Sunday 9 April 2017

Literary References

The previous post mentioned:

the Sherlock Holmes series;
the James Bond series;
Poul Anderson's Technic History;
Anderson's two Operation... novels in his Old Phoenix sequence.

Now, by including a few other works by Anderson, we can draw some connections:

Anderson's Time Patrol series refers to Sherlock Holmes as if to a fictitious character;

however, it also describes "real" persons who answer the descriptions of Holmes and Watson and refers to Holmes as a real person under another name;

characters answering the descriptions of Holmes and Watson visit the Old Phoenix at the end of Anderson's A Midsummer Tempest;

Anderson's "The Queen of Air and Darkness," which is part of his Rustum future history, features a descendant of Holmes;

Anderson's "The Word to Space" features a descendant of Holmes' opponent, Moriarty;
 
Anderson's "The Martian Crown Jewels" features a Martian equivalent of Holmes;
 
Anderson's The Corridors Of Time refers to James Bond as to a fictitious person;
 
Dominic Flandry in Anderson's Technic History is a sexually active secret agent but otherwise unlike Bond;
 
Anderson's There Will Be Time refers to an English writer who sounds like HG Wells;

A Midsummer Tempest is a sequel to two Shakespeare plays;
 
Anderson's Hrolf Kraki's Saga retells a saga;

Anderson's The Broken Sword is a sequel to an Edda and a saga (see here).

As ever, this list grew as it was written.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

You should have included in your list the story co-written by Anderson and Dickson called "The Adventure Of The Misplaced Hound," featuring a Hoka Sherlock Holmes.

I know you didn't much care for the Hoka stories, but I like them! Not all SF has to be sternly serious all the time.

And, of course we see Prince Charles and Cassandra King talking about Sherlock Holmes in Stirling's THE PESHAWAR LANCERS.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
I knew that I would miss something and that you would point it out!
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Ha! And oops! (Smiles)

I note, with surprise and regret, how none of the Technic Civilization makes any references to the Holmes stories. The Bible, Kipling, Lewis Carroll, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, etc., but not A. Conan Doyle.

Sean