The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: War of the Worlds

by Wellman, Manly Wade; Wellman, Wade

• ISBN13: 9781848564916
• ISBN10: 1848564910
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-11-17
• Publisher: Titan Books

Summary

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's timeless creation returns in a new series of handsomely designed, long out-of-print detective stories. From the earliest days of Holmes' career to his astonishing encounters with Martian invaders, the Further Adventures series encapsulates the most varied and thrilling cases of the worlds' greatest detective. Sherlock Holmes, Professor Challenger and Dr. Watson meet their match when the streets of London are left decimated by a prolonged alien attack. Who could be responsible for such destruction? Sherlock Holmes is about to find out... Manly and Wade Wellman's novel takes H.G. Well's classic story and throws Holmes into the mix, with surprising and unexpected results.

Author Biography

The award-winning science-fiction writer Manly Wade Wellman and his son Wade released Sherlock Holmes’ War of the Worlds to universal acclaim in 1975. Manly Wellman’s other work includes: The Invading Asteroid, Sojarr of Titan, The Dark Destroyers, Island in the Sky, Worse Things Waiting and The Beyonders.

Excerpts

THE ADVENTURE OF THE MARTIAN CLIENT
By
John H. Watson, M.D.

Mr. H. G. Wells' popular book,The War of the Worlds, is a frequently inaccurate chronicle of a known radical and atheist, a boon companion of Frank Harris, George Bernard Shaw, and worse. He exaggerates needlessly and pretends to a scientific knowledge which plainly he does not possess. Yet scientists and laymen alike read and applaud him, even while they scorn the brilliant deductions of Sherlock Holmes and Professor George Edward Challenger.

Wells refers in his book to the magnificent and almost complete specimen of an invader, preserved in spirits at the Natural History Museum, but he carelessly, or perhaps deliberately, overlooks the history of its capture, examination, and presentation. And both scholarly journals and the popular press almost totally disregard Professor Challenger's striking rationalisation that the invaders were not Martians at all. As for Holmes, he shows little concern over these injustices, but after consulting him, I had decided to put the true facts on record for posterity to judge.

When the invasion began, in bright midsummer of 1902, fear seemed to overwhelm every human being except the two wisest and best men I have ever known. On that Friday morning of June 6, when the first Mars-based cylinder was beginning to open at Woking to disgorge its crew of ruthless destroyers, I was hurrying to Highgate. Poor Murray, my faithful old orderly who had saved my life during the Second Afghan War, lay critically ill in his lodgings there. Even as I came to his door, newspapers and jabbering neighbors reported something about strange beings from Mars landed among the little suburban towns in Surrey. I paid scant attention, for I found Murray very weak and helpless. Almost at once I became sadly sure that he could not be saved, only made as comfortable as possible as he settled into death. Later that night, while I sought to reduce his fever, I half heard more news to the effect that the invaders were striking down helpless crowds of the curious.

If it seems that I was not fully aware of these stirring events that day and on Saturday and Sunday, I must again offer the reminder that all my attention was needed at Murray's bedside. From other people in the house I heard wild stories, which seemed to me only crazy rumours, that these creatures from across space had utterly smashed Woking and Horsell, had utterly wiped out the troops hastily thrown in their way, and were advancing upon London itself. By Monday morning, Murray's fellow lodgers and the people in houses to both sides had fled, I never learned where or to what fate. The entire street was deserted save for my poor patient and myself.

I could have no thought of going away, too, and leaving Murray. Day after day I did what I could for him, as doctor and as friend. Meanwhile, all about us whirled terror and fire, and, in street below us, dense, clouds of that lethal vapour that has since been called the Black Smoke.

I heard the ear-shattering howls of the fighting-machines as they signalled each other above London's roofs, and several times I peered cautiously from behind the window curtains to see them far away, scurrying along at tremendous speed on their jointed legs fully a hundred feet high. It was on Tuesday, I think, that their heat-rays knocked nearby houses into exploding flames, but our own shelter had the good fortune to escape.

Through all this, Murray lay only half-conscious in bed. Once or twice he murmured something about guns, and I believe he thought himself back fighting the Afghans. I ranged all the other lodgings in the house to find food for him. It was on the morning of the eighth day, the second Friday of the invasion, that he died, and I could take time to realise that things had become strangely quiet outside our windows.

I straightened out my poor friend's body on his bed and crossed his hands up

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Excerpted from The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: War of the Worlds by Wade Wellman, Manly Wade Wellman
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