Crossovers: A Secret Chronology of the World #2 (Crossovers, #2) in Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton Universe

Jan 22, 2011 Anthony rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, crossover-universe, wold-newton-universe, essays

The late Philip Jose Farmer created (or perhaps just formalized the concept of) a world in which the greatest Pulp and Gothic fiction characters in literature were literally related, thanks to a group of people in carriages passing the site of a meteor strike near the town of Wold-Newton in England in the 1795. Farmer built on the concept in a number of his own books, and has left the concept in excellent hands through folks like Win Scott Eckert, Christopher Paul Carey, Jess Nevins, the Loffici The late Philip Jose Farmer created (or perhaps just formalized the concept of) a world in which the greatest Pulp and Gothic fiction characters in literature were literally related, thanks to a group of people in carriages passing the site of a meteor strike near the town of Wold-Newton in England in the 1795. Farmer built on the concept in a number of his own books, and has left the concept in excellent hands through folks like Win Scott Eckert, Christopher Paul Carey, Jess Nevins, the Lofficier brothers who run Black Coat Press, and too many others to name.

The concept behind Eckert's current massive work (this volume, and a second coming later in the year) is to catalog all of the places where fictional characters have crossed over with each other, expanding Farmer's Wold-Newton Family into what is usually called the Wold-Newton Crossover Universe. It's a huge undertaking, based off of the Crossover Timeline on the Farmer website, and an impressive one. An almost too brief essay at the beginning explains the limits Eckert has placed on the Crossover connectivity. The idea is to remain true to Farmer's concept that despite the supernatural and super-science aspects in the original works this is still a world largely similar to our own, and therefore most of the canons of the Marvel, DC and Doctor Who universes are not included simply because Spiderman regularly teams up with Wolverine, or Batman with Wonder Woman, etc.

My only quibble with the book is the way the entries are annotated. I think Eckert makes his case in his introductory essay that, for instance, any time a Real Person (Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, Groucho Marx, Winston Churchill, etc) is mentioned as taking part in a story, we are obviously talking about the Fictional, Wold-Newton version of that person and not the version from Our World. I don't think comments like that were necessary within various entries -- it distracts more than clarifies, in my opinion.

While I could have wished for a bit more consistency in the way the entries are source-noted, overall the book is an easy read and one I'm sure I'll be referring back to (as much as I have the original website) whenever I read anything related to this world (or when I write anything that might cross-over). I definitely highly recommend the book to genre fiction fans (not just Pulp and Gothic, but comic book, fantasy, science fiction and horror fans as well).

Volume 2 covers 1940 through the far future, and has appendices that list books and stories Win opted to not include in the Crossover Universe timeline for a variety of reasons. I liked this particular touch, pointing people to stories he felt were just too hard to reconcile with the relationships and histories originally laid down by Philip Jose Farmer and acknowledging that in many cases the stories are well told (and that for the most part, quality is not the reason some crossovers are excluded).

I did find myself disagreeing on a few points of inclusion or dis-inclusion. For instance, there are a number of times where Win suggests that stories happened, but were greatly exaggerated by the authors who told those stories (a good example: The Day of The Triffids probably happened on the Crossover Earth, but with nowhere near the level of carnage and mayhem the movie ended with) while others are dismissed for similar reasons. But that's the joy of a project like this: my own version of which crossovers to include could certainly diverge from Win's at any point and neither of us is hurt by it. For instance, I would personally choose to include the characters of Arn Munro and Neptune Perkins, from Roy Thomas' Young All-Stars comic series, because of their connections to Philip Wylie's GLADIATOR and Poe's Arthur Gordon Pym, but would note that not every issue of that comic series is automatically incorporated into the CU because of the rule about limiting the proliferation of super-heroes in the CU. But that's just me.

As I said about the first volume, Eckert has done an absolutely amazing job synthesizing over 100 years of meetings between fictional characters to come up with a cohesive storyline in which there is something for everyone, from Conan to Holmes to Batman to Spenser, to Charlie's Angels to Lost to Star Trek. The book is also lavishly illustrated with book and magazine covers featuring the characters mentioned throughout.

True mystery/gothic/horror/sf/pulp/comics/crime/literature geeks can't really do without this two volume set. ...more

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