Sunday, October 17, 2021

The Holmes-Hellraiser Crossover


 I read this book some years ago, but forgot to post about it.

I also lost total track of it for a while, but it recently turned up in a travel bag I norally don't use, along with a two-year late library copy of the M. R. James' ghost stories. 

So it's been a while, but here goes. 

Clive Barker first concieved of the Hellraiser series with the publication of his novella The Hellbbound Heart, which introduced the Cenobites, a race of inter-dimensional torturers who could be summoned by working a cubical puzzle-box known as the Lament Configuration. The story and world of the Cenobites was expanded in the series of movies that started off good, but got increasingly terrible with each sequal. 

As the anthology Shadows Over Baker Street, (among other works since) had Holmes and Watson confront horrors spawned and inspired by the Lovecraft mythos, Sherlock Holmes and the Servants of Hell brings the duo face to face with Barker's Cenobites. 

It all starts with an unknown man feverishly and obsessively working out the Lament Configuration. Just as the poor fellow figures it out, and the Cenobites show up, we discover that the man is none other than Sherlock Holmes himself!

Then we flash back to when the actual story begins, when Holmes and Watson are summoned to investigate a series of baffling disapearences around London. In each case, a person vanishes from a locked room with no discernable means of entry. Our heroes are soon forced to confront a cult whose goal is to summon the Cenobites into our world. Holmes does, indeed become immersed, not only in the cult machinations, but in the netherworld of Barker's hellish creations as well. 

I won't give away the ultimate outcome, but it's a a decent homage to both Barker and Holmes as Doyle created him. 

No comments:

Post a Comment