premise, from the Introduction, is simple: “What if Holmes and Watson were to be confronted by things outside the realm of human experience? What if the inconceivable proved to be true? What if there were places, entities, concepts in the cosmos that man not only did not, but could not understand?” By things they mean the supernatural forces of the Cthulhu Mythos. (Lovecraft’s Mythos is one of the most written-in fictional universes ever created.)
So: Sherlock Holmes. Cthulhu. A high concept collection.
Neil Gaiman leads off a fairly good collection with the short but excellent “A Study in Emerald.” Gaiman knows his Sherlockiana: it’s an early tale of Holmes & Watson, as Holmes uncovers a plot against the crown, investigates a singularly gruesome murder, and visits a play where the return of the Old Ones from R’lyeh and dim Carcosa is enacted as part of history. Gaiman knows his curbs from his kerbs and brings the era properly to life. Interstitial advertisements from the time, which make me think he wrote his story after contributing to The Thackery T. Lamshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, add to the colour. The characters ring true; Holmes is high-handed at times, and Watson is still haunted by his military duty in Afghanistan. Allusions to other works (Doyle’s among them) abound. (You get three bonus points if you pick up on the name Holmes went by while the world assumed he was dead following his trip over the Reichenbach Falls.)
My choice for the best in the book, however, is “The Drowned Geologist,” by Caitlin R. Kiernan. It’s among the least faithful to the Mythos theme, drawing more from Dracula than the Cthulhu Mythos. There are also solid contributions from both editors, Brian Stableford, and Richard A. Lupoff. The “Most Fun” award goes to F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre’s “The Adventure of Exham Priory,” in which Professor Moriarty plans a one-way trip to Yith for Holmes. (MacIntyre is just as well read as Gaiman, I think; he works in some Edgar Allan Poe references, ably pastiches some of Lovecraft’s excesses of style, and adds a third version of the “true events” at the Reichenbach Falls.)
The Thackery T. Lamshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, edited by Dr. Jeff VanderMeer and Dr. Mark Roberts
Night Shade Books, 298 pages, $24.00 (hardcover)
With contributions from a dream-team of discredited and would-be physicians (including Drs. Michael Bishop, Neil Gaiman, David Langford, Tim Lebbon, China Miéville, Michael Moorcock, Brian Stableford, Gahan Wilson, and far too many more to count), this is the medical quackery book of the year. Each doctor has glowingly chronicled the history and symptoms of a truly horrible and often horrifying disease. Among my favorites:
Bone Leprosy (or Saint Calamaro’s Leprosy), in which the bones rather than the flesh fall away from the extremities of the body;
Diseasemaker’s Croup, in which medical gibberish overcomes a physician;
Reverse Pinocchio Syndrome, in which the noses of people whose livelihood or happiness depends on lies (such as “priests, politicians, parents of unspeakable ugly babies”) grow inwardly into the skull.
You get the idea. This is a book best read in small gasps. Give one to your family practitioner as a reference.
The Wolves in the Walls, written by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Dave McKean
HarperCollins, 56 pages, $16.99 (hardcover)
On first glance, this appears to be a children’s picture book. The words and storyline are fairly simple: Lucy keeps hearing sounds in the walls and comes to believe wolves are living there. Nobody believes her. Her mother blames mice. Her brother thinks she’s crazy. Her father says it’s rats—but adds the disturbing “If the wolves come out of the walls, you know it’s all over.”
Of course, the wolves do come out of the walls, but rather than being eaten, the household flees to the garden and the wolves simply take over the house, eating jam and playing video games. How Lucy gets her house back is the real story, with a nice reversal of the wolves’ original appearance.
What age is it appropriate for? My nine-year-old read it and enjoyed it by himself; my six-year-old loved it for a bedtime story. I enjoyed it as a quick preview-read in the bookstore before deciding it wasn’t too gruesome or scary. If you need a present for a child, this is a book you can give with confidence. It doesn’t talk down to them.
The Gashleycrumb Tinies, by Edward Gorey
Harcourt Brace, 64 pages, $9.00 (hardcover)
The Object-Lesson, by Edward Gorey
Harcourt Brace, 32 pages, $12.00 (hardcover)
Two reprints of note are from 1958. The Gashleycrumb Tinies (a macabre A to Z with verses like “E is for Ernest who choked on a peach” and “F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech”) is definitely not what you’d want to read your children at bedtime…but it is more than worth having on your own bookshelf.
The Object-Lesson (inspired by Samuel Foote’s poem, “The Grand Panjandrum”) is a series of seemingly unrelated cartoons that still seem to flow into each other with a mesmerizing dream-logic. Strange, surreal, puzzling, and addictive; add it to your Gorey shelf, too.
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