The Dark Continent

This was going to a post regarding a mysterious "proposed" Sherlock Holmes movie, from the 60s or 70s, to be set in Africa, and featuring prehsitoric creatures. I could find nothing about this on the web, however.

I did find this post, however, about Holmes tales set in Africa. The blog, "Sherlock Holmes: The Golden Years,"is a good site on Holmes and Conan Doyle, and worth checking out:

http://sherlockholmes-thegoldenyears.blogspot.com/2015/08/sherlock-holmes-in-dark-continent.html

The Maple White Terror

 










  

This is basically to promote my book, available from Amazon.com, titled The Maple White Terror:

 http://www.amazon.com/The-Maple-White-Terror-Adventure/dp/1514333791



It is indeed a Holmes pastiche, but it is also a Lost World pastiche, which invloves Holmes and professor Challenger interacting. Much of it involves reporter Edward Malone (of the Lost World) fresh from a new expedition to the dinosaur-ridden plateau of Maple White Land, and the new wonders and horrors uncovered there. What do they have to do with a recent grisly murder in London, not far from the British Museum of Natural History?

Tim Lebbon's "Horror of the Many Faces"

     The last post I did here was in regard to Micheal Dibdin's rather infamous The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, and also, my attempt to counter it with a short story of my own.

    There is one other story (that I'm familiar with) that attempts something similar to Dibdin's story ( don't read the fourth paragrpah here, if you don't want  read SPOILERS for that tale!), and which does include the satisfying double twist that Dibdin's story lacks.

     That tale is to be found in a collection of wierd fiction I've had for some years now, called Shadows over Baker Street. This is an anthology of tales that pit Holmes and Watson against wierd menaces inspired by the horror of H. P. Lovecraft. Unlike all the tales in the canon, here the bizarre nature of crimes has no "rational" explanation. Among the best herein are a tale in which Moriarty gets his hands on the Necromonican (narrated by Moriaty himself on a phonograph!), and "A Study in Emerald" by Nial Gaiman, involving an alternate reality, in which the roles of Holmes and Moriarty are reversed.

   My favorite tale in the bunch, however, is "Horror of the Many Faces,"by horror veteran Tim Lebbon. The story hooks the reader from the very first sentence, and , beleive me, doesn't let go until the last page, by which time the reader should be wrung dry. The story opens with Watson witnessing the same type of dreadful scenario that occurs half-way through Dibdin's novel; in other words, he beholds none other than his trusted, lifelong friend, Sherlock Holmes, in the act of eviscerting a freshing slaughtered corpse.

     What Watson first suspects, naturally, is that his friend has gone tragically insane.  When other reports come in around London involving the same manner of killings, each one witnesed by friends and realtives of the killer(s), Watson assumes Holmes is responsible for all of them; he's a master of disguise, after all. As might be expected, of course, Watson misses an obvious question as to why "Holmes" did not bother to disguise himself the first time, when none other than his best friend was able to identify him.
  
     This being weird fiction, of course, the reader can guess that the cultprit is likely to be something other than a mere master of disguise or a madman. I won't spoil the ending for this one, but suffice to say that the great detective is left distrubed and brooiding over the fact that there are some things beyond the ability of even his mighty intellect to solve; secrets that, in fact, lie beyond the ability of human comprehension.

    Definitely a thought-provoking short tale, and worth a read, especialy on a dark, blustery November night.

The Last Sherlock Holmes Story and The Napoleon of Crime

For years I've heard and read of Micheal Dibdin's rather infamous Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story. Some time ago, I actually did read the story in an online PDF. This is story that Holmes fans tend to either love or hate. There is a monstrous twist half-way through the tale, that I won't give away here, which left Holmes fans (understandably) mortified. Though I knew what the twist was, and was not really offended, I generally do not like pessimistic or downbeat endings. Some reviewers have complained on the lack of a "double-twist" at the end.
   This is why I wrote that story "the Napolean of Crime," with it's obvious reference to Moriarty. The scenario is similar, though not identical to Dibdin's, only with the twist that he did not supply. A "rebuke" if you will.

Truth be told, since my previous book, The Maple White Terror, happened to be set in a "Doyle Universe," in which not only Holmes and Professor Challenger meet and interact, but references to other stories occur. There were three Challenger stories written by ACD, The Lost World, The Poison Belt, The Land of Mist, and When the World Screamed. All of them qualify as science fiction, placing ACD in the same category as Jules Verne as a pioneer of the genre, except for Mist. This was a tale which basically promoted the "science" of Spiritualism, in which Doyle was infatuated, and featuring Challenger as a reluctant convert. When writing the climax to The Napoleon of Crime I included a reference to Land of Mist, but after reading John Lavas's explanation of it online, I decided to leave it out, which is a bit of a same; I wanted the "shared universe" concept to be evident. Why did I leave it out? It seems that Doyle wanted his popular characters from The Lost World to star in it, but wanted it set in the "real world," or something like that, so he deliberated created inconsistencies, such as the suggestion that Edward Malone's published accounts of both The Lost World and The Poison Belt were false.

Arthur Conan Doyle's (Non)Vampire Stories

This is a fairly recent anthology of ACD's wierd fiction that I read recently.

     Reader be warned: The stories contained herein, with the possible exception fo the three Holmes tales, do indeed qualify as weird fiction. There just isn't even a single true vampire tale in the bunch, at least in the tradtional sense. I checked the reviews for this over on Amazon to see if I'd missed something, but nope, everyone seems to agree the title is basically a fraud, even though the stories themselves aren't bad, and in fact they're a good small sampling of ACD's supernatural fiction. It seems certain then, that ACD, even though he was acquainted and influenced by Bram Stoker, never wrote vampire fiction (that we know of).

    Each tale, however, comes with an afterward that attempts to "justify" it as a vampire story.

    To wit: "The American's Tale," is actually about a giant carnivorous, or perhaps "hemovorous" plant. It's a plant that sucks blood, so therefore it's a "vampire tale." Get it?

      "The Captain of the Polestar", is mentioned on the blurb as being a tale of a "heat-sucking Eskimo Vampire." This story is included in two other anthologies Iv'e read. The most obvious interpretation is that the entity in question is a ghost that spells the death of the captain at the end, though in fact, this is never established, and given what information we have, it might indeed have been an Eskimo vampire. But it's pretty much up to reader interpretation.

     "The Parasite" is a frightening tale involving hypnotism, and a woman who is able to literally take over and control the minds of her victims. I doubt she could be considered in any sense a vampire though, even if the title somewhat suggests this.

     "The Winning Shot," is about a group of young friends who encounter a mysterious stranger in the country.;the man has a dark though charismatic persona, and does seem to have somewhat suggestive of a vampire, including supernatural abilites that are not established until the end. This story is noteworthy in that it is a rare tale in which the bad guy actually wins. Doyle is quoted as describing this story as "'a vampirey'" little tale." But there is nothing to suggest that the villain is vampiric in a literal sense; he is even up and about in the daytime!

     I'm not too certain why the Holmes story "The Illustrious Client," was included here. The other canonical Holmes tale, "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," has its obvious vampiric connections, but, as with the case of all stories in the Holmes canon, there is no true supernatural element. In fact, Holmes famously debunks the need for supernatural explanations early in the story. The tale is also rather famous for mention of "The Giant Rat of Sumatra," a tale in Watson's files that he informs the reader,"the world was not ready for." A number of pasthiche writers have written speculative accounts of just what that adventure might have been.

     The final tale is a pastiche, "The Case of the Vanished Vampire" by Bill Crider not ACD at all, and therefore not canonical.It at first seems to be a team-up between Holmes and Watson and Van Helsing, Bram Stoker's famous vampire hunter. This has been done before, but all is not quite as it seems here. In any event, POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD, the story sticks to the canonical tradtion in that there is no actual supernatural theme here, and thus no true vampire.
   
    All in all, a decent collection of weird fiction with a misleading title.

Horror of the Heights and Other Strange Tales

Horror of the Heights and Other Strange Tales is a collection of the famed author's weird fiction. I've read a number of the tales therein in a previous collection of Doyle's horror tales, but it was a treat to them again.

    Among my favorites to be found here are:

 "The Brazilian Cat," featuring a strange crytozoological felid, which appears to be neither puma nor jaguar, cats both native to the region;

"Lot 249," about a student of Egyptology who is able to bring a mummy to life to do his evil bidding (Note: Tales of the Darkside: the Movie did an updated version of this, which took many liberties, which I've been familiar with for years. It's pretty much standard horror; they should have at least set the story in Victorian London to preserve the original gaslit feel of the story. I was also surprised to read in the original that Bellingham, the student, is actually obese in Doyle's version, while the actor who played him in the movie was thin); "The Parasite," the tale of a woman with terrifying powers of mind control; "The Brown Hand," one of Doyle's few actual ghost stories; and Horror of the Heights, the title story, and a science fiction tale that speculates. on the weird lifeforms that might actually thrive in the upper atmosphere of our won planet.

    That might actually have seemed rather credible back when Doyle was writing, as aeronautics was still a new field, and planes themselves were rare. The field of bulbous, jellyfish-like ariel floaters the size of buildings, which the narrator encounters, somewhat reminded me of an old episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos I watched as a child. That episode featured possible lifeforms that could theoretically inhabit the dense atmosphere of Jupiter: massive "floaters," --"creatures the size of cities" in Sagan's words.  he explained that there might also be hunters-winged predators that prey on the floaters.

   Doyle's floaters also have their predator ---a creature that remains aloft be means of a natural gasbag, and propells itself after prey by means of an extensible pseudopod. I didn't have a really vivid mind-picture of this creature, which is capable of turning itself "an angry purple," though I have in mind something like an amalocaris, a prehistoric invertebrate that preyed upon trilobites. Doyle, however, described it as possessing an octopus -like beak. Here is an example of an artist's treatment of Doyle's fanciful creature:

   The are also a number of tales about the medium of Spiritualism, which Conan Doyle enthusiastically championed, the most fantastic of which is probably "The Silver Mirror."

    Then there is may favorite of the whole bunch, "The Terror of Blue John Gap." This tale may have been a precursor to The Lost World; in fact, both it, and "The Horror of the Heights" could both be expanded into Challenger novels. It's "Terror" though, the carries a definite prehistoric theme. The tale concerns a gigantic monster that emerged after dark from an underground cavern (called "Blue John Gap" after the abundance of this vivid blue amethyst-like stone found therein) to roam the moors, killing and devouring sheep. The protagonist only glimpses the best clearly near the tale's end, and speculates that it might be a descendant of the ancient cave bears, only much larger, even, than the greatest of those. But the most startling and uncanny aspect of the beast is that its eyes are covered over, making it only able to roam the countryside in near pitch, such as the moonless nights. The narrator further speculates that other creatures thus adapted might thrive far below the surface, and that a whole subterranean wold might exist in a hollowed out realm within our planet. This sounds very like Doyle was edging into Jules Verne territory, and its a bit of a mystery why he didn't write his own "hollow earth" adventure in the vein of Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth, or Edgar Rice Burrough's Pellucidar series. He certainly seemed inclined in that direction, and one wonders what he'd have come up with if he'd carried the concept further.

Ratigan's Human Counterpart

Way back when I first saw Disney's The Great Mouse Detective
in theatres, the character of Basil of Baker Street's antagonist left me puzzled. Holmes and Watson had very clear analogues in the humanized mouse characters Basil and Dr. Dawson. There is also an analogue of Mrs. Hudson (okay, I didn't make of that at the time), and Basil's home resided directly beneath that of their human counterparts. When the villain Ratigan was introduced, however, it seemed rather obvious that he, too, was modeled on a character in the Holmes canon. Toby, the dog who belongs to Holmes in the same movie, actually does exist in the canon, in "The Sign of Four," in case you didn't know.
     But Sherlock Holmes had no reoccurring nemesis--did he? I certainly had never heard of one. I'd known about Sherlock Holmes since I was a small child. I'd read "The Red-Headed League" in the eight grade. And my dad read me the whole of The Hound of the Baskervilles at around the same time. There was no so much a hint of any villain that would serve as the Joker to Holmes's Batman. Then, one evening when my dad was watching a Sherlock Holmes movie on PBS, he pointed out Porfessor Moriarty, who was a reoccurring villain in the Holmes canon. I knew at once I'd found Ratigan's counterpart!
    The reason I'd never heard of Moriarty before is not hard to guess. The character is hardly mentioned throughout the entirety of canonical stories. He's well-known to most fans precisely because his role has been blown out of proportion in films and non-canonical tales. Moriarty is present in a major role in only "The Final Problem," and "The Valley of Fear," and only appears in person, and later clashes with Holmes, only in the former tales. Other than that, he's only referenced in scattering of other stories. How did he come to loom so large?
    Moriarty was originally conceived as little more than a plot device to do away with Holmes. Sherlock Holmes was, famously, more wildly successful than his creator ever intended him to be. Doyle grew tired of even being referred to as "the creator of Sherlock Holmes," and would have preferred being referenced as author of, say, The White Company, or other novels barely known today. In inventing Moriarty as a device for ridding himself of Holmes's unwanted popularity, however, Doyle accomplished something else he obviously never anticipated: the prototype of the recurrant bad guy. Without Moriarty, would there be a Joker, a Lex Luthor, and the rest? Probably not. And just like his adversary, Moriarty refuses to stay dead.
     One other thing: while Mouse Detective's Ratigan is a large, flamboyant, swaggering bully, it seems rather doubtful that Moriarty is that way, at least as Conan Doyle conceived of  him. While there is relatively little canonical info on him, Moriarty himself seems like he would be more shadowy, more reserved, even soft-spoken, than Ratigan is. And while Basil indicates that Ratigan would commit any depravity, no matter how low, some authors, such as Anthony Horowitz, as I explained in the earlier post, portrayed the character more as "aberrant," or evil, but still possessing with a code of honor.

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz

Last summer I finally decided to read this novel, a pastiche by noted British author Anthony Horowitz, one of my very favorite authors when I was young. Back then, AH wrote mostly Dickensian tales of orphans up against supernatural forces--sort of like a cross between Dickens himself and H. P. Lovecraft. The Power of Five series is of note here, and I refer to original 80's series, (which few have probably heard of these days)not the 2000s reboot, which frankly, I just couldn't get into.
     Anyway, A H has been writing for British TV almost as long as he's been writing, for series like Poiret. It's not surprising to learn he's a huge Sherlock Holmes fan, or that, given his his background in the genre, his two Holmes pastiche novels are critically acclaimed, and even "endorsed" (whatever that means) by the Conan Doyle estate. Does that mean, I've wondered, that these stories are part of the Holmes canon? I doubt that, since a pastiche is still a pastiche, but the Holmes estate approves the work, and that's a huge thing for a pastiche writer.
     A H"s first Holmes novel, House of Silk, was a rousing adventure, with incredible twists and turns, and a cameo my Holme's's arch-villain, Moriarty, who is (I won't give away how), introduced to John Watson prior to the events in "The Final Problem." The author had to manipulate things a bit to do this, but it still works. 
    Moriarty, however, though it's sort of a followup to House of Silk, is not a straight Holmes pastiche; in fact, it's difficult to determine exactly what it is. As its title indicates (as does the tiny scene on the cover, framed against a lurid red background), the book focuses on the apparent death of the Napoleon of Crime, after he and Holmes apparently plunged to their deaths at Richenbach Falls in Switzerland. Holmes fans are familiar with the fact that Holmes was later revealed to have survived--thanks to constant clamoring of Doyle's fans. The fate of Holmes's arch-nemesis, however, remains unrevealed in the canon. We may assume his death, as Doyle never wrote otherwise. However, it's far from a closed case. It's something I've often wondered about, and what AH has used as a springboard for this enthralling novel.
    I'm not exaggerating when I say this grabs the reader, pulls him/her in and never and lets go till the final page, almost literally. It's one of the most suspenseful tales AH has written for a while, and he'd an accomplished suspense writer. The story first concentrates on the apparent death of Moriarty at Riechenbach, then shifts in pursuit of a shadowy person who is believed to have inherited the mastermind's criminal empire, a dreaded American crime baron named Clarence Devereux, whom none has ever seen.  Our protagonists are Fred Chase, a New York detective on Devereux's trail, and Athelney Jones from Scotland Yard, a genuine canonical character. While on the case, these two strike up a friendship that closely parallels that of Watson and Holmes, with Chase clearly the Watson analogue, even serving as the narrator. Early on, I half-suspected Inspector Jones of being Holmes in disguise, but this suspicion was discounted after they appear at Scotland Yard, and the parallel between Holmes/Watson and Chase/Jones became just too strikingly obvious. We learn later that Jones has immersed himself in inductive reasoning, and trained himself to think like Holmes does. At one point, they even consider settling down at Baker Street, and filling the shoes left vacant by the former crime-solving duo. As the Holmes is presumed deceased during the time of the events in Moriarty, neither the real Holmes nor the real Watson make an appearance, even as a cameo. Jones and Chase, however, fill their respective roles so effectively that it almost can be read as a genuine Holmes mystery after all.
    However, as the mystery deepens, and plot threads become ever more tangled (there are references and connections to other tales from the canon, such as "The Red-headed League"), it seems more and more about Devereux, and less and less about Moriarty. Indeed, I began to wonder if the author had forgotten the title of the book.  Rest assured, however, that the Napoleon of Crime definitely does play a part in all of this, and probably not what you might expect. There is, indeed, an incredible twist at the end which I definitely did not expect, and which forces one to see most of the events in the Devoruex case in a different light.
     Moriarty is a tale that should more than satisfy Holmes fans, especially those speculating just what became of Holmes's nemesis after that presumably fatal plunge.

Two things of note here: 1)  AH's porptrayal of Moriarty himself, both in this novle and House of Silk appear more or less that of an aberrant character. I am using the term "aberrant" here in the manner that the Palladium roleplaying game uses the term--to describe a character alignment as "evil, but honorable." Such characters are farily rare but they exist throughout fiction. Daniel Day Lewis's Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York qualifies.The actual bad guys in House of Silk are such a despicable lot that even Moriarty detests and seeks to aide Holmes in bringing them to justice. An abarent character seeks to achieve his goals through (sometimes deadly) force, but refrains from harming chilren and other innocents. Since contact with Moriarty himself in the canon is sparse at best, it is impossible to say just how canonical AH's take on Moriarty actually is, but it's certainly intrigueing.

2) POSSIBLE SPOILERS HERE> DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU PLAN ON READEING THE BOOK. 

     The big twist in Moriarty has to do with the identity of the narrator. I suspected that Jones might turn out to be someone else entirely, but not the narrator. Actually the twist is old one, though not that frequently used. This kind of thing has been done before: I've read "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper," by Robert Bloch, and "Satan Claus" by David Gerald, both horor stories. But somehow, I didn't see it here--maybe because I got a mental picture early on that resembled the rotund versions of Watson, which wouldn't fit his actual appearance at all. In fact, one real question I have about the narrator is: wouldn't his appearance have given him away to Jones and the other characters? He'd have to be six feet tall or more. AND he's have to resemble a certain stiff found early on. That's kind of an elephant standing in the living room. You couldn't make a film version of Moriarty without the big twist being revealed to most of the audience early on. Since Doyle depicted Jones as something of a bumbler, perhaps that's why he couldn't see what was in front of his face the entire time!

The Annotated Lost World

This is another lavish production of the Conan Doyle classic which I purchased within the last year. Note that the cover is an obvious attempt to cash in on the Jurassic Park franchise; note the font style and the JP-style raptor.
     But this is case where a book should NOT be judged by its cover. Like the Lavas editions, this book contains articles about Doyle, the lost world's background and inspirations, and most notably about the 1925 film version. Stills from that movie are presented here. But the most remarkable thing is that all of the Roundtree illustrations from the original Strand publications are reproduced here to good effect. Well, nearly all. There seem to be a few omissions, including scene with challenger being pursued by the phororhacas in this one, and theone where a giant green serpent grabs one of the natives.

 
 

There are many more included, of course, including the encounter with the flying reptiles, the two of megalosaurus, the stegosaurus, a rather rare one the pterodactyl's escape in London, etc.

   The more seldom seen  Joseph Clement Coll illustrations are here as well, and the pen-and ink detail in these is remarkable.

All an all, it's a recomended purchase.
     

The Lost World: Collector's Centenary Edition

    About two months ago, I recieved my copy of John Lavas's Centenary Edition of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World. I am not exagerating when I say that this is truly a magnificent volume. Lavas must have gone overboard in putting this project togather. I already owned the previous anniversary edition, which I thought was incredibale as well,  but this is even more extraordinary. As with the previous edition, Lavas  has lavishly illusrated this volume throughout, basing some of his his detailed pen-and-ink drawings on the famous paintings of paleo-artist Zdenek Burian (a few actual Burian drawings are included as well). However, though the drawings from previous edition are intact, they are all enlarged and in color, as the example below of Challenger being pursued by a Terror Bird.

     There are a number of totally new illustrations as well, and I am not going to post them all for fear of spoiling them for anyone interested in purchasing the book itself. However one new, or rather ubdated illustration is this detailed map of Maple White Land:

    The animals pictured on the map are located approximately where members of the Challenger expedition encountered them. Notice that there are at least two creatures not specically idntenified in the book. In the upper right-hand corner, there is a depiction of large, prehistoric amphibian, perhaps a mastodonsaurus or an eryops. In the upper-leftish portion of the map, central to jungle above the megaloceras and below the megalosaurs, is a large swine-like animal that appears to be an entelodont, perhaps dinohyus. A large hog (I believe) was mentioned in the book, but not specificlaly identified as an entelodont. On the northeast edge of the central lake is huge snake which might well be a titanoboa. Note also that the ichthyosaurs featured in Lavas's illustrations are the "sword-fish" ichthyosaur eurhinosaurus.It evolved paralell to actual swordfish, as did a dolphin during the age of mammals called eurhinodelphis.
    In addition to this, thius volume also contians detialed background on the contributers, Conan Doyle himself, inspirtions for The Lost World, and much else. There are stills from the 1925 production of The Lost World, which remains pretty much definitive to the present, and some stills from Journey To the Beginning of Time
a 50s prehistoric move which uniquely combined stop-motion puppetry and drawing animation for its effects. That film was influenced by the paintings of Burian, and also from the 1915 novel Plutonia, which was illustrated by Burian.

    The only drawback to this purchase is the absence of any of the original illustrations by Harry Roundtree for the serial, nor any of the later ones by Joseph Clement Coll. Possibly the reason for this is that some of those illustrations (some fo the Cole ones, in particular), is that, unlike Burian, they are less than scientifically accurate.
    In any event, you can see that I am well-pleased with theis purchase, which is one I would highly recomend. For some major-cool Burian illustrations, BTW, go here:

http://zburian.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-05-31T01:45:00-07:00&max-results=25