Weird book time again, with the classic, the speculative and the psychological. Today we have the Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H G Wells anthology, the unfinished work of Philip Jose Farmer finished in A Hole in Wednesday, and Knucklebones by Marni Scofidio. And a quick offer from Matthew Wingett, whose excellent book The Snow Witch we covered recently – (http://greydogtales.com/blog/the-snow-witch/

correaposter — war of the worlds, by correa

Snow Day Offer

Let’s do Matt first. He says:

“I have a batch of hardback copies of the book which I am offering at the price of the paperback. So, what should be £19.99 is reduced to half price at £9.99. If you’d like a nice presentation copy of The Snow Witch, you can order it here. Postage in the UK is free.”

Here’s the link: https://www.lifeisamazing.co.uk/product/the-snow-witch-a-portsmouth-novel-hardback-by-matt-wingett

Holmes Goes Mad in Dorset

Now, that Sherlock Holmes book. Many are the variants on Holmes’ adventures – straight canonical tales interwoven with the timeline of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories; tales which hint of the weird or supernatural but stay within bounds, and tales which go wild with psychic monstrosities, Mythos madness and alternative timelines. Belanger Books have come up a rather neat idea this time, which is to blend Conan Doyle’s detective with the speculative work of H G Wells.

Friends and contemporaries, both writers were published in The Strand Magazine a number of times. October 1898, for example, saw the first publication of Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Round the Fire’ story no. 5, ‘The Story of the Black Doctor’, illustrated by Joseph Finnemore, and of H.G. Wells’ ‘Mr Ledbetter’s Vacation’, illustrated by Shepperson.

Perhaps of more significance, Wells’s The First Men in the Moon and Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles were serialised in The Strand, in 1900/1901 and 1901 respectively, before publication as complete novels. So the concept is rather appropriate, and Belanger have assembled a wide range of writers to do it justice.

First_Men_in_the_Moon_(1901)_fp54 — first men in the moon (1901)

“Imagine Holmes trying to solve the case of an invisible man attacking London – matching wits with a traveler from out of time – tracking down a human/feline hybrid – using his deductive skills to help fight Martian and lunar invaders! These are just some of the stories included in Sherlock Holmes: Adventures in the Realms of H.G. Wells. This one-of-a-kind two volume anthology features traditional Sherlock Holmes stories blended with one or more tales from H.G. Wells including:

The War of the Worlds
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The First Men in the Moon
The Time Machine
The Invisible Man
The New Accelerator
The Man Who Could Work Miracles
The Country of the Blind, and many more

“This is the World’s Greatest Detective in the Realms of the Master of Science Fiction.”

Here’s a short extract from old greydog’s contribution to Volume One of the anthology:

It was typical of the man that he would answer no questions as we took a hansom east, though he vouched that we were heading for Limehouse, and I was left to contemplate the swirling fog beyond the cab. We were deposited outside a varnished red frontage with Chinese characters painted down the side, a bright spot in an otherwise dingy street.

“Not another opium den!”

“Of a sort, Watson, but not one you have seen before. This is a place for the true Chinese, their equivalent of a quiet saloon bar. You will find no down-at-heel Lascars or penniless jack-tars here.”

It seemed that we had been observed, for the lacquered door opened, revealing a tall Chinaman clad in black tunic and trousers.

“Shi Lan.” Holmes nodded. “This is Dr John Watson. I vouch for him.”

The look I received was neutral, but we were ushered in. The entire front of the establishment was a single dimly-lit room, the walls hung with silks and various large sheets of paper displaying Chinese writing in a bold hand. A map of China covered the back wall, between two discreet doors.

I coughed, the fog of the outside replaced by a warm smoke which smelled of tobacco and incense. Divans were set around the room, and most were occupied. All the occupants were Chinese. To my left, four men played some form of tile game, the tiles clicking on the low table between them; before me sat a handful of older men, either with hubble-bubbles or opium pipes.

“Certainly a far cry from Swandam Lane,” I said.

Holmes nodded. “There are fewer Chinese residents in London than you might believe. Most of them are industrious and see to their own business. The Lascar, Malay and Chinese sailors you meet are more numerous, but hardly representative of Far Eastern civilisation.”

Shi Lan indicated we should sit, and went through a door at the rear. I had barely perched on the nearest divan when he returned, another very different figure by his side.

“My client,” murmured Holmes as we rose again. “Miss Xun Guan. She is the owner of the Pearl Empress, this establishment.”

The Affair of the Red Opium, by John Linwood Grant

Here are links to Volume 1 and Volume 2 on Amazon US and to the hardcover on Blurb. You can also check them out the UK here:

61SKZDNdPzL http://amzn.eu/aYYEQCS

STAY TUNED

In the New Year, we’ll be building up a rolling list of new publications by small and independent presses, as a resource for readers who want to find out what’s going on. Anything odd, weird or strange that fits our general brief will be listed, along with site and/or purchase links and a brief blurb. You can click the illo top right to check what’s there at any time (very much under construction at the moment).

For small and independent publishers who want to take part as we build it up, there are brief instructions at the top of that page.

A Space Farmer in East Yorkshire

Having been raised in the Wold Newton Triangle, we always keep an eye on works related to author Philip Jose Farmer (1918–2009), who came up with a curious crossover concept, the Wold Newton Family:

“In real life a meteorite, called the Wold Cottage meteorite, fell near Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, on December 13, 1795. Farmer suggested in two fictional biographies, Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke (1972) and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973) that this meteorite caused genetic mutations in the occupants of two passing coaches due to ionization. Many of their descendants were thus endowed with extremely high intelligence and strength, as well as an exceptional capacity and drive to perform good or, as the case may be, evil deeds. The progeny of these travellers are purported to have been the real-life originals of fictionalised characters, both heroic and villainous, over the last few hundred years.”

This has since become the Wold Newton Universe, a playground for many writers. Appropriately enough for today’s article, Farmer conceived of Sherlock Holmes, Professor Moriarty and the Time Traveller from Wells’s The Time Machine as members of this family.

Keeping it in the family, writer Danny Adams, Farmer’s grand-nephew, has had access to his illustrious relative’s papers (Adams both met and corresponded with his uncle in Farmer’s later years). Their first joint project was on The City Beyond Play, a short novel begun by Farmer in the early 1970s. He had already written the first chapters and an outline of the remainder, and Danny Adams finished writing the story in 2005. The City Beyond Play was the last book of Farmer’s which came out whilst he was still alive.

Adams has now completed a further book, linked to Farmer’s Dayworld series and reviewed here for greydogtales by Dave Brzeski.

A HOLE IN WEDNESDAY

by Philip José Farmer and Danny Adams

Reviewed by Dave Brzeski

One can’t help but wonder, when the job of continuing a deceased creator’s work is given to a family member, if that relationship might have been more of a consideration than any real ability to produce work that holds up against that of the better known relative. Would Philip Jose Farmer’s grand-nephew, Danny Adams be able to do such a sterling job of continuing that Grand-Master’s unfinished work as Christopher Paul Carey did with The Song of Kwasin? Rest assured, Adams has indeed proven himself up to the job, and as with Carey, you really can’t see the join.

It had been decades since I last read Dayworld and I’d never read the two follow-ups, so as is my wont, I read all three books prior to reading this new addition to the series. Thus it was that I found myself being slightly disappointed to find that this is a prequel to the original trilogy, rather than a continuation. I’d been all keyed up to find out what happened next! Nevertheless, in I plunged…

The hero of the book, Jerry Carson, is a classic example of the character who has no intention whatsoever of rocking any boats, much less being a hero of any sort. It’s just that his wife keeps having miscarriages and he thinks a fault in the stoner units might be to blame…

I suppose some explanation is going to be needed for those unfamiliar with Farmer’s original work, which started with the short story, ‘The Sliced-Crosswise Only-On-Tuesday World’. It shouldn’t be too hard to find if you’re interested, in fact it’s included in some editions of Dayworld. The premise in a nutshell is this… Overpopulation became such a problem that a system of “stoning” was implemented where most of the population were kept in suspended animation for six days out of every seven. People who lived on Wednesdays never came into contact with those who lived on other days, except perhaps to see them standing frozen in their stoners.

A Hole in Wednesday takes place somewhere between that first short story and the trilogy (Dayworld, Dayworld Rebel and Dayworld Breakup.) As I discovered, it’s not really necessary to read Farmer’s original trilogy first, so you could just as easily read them in chronological order.

Investigating the potential fault with the stoner units inevitably leads Carson to daybreak. Daybreaking—being active outside of one’s designated day—is pretty much the most serious crime a citizen can commit. Carson soon finds himself involved against his will with opposing revolutionary organisations. It gets very complicated. The Dayworld system almost sounds workable, until one starts to see the inevitable stultifying effects on the population. Much of the planet has, over the centuries, recovered from the devastation caused by too many humans and their wars and general rape of their planet’s resources, so there are factions who believe it’s about time we all got back to normal, seven days a week, living. We get into the age-old “does the end justify the means?” argument with the plans of one faction involving the mass murder of thousands of people.

Adams’ work encompasses many of his grand-uncle’s influences, including giving wings of the complex, deep beneath the city streets names like Diogenes, Clemens or Burroughs. One of my favourite parts of the book comes soon after Carson travels through the Burroughs wing, ending up outside the city in a wilderness training camp, where his reluctant status as double-agent for two opposing criminal organisations properly begins. Stripped of all the trappings of civilisation, Carson finds himself in a setting which could have been pulled directly from one of the creator of Tarzan’s novels.

I still want to find out what happened after the end of Farmer’s Dayworld trilogy, but now I also want to fill in more of the events concerning the generations between this prequel and the first book of that trilogy.

Meteor House, h/b, $39.00 / P/b, $29.00

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Our last book has absolutely nothing to do with any of the above as far as we know, but Dave liked it, so here’s his pennyworth.

KNUCKLEBONES

by Marni Scofidio

Reviewed by Dave Brzeski

I’d previously read and enjoyed a couple of stories from Marni Scofidio’s collection, Sometimes Dead, so when PS Publishing offered me a review copy of Knucklebones I not only accepted, I pushed it near the top of my to do list.

As a rule, I tend to prefer horror of the supernatural sort, whereas this novel sits pretty firmly in the psychological camp. It opens with a flashback of childhood abuse, told in such a subtle manner that it immediately captured my interest.

Abuse looms large in this book, as we soon learn that the main protagonist, Clary Ruffalo, is recently out of a shelter for abused women. A single mother of a disabled baby, she’s sworn off men for good. Naturally, she moves into a flat which just happens to be in the same building as the survivor of the abuse alluded to in the flashback.

It’s very much a slow burner of a novel. There’s a revelation over half-way through the book that I very much doubt will come as a surprise to many readers—but that’s not the point. The book is structured a bit like those scenes from horror films, where you know exactly what’s going to happen, but it’s the build up of tension while waiting for it to finally happen that provides the scares.

Interestingly, the author does throw in a few hints of a supernatural element at the end of the book, which the reader can take any way they choose.

Marni Scofidio’s writing is excellent, she handles the build-up of tension like a master of her craft, making the book hard to put down (I actually finished it at just after 5am, which proves that particular point.) She fills the book with lots of interesting pop culture references to daytime TV programmes that I did worry might be a bit lost on non-British readers, or those reading the book in future generations—which is a little ironic considering the author is an ex-pat American living in Wales. As a first novel it is quite an achievement.

PS Publishing, h/b, £20.00/Kindle, £3.99

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