About the author:
Stephen HumphreyStephen Humphrey is a freelance writer and journalist who has lived in Toronto since 1994...
Follow Stephen on Twitter
Tags:
Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Prepolec, dark fantasy (2), Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing (2), Gaslight Grotesque, horror (3), J.R. Campbell, Sherlock Holmes“We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit streets…”
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
What does the eminently rational Sherlock Holmes do when faced irrefutably with the supernatural?
Does he dismiss the possibility of spirits, demons and hellhounds to their faces or does he acknowledge the darkly extraordinary, however improbable, as truth?
He might go either way in a pinch according to 13 authors who entangle fiction’s great consulting detective with a host of otherworldly suspects in Gaslight Grotesque, a collection of Holmes-related horror from Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing.
For example, in “Hounded”, by UK television writer Stephen Volk, Holmes is driven to denial when he meets a monstrously real hound of the Baskervilles. The account of debunking the beast in Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel turns out to be a covering hoax.
Elsewhere, Holmes battles the demon Asmoday with magical incantations when celebrity occultist Aleister Crowley fails in “Exalted are the Forces of Darkness” by Australian writer Leigh Blackmore. Holmes later states his actions were reasonable, given the situation.
“Certain forces demand the application of counter-forces,” he advises.
The book’s co-editor Charles Prepolec says it felt natural to pair Holmes with nightmarish foes ranging from a carnivorous shipwreck to sorcerously disfigured Londoners.
“The bottom line for me is I happen to like horror, I like supernatural fiction and I love Sherlock Holmes,” he says. “These are the types of stories I want to read. I find them fun.”
Prepolec explains that Conan Doyle, himself, wrote tales of mummies, psychic vampires and other dark subjects, often injecting macabre bits into Holmes stories like “The Speckled Band”.
“We’re sort of reclaiming part of where Holmes comes from,” Prepolec says. “He is a product of Victorian literature, and horror is a definite part of it.”
Indeed, both crime stories and supernatural tales appealed to the 19th century public, which itself struggled to know the spiritual as science visionaries like Charles Darwin challenged long-held beliefs. Many consulted so-called Spiritualists, who ranged from devious charlatans to serious types convinced that science could prove the soul.
Conan Doyle himself was a committed Spiritualist who wrote his own history of the movement.
Unlike Holmes’ creator Prepolec’s co-editor Jeff “J.R.” Campbell claims he is more attached to crime fiction than horror.
“I don’t follow it all that much, to tell you the truth,” he says.
In fact, before assmbling Gaslight Grotesque and its 2008 predecessor, Gaslight Grimoire, Campbell and Prepolec curated two volumes of straightforward non-ghostly Holmes “pastiche” titled Curious Incidents.
“This is the fourth book for us, technically,” Prepolec explains.
Both editors count themselves fortunate that the current Gaslight book launched so close to the release of Guy Richie’s Sherlock Holmes movie, which proved a boon to book sales.
“The timing has been incredible,” Prepolec says. “We had no idea the movie was coming out when we produced the book.”
Prepolec and Campbell both praise Jude Law’s bang-on Dr. Watson in the film and Robert Downey Jr.’s rakish, frequently shirtless Holmes.
“For years I’ve waited for years for a Sherlock Holmes film without the deerstalker and I finally got one,” says Campbell, in reference to the the sleuth’s familiar two-peaked hat.
Richie’s film, which is more of a Gothic action movie than parlour mystery, mines edgier parts of Conan Doyle’s protagonist, such as his obsessive streak and addictive nature. Downey’s Holmes comes across more as steampunk’s original hero, not some tweedy chap with a pipe.
A second Holmes vehicle for Downey is already in the works. With luck it might align with the release of Gaslight Arcanum, the next planned anthology.
So far fortune has favoured the series, Prepolec says.
“When we produced Gaslight Grimoire we were on the edge of a new wave of Sherlock Holmes fiction,” he elaborates. “And of course once the movie was announced the past year. If the timing works out hey, I’m not going to complain.”