The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Martian Menace

by Eric Brown

Overview

A new addition to the Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series from science fiction and crime author Eric Brown.

A second wave of Martians has come to Earth - the first wave having succumbed to lethal Terran pathogens. The second wave, arriving some five years later, did so with the aid of a cure for the various ills that scuppered their earlier plans - and these Martians claim to have come in peace.

Humankind, lulled into a false sense of security, welcomes the Martians who bring with them a host of technological and scientific wonders, and for several years an entente exists between the two races. It is only when Holmes and Watson travel to the Red Planet, ostensibly to track down the killer of an eminent Martian philosopher, that they learn the truth: the Martians who invaded Earth are tyrannical despots who subjugated a 'lesser' race of their own kind, and are merely biding their time to enslave the citizens of Earth. With the assistance of anti-Martian activist Miss Freya Hadfield-Bell, and a cadre of renegade Martians, Holmes and Watson escape Mars with their lives and return to Earth where they hope to work to overcome the rule of the oppressive Martian overlords.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781789092950
Publisher:	Titan
Publication date:	02/11/2020
Series:	Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Series
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	666,374
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Eric Brown is a British science fiction author. His story "The Time-Lapsed Man" won the Interzone readers' poll for the most admired story of 1988, and an Eastercon short text award in 1995. He was voted the Best New European SF writer of the Year in the early 1990s and has subsequently won the British Science Fiction Award twice (for the short stories "Hunting the Slarque" in 1999 and "Children of Winter" in 2001).

Editorial Reviews

03/23/2020

Even Sherlockians who welcome innovative spins on the classic character are unlikely to take to this so-so action adventure yarn from Brown (the Langham and Dupré mysteries). In an alternate past, the unsuccessful invasion of H.G. Wells’s War of the Worlds is followed by a benign return to Earth by Martians who claim that the hostilities were the work of a defeated faction. Instead of death rays, the aliens now offer improved tech and the promise of a better life. But Dr. Watson’s chance encounter in Hyde Park with a member of a resistance movement leads the Baker Street duo to believe that the Martians are still bent on ruling Earth and plan to replace leaders with robot simulacra. Their efforts to thwart the Martians take them to the Red Planet, where Brown doesn’t sweat the details. Holmes and Watson walk around Mars without spacesuits and Holmes is able to speak the Martian language like a native. Those interested in a mix of the fictional universes of Conan Doyle and Wells would be better served by Manly Wade Wellman and Wade Wellman’s Sherlock Holmes’s War of the Worlds. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"I enjoyed Eric Brown’s clever plot and the mysteries about the Martians that Holmes and Challenger manage to penetrate. If you’re in the mood for a couple wonderful Sherlock Holmes pastiches with a Science Fiction flavor, I recommend Sherlock Holmes and War of the Worlds and The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. GRADE: B+ (for both)" - George Kelley blog review

From the Publisher