover up the real truth behind Holmes’ work. And that’s because the truth is too horrible to reveal. In a nutshell, Watson has written three journals, each covering events fifteen years apart, to try and get some of the darkness out of his soul… something extremely unpleasant happened to Watson in a subterranean city in Afghanistan – giving him a wound that had nothing to do with a Jezail bullet.
Holmes and Watson take lodgings together at 221B Baker Street and immediately set off on a case. In a nutshell (somebody needs to clean the floor of all these nutshells here at the Black Gate offices!), Holmes is going to do battle with beings from the Cthulhu tales. The first part of the book has almost a Fu Manchu type of feel to it, but then it shifts into straight Lovecraft horror.
Much has been said about technology and the changes it brings with respect to our day-to-day world. It’s even been said that SF is the literature of change, exploring how evolution in technology, in scientific knowledge, in philosophical and political thought might, could, or does, affect our lives.
