Favorite tale of Holmes versus Famous Monsters? in The World of Sherlock Holmes Forum

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Favorite tale of Holmes versus Famous Monsters?

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Mattel Jones	Favorite tale of Holmes versus Famous Monsters?	Lead	[-]
Jun 29 08 9:57 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I know Holmes has fought and/or teamed up with Dracula on a few occasions, taken on Jack the Ripper more than once, encountered the the Phantom of the Opera, had copious capers containing Cthonic creatures, and maybe even battled the Mummy, so I'm curious what the really knowledgeable Holmes fans consider the best examples of these types of adventures? Last Edited By: Mattel Jones Jun 29 08 10:06 PM. Edited 2 times.
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captainmarvel1957		#1	[-]
Jun 30 08 3:42 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Nicholas Meyer's The West End Horror is very Lovecraftian, as I recall, and certainly would qualify as a Holmesian horror novel. In the novel he runs into several famous Victorians including G.B. Shaw and Bram Stoker. Two others come to mind, both by Loren Estleman. The first pitted Sherlock Holmes against Count Dracula and was entitled Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula or the Adventure of the Sanguinary Count. The second was a Jekyll and Hyde story entitled Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes. Both of Estelman's Holmes pastiches came on the heels of the success of Meyer's The Seven PerCent Solution in the late 1970's and early 80's.
Wich2		#2	[-]
Jun 30 08 9:55 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	To follow Cap's lead, I like WEST END HORROR a lot. Read them both when they first came out, in that 70's mini-pastiche boom, & actually prefer it to SEVEN-PERCENT SOLUTION. I liked the Estleman book o.k. while reading it, but by the end found it to basically just be a direct conflation of Stoker and Doyle, with no extra flavor added? STUDY IN TERROR is my favorite Ripper riff, book and movie; though MURDER BY DECREE is solid, too. Sherlock also meets Jack in the "biography" by Baring-Gould. Great week, -Craig W.
Tom Powers		#3	[-]
Jun 30 08 4:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	THE CANARY TRAINER is another interesting pastiche by Meyers. In it, Holmes comes up against The Phantom of the Opera.
Bill Warren		#4	[-]
Jun 30 08 6:02 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I read WEST END HORROR years ago, don't remember much other than that I liked it. I didn't care for either of the Holmes vs Dracula stories--I don't think they're a good fit as antagonists. There's a fairly recent anthology of Holmes vs. Lovecraftian horrors--"Weird Shadows Over Baker Street." Trouble with the Holmes & Jekyll/Hyde idea is that there's no mystery involved; we already know the secret of Jekyll & Hyde. But I think the setup works better than Homes vs Dracula (or any supernatural opponent); Holmes said "ghosts need not apply," and I think that's a good rule. But Holmes, I think, can work in a science fictional construct; after all, Doyle himself wrote a couple of very good science fiction tales. I think one of our very own CHFBers did a graphic novel about Holmes and the Invisible Man--a very good fit, Holmes reasoning out that he is indeed dealing with a solid, physical man who happens to be invisible--eliminate the impossible, he said, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Manly Wade Wellman wrote a surprisingly effective story of Holmes during H.G. Wells' Martian invasion.
Wich2		#5	[-]
Jun 30 08 6:14 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bill- I recall liking the MWW book; but again, for me, it fell into the same trap as the Estleman DRACULA . Which is much the same as that you mention for the Jekyll/Hyde: If you've already read the "template" novel, there's nothing new to unfold! It's just the plot you already know, with an extra character grafted on. Best, -Craig W.
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Lawrence Nepodahl		#6	[-]
Jun 30 08 7:19 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	The "No Ghosts, need apply" rule IS a good one to follow, concerning Mr. Sherlock Holmes." With that said; that is why I like the writings of John Dickson Carr. He put the supernatural in his stories, but has the logical ending. Try reading his collabrative efforts (with Adrian Conan Doyle), in- THE EXPLOITS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, you'll find some spooky/strange stories through its pages. As for films, I'll go along with Craig (Wich2), and say that A STUDY IN TERROR is a good horror Holmes. Being an Ellery Queen fan, I like the book better, with its going back and forth, between the worlds of E.Q., and S.H.. With all the changing that these newer Holmes tales, books, television, film, involve; give it time, soon you'll be watching or reading about Sherlock Holmes fighting against the Napoleon of Slime- GODZILLA!
Mattel Jones		#7	[-]
Jul 4 08 12:25 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Thanks for the replies on this thread fellows. I was familiar with all the titles cited, they were referenced in the original post, and was hoping, given the surfeit of Holmes pastiches, that I'd learn about some weird gem that had escaped my notice. On the subject of Holmes in a SciFi context the Isaac Asimov anthology "Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space" is a good one. A volume that doesn't exactly fit the monster category (at least in a supernatural sense) that I want to read has Holmes going against Fu Manchu (Cay Van Ash is the author). I think I recall reading that Ash knew Sax Rohmer, and there at least two books in the series, although only one has a Holmes' connection AFAIR.
Bill Warren		#8	[-]
Jul 4 08 12:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Wich2 wrote: I recall liking the MWW book; but again, for me, it fell into the same trap as the Estleman DRACULA . Which is much the same as that you mention for the Jekyll/Hyde: If I remember right--and I haven't read the book in literally decades--there's no mystery in the Manly Wade Wellman pastiche. It's a case of Holmes using his wits to survive. One of the Holmes/Dracula books simply followed the Stoker novel, kind of prying it apart at various points to insert Holmes and Watson. That was clever, in a sense, but it didn't make for a very interesting book. As for Holmes/Jekyll-Hyde, I had an idea along these lines myself. The story would be a >sequel< to Stevenson's novella. Henry Jekyll, an old friend of Watson's, is now dead--but there's still a Hyde menacing Londoners. Holmes has to first deduce that Jekyll and Hyde were the same person--we're way ahead of him there, so this wouldn't occupy much time--and then to figure out who is now using Jekyll's formula. I got so far as to give this idea a title--"A Study in Identity."
Ted Newsom		#9	[-]
Jul 5 08 7:42 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Me too. Or two. I got probably 70 or 80 pages into a J/H pastiche 20 some years ago, the catch being to rename Jekyll & Hyde ("Carlyle" and "Smith" for me). There is in fact a reference in Stevenson to Utterson or Lanyon hiring a detective to figure out what's happened to his friend, and a canonical reference by Watson to "Smith, the terrible murderer" (or something akin to that.) By going back to Stevenson's mystery idea-- starting the story in situ and dropping clews, explaining the twist only in the end-- I thought it would work pretty well. It is, after all, supposed to be a mystery with an impossible (yet within its universe, plausible and logical) solution. There were things which I thought would be good for Holmes--like assuming that Dr. Caryle was a coke addict, having seen the traces of hypodermic injections (Holmes is not unsympathetic; Watson is appalled); this leads to the obvious (erroneous) path that Smith is blackmailing him or supplying him with drugs illicitly. ("Why then would a physician need go outside his own parview for drugs he could just as easily prescribe and administer to himself? No, Watson. These waters are deeper still.") An investigation into Carlyle's history takes the boys back to St. Bart's where they met, interacting with Young (not so, anymore) Stamford. Still not much, other than a love affair... and a reference to a woman with whom the malignant Smith now corsorts. The Baker Street chem lab comes into play when Holmes discovers an underlying and important problem (per Stevenson). The batch of chemical used originally by Carlyle was tainted; the chemist supply has supplanted it with a pure version-- and it was the tainted version of the drug which made the formula successful. "I have misjudged the situation and allowed my personal prism create a false rainbow," said Holmes, whipping his topcoat on. "Should I ever do so again, my friend, you have my express permission to whisper the name 'Carlyle' to me and pull the mare back on track. Quickly! We have three minutes to catch the local." "Shall I need my service revolver?" "I think it best to be prepared." Ahh...
Terry Pace		#10	[-]
Jul 5 08 11:47 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I thoroughly enjoyed Nick Meyer's novels The West End Horror and The Canary Trainer. On screen, I'm a loyal admirer of Plummer/Mason and Co. in Murder By Decree (A Study in Terror is also excellent, with John Neville a first-rate Holmes, though it's not nearly as superbly scripted or eerily atmospheric), the Rathbone and Cushing big-screen versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles (a famous "monster" tale in its own mist-on-the-moors right) and the Brett/Hardwicke "The Last Vampyre," an imaginative, moody and introspective "reimagining" of Doyle's "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire." At times it seems to bear a bit of the Hammer touch, with a neat cameo by Freddie Jones and all the traditional Gothic-horror trappings that we associate with the Hammer vampire chillers. I especially love the scene where Brett (a former Broadway Dracula) dons the black cape and fangs in his Baker Street digs in order to prove to Watson that -- in spite of his well-grounded adherence to science and reason -- the good doctor is still suspectible to the fanciful idea of vampires. Terry Pace pillaroffire@bellsouth.net "They're going to have to think up a lot of new adjectives when I come back!" -- Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) in King Kong (1933)
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Favorite tale of Holmes versus Famous Monsters?

Favorite tale of Holmes versus Famous Monsters?