Myths for the Modern Age, edited by Win Scott Eckert

Philip José Farmer believes that the meteor which landed near a small village in England in 1795 irradiated roughly eighteen people and changed their genetic makeup. These mutated genes were passed on to their descendants, many of whom became extraordinary individuals. These amazing people have been the real-world models for some of the most popular fictional characters through the years, such as Sherlock Holmes, the Scarlet Pimpernel, Allan Quatermain, and James Bond. Myths for the Modern Age is a collection of faux-scholarly essays exploring this concept.

As with many anthologies, the various authors here are hit and miss with their efforts. The Arms of Tarzan by Farmer goes into excruciating detail about the coat of arms of Lord Greystoke, better known as Tarzan; this is easily the least interesting essay in the collection. Brad Mengel’s Watching the Detectives was my favorite, where we learn that Simon Templar, Lara Croft, Ellery Queen, Barnaby Jones, Archie Goodwin, and Robert Goren are all descendants of Sherlock Holmes. He also postulates that Holmes nemesis Moriarty had well-known offspring, such as “Howling Mad” Murdock, better known as the helicopter pilot for the commando unit known as the A-Team. “Intriguingly, the leader of the A-Team, John ‘Hannibal’ Smith, is the great-nephew of Sherlock Holmes making this perhaps the first time that a member of the Holmes family and a member of the Moriarty family worked together.” Connections like this make this concept a lot of fun!

At nearly 400 pages, this can be a long read—especially for the less interesting chapters. There is an excellent set of endnotes throughout the essays that give sources and hints as to who some of the more obscure characters are (Lew Archer, anyone?) but somewhere in the 200’s the numbers get out of sync, with the text and the reference mismatched; this led to quite a bit of confusion for me until I realized what had happened. All in all, I was disappointed by this book. The idea of a shared genealogy crossing fictional boundaries I love, but feel it fell short of its potential here. If you are a die-hard lover of conspiracy and literary humor then pick this up, but otherwise just go spend some time on Thom Holbrook’s crossover site.

First Sentence (from the introduction):

The Wold Newton Family is a group of heroic and villainous literary figures that science fiction author Philip José Farmer postulated belonged to the same genetic family.