And yet, this time, instead of dismissing it out-of-hand I chose to pick it up and give it a shot. The title, of course, says it all: another Sherlock/Mythos crossover to add to the ranks of the others that have come before. Cthulhu: The Adventure of the Deadly Dimensions by Lois H. In the end, it was the cover (as is often the case with books) that drew me to Sherlock Holmes vs. What story could combine these two polar opposites and still make some kind of sense? After all, Sherlock Holmes is the epitome of incisive logic in an illogical world, while the Elder Gods of the Mythos are so incomprehensible and illogical that dealing with them inevitably leads to madness.
Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu Mythos crossovers exist, though none of them have really piqued my interest because, in my mind, the two are so utterly incompatible. It should come as no surprise, then, that these two concepts would someday meet. And because Lovecraft himself was rather free with letting others use his concepts and ideas, many creators have freely borrowed and adapted elements from the Mythos, using it to add a touch of cosmic horror to their own creations. With the Mythos, Lovecraft established the baseline for weird horror and cosmic horror: two subgenres that have become incredibly popular in recent years thanks not only to written media, but also films and video games. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos enjoys a similar kind of popularity as Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, albeit for very different reasons. The volume is such that it is possible to build an entire branch of literary scholarship dedicated to Sherlock Holmes alone – in fact, many Sherlockian societies are already doing just that. There are innumerable homages, adaptations, and pastiches available out there, in all forms of media: from genre fiction to serious literary fiction, all the way to movies, television shows, and video games. Sherlock Holmes carries much cachet in any sphere of storytelling, since he has become the “quintessential detective”.
That has been the case with Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, and H.P. Other times, it is nothing more than a gimmick, not anything truly fresh. Sometimes, that new thing is a fresh take on old material – something that revives interest in the originals, while simultaneously maintaining its own unique identity and appeal.
From out of this melange anyone could pull together bits and fragments of various things and put them together in new ways.
This is especially true today, when the Internet has made concepts and ideas easy to share, and easy to find. When an idea becomes ridiculously popular, it is inevitable that the idea will be used in almost anything and everything, often melding with other, equally popular ideas. Trigger warnings for this novel can be found at the very bottom of this review.
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