Sunday, June 7, 2020

Going back in time

So, I'm a few days late writing this, but it's been a rough week.

As I mentioned last time, The 6 Messiahs was a sequel volume. As it happened, I found out I owned the previous volume, The List of 7 by Mark Frost already, but only after ordering a used copy. Anyway, I finished this Friday afternoon, so here we go.

We start with a pre-Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle trying to get various stories published that have naught to do with his detective, as he isn't excited about being a doctor. He also seems to be a lapsed Catholic, more interested in examining the nascent Spiritualist and Theosophy movements than surgery. We open on his invitation to a seance, invited by a landed noble to prevent something catastrophic. The seance goes to hell pretty quickly, and Doyle is good to escape with his life intact, rescued by Jack Sparks, an agent of Queen Victoria, who's trying to figure out who is behind a recent spate of supernatural occurrences in the country.

We travel the English countryside, meeting such luminaries of Madame Blatlavsky and Dion Fortune; Queen Victoria herself at one point. We find out some of the criminal element is getting Zombiefied through Haitian drugs and vicious surgery. And we find out that Jack's brother is the mastermind behind this.

It's quite thrilling until about the last chapter, when after a very big lead up, we, along with Doyle hear about the conclusion through a third party.

Other than that horrible ending, it's a fun read, with a few really funny moments, such as Doyle throwing a very heavy book at a zombie pursuer, only to find out the volume was none other than HPB's Psychic Self Defense. Fun read. Just don't expect to be impressed by the ending.

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