PROFESSOR CHALLENGER ANTHOLOGY SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Professor Challenger Anthology Submission Guidelines

Editors: J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec

Publisher: EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing

Genres: SF, Fantasy, Horror, Steampunk, Adventure

Submission deadline: May 31, 2012

Story Length: Approx. 7, 500 words to a maximum of 10,000 words

What we’re after:

A broad range of new and original stories built around Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s LOST WORLD character Professor George Edward Challenger. Stories derived from the aftermath of events in the Lost World are welcome, however simply revisiting or rehashing the Lost World without good cause is not. Challenger is a man of science first and foremost, not an explorer. Mash-ups or crossovers with public domain literary characters are welcome.  

For inspiration think X-files, Quatermass, Dr. Who, cryptozoology – Yeti, Nessie, etc…, aliens among us, supernatural occurrences, science gone awry in a Dr. Moreau, Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll vein, nature run amuck, monsters large and small, world threatening cataclysm, Lovecraft mythos, think H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, E. R. Burroughs, John Wyndham, Nigel Kneale, alternate history, new lost places, steampunk, whatever.... Be creative.

Mine the potential for all it's worth! Push it out there, get weird, play, have fun!

Notes: This is a professional market. Full rate to 7,500 words, half rate for balance to 10,000 words. One time publication rights. The anthology is part invitation and part open submission. Priority will be given to invited authors, but an invitation to submit is not a guarantee of acceptance. A minimum of two slots will be held for open submissions. Acceptance is based entirely on suitability of story and quality of writing. No reprints.

Submission Format:

Email submission in Rich Text Format (.rtf) or Microsoft Word (.doc) attachments only.  Use standard manuscript format. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuscript_format#Basic_manuscript_formatting)

Send submissions to charles@bakerstreetdozen.com and/or themightyjrc@shaw.ca

GASLIGHT ARCANUM: UNCANNY TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES in 2011

GASLIGHT ARCANUM: UNCANNY TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES 




Edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec
Published by EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy
Publication date: Fall 2011

Cover art by Dave Elsey 
Frontispiece by Mike Mignola

Contents:

Introduction by Charles Prepolec

The Comfort of the Seine by Stephen Volk
The Adventure of Lucifer’s Footprints by Christopher Fowler 
The Deadly Sin of Sherlock Holmes by Tom English
The Colour that Came to Chiswick by William Meikle
A Country Death by Simon K. Unsworth
From the Tree of Time by Fred Saberhagen
Sherlock Holmes and the Diving Bell by Simon Clark
The Executioner by Lawrence C. Connolly
Sherlock Holmes and the Great Game by Kevin Cockle
The Greatest Mystery by Paul Kane
The House of Blood by Tony Richards
The Adventure of the Six Maledictions by Kim Newman

Publication details will be available from our publisher EDGE SF&F at their website http://www.edgewebsite.com/ in due course.

This is the third book in the series, following on from GASLIGHT GRIMOIRE: FANTASTIC TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (2008) and GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: NIGHTMARE TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009). For info on the previous volumes please visit the EDGE SF&F website at http://www.edgewebsite.com/ or your favorite retail or online bookseller.

To order a copy of GASLIGHT GRIMOIRE: FANTASTIC TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES - http://astore.amazon.com/bakerstreetdo-20/detail/1894063171

To order a copy of GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: NIGHTMARE TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES - http://astore.amazon.com/bakerstreetdo-20/detail/1894063317

LIVE GASLIGHT GROTESQUE AUTHOR CHAT AT BITTEN BY BOOKS APRIL 21, 2010

A live real-time online chat with various contributors to GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: NIGHTMARE TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES will take place on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 at the Bitten By Books site. Simply sign-in, post a question and whichever author or editor is close to hand will answer it. To RSVP please click here.

Gaslight Grotesque Reviewed - The SF Site

GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: NIGHTMARE TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES has been reviewed by Mario Guslandi as a featured review on SF Site 

"Following in the steps of the previous volume, Gaslight Grimoire, the new Sherlockian anthology edited by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec explores again the unpredictable effects of the encounter of Holmes' rational mind with the supernatural. Although I enjoyed many stories from the first volume, I had my reservations about the book because of the inclusion, besides a few excellent tales, of some mediocre material. 

I'm happy to say that the present anthology is definitely of superior quality and that the large majority of the thirteen stories assembled therein are accomplished examples of dark fantasy, apt to satisfy even the more demanding readers, either Sherlockian enthusiasts or horror fans or just fiction lovers seeking out entertaining and well written stories.

The highlights of the anthology are numerous. Mark Morris contributes "The Affair of the Heart," an engrossing, ingenuous tale where Holmes and Watson..."(click here to visit The SF Site for the full review)

Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes is available now at Amazon.com 

RADIO: GASLIGHT GROTESQUE EDITORS INTERVIEWED ON CKUA RADIO

GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: NIGHTMARE TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES editors J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec talk about their book with Brenda Finley on CKUA Radio's BOOKMARK program for January 10th, 2010. The podcast is available on the CKUA archive page here or you can launch the Windows Media file directly by clicking here.

GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: FORGET THE PURISTS, CALGARY PUBLISHER KEEPS HOLMES EVOLVING

Back to Baker Street

Forget the purists, Calgary publisher keeps Sherlock Holmes evolving

December 21, 2009 

By Eric Volmers, Calgary Herald 

Photograph by: Christina Ryan, Calgary Herald

Charles Prepolec did not want to add to the perception that Sherlock Holmes fans, or Sherlockians as they call themselves, are rigid and overly protective of their territory when it comes to interpretations of the famous detective.

But the Calgarian admits he has found it necessary to enforce at least one rule when gathering short stories for collections that mix Arthur Conan Doyle's famous Baker Street investigator with horror scenarios: Do not bring a certain serial killer into the mix.

"No Jack the Ripper stories," says Prepolec, one of the editors of Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 336 pages,$16.95) "We see him in short stories so often, and novels. No Ripper stories."

After all, having Holmes face the historical slasher isn't exactly a new idea. With an encyclopedic knowledge of all-things Sherlockian, Prepolec and co-editor J.R. Campbell can rhyme off the more notable attempts to bring the two Victorian icons together. The 1979 film, Murder by Decree with Christopher Plummer and 1965's A Study in Terror with John Neville were among the high-profile trips to that particular well.

So if you want to get your story into one of the collections, you will need to find Mr. Holmes a more original opponent.

"There are some things you have to avoid," says Campbell, who also contributed two stories to the book. "Your stories still have to be exciting. There's a lot of pastiche that tends to be more style over storytelling. You have to avoid that. There's a lot of stories that bring in a historical person. Which is fine . . . if they have a place."

With the Christmas Day release of Sherlock Holmes, a high-octane blockbuster featuring smirking Yank Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role, it could be argued that this latest release of short stories is perfectly timed to cash in on what could be a full-blown resurgence.

But Prepolec and Campbell are hardly bandwagon jumpers. Gaslight Grotesque is the fourth book that has been put together featuring creepy Holmes tales and the second to be published by Calgary-based genre kings Edge Publishing. They are working on a fifth. Both are members of Calgary's Singular Society of the Baker Street Dozen, a group that has been getting together in one form or another since 1987 to discuss the constant evolution of Doyle's character in the pop-culture consciousness.

And both have fairly high standards when it comes to what they'll accept as additions to the Holmes legend. The 13 tales come from a wide variety of authors who hail from Canada, the U.K., the U.S. and Australia. The book has gotten some high-profile shout-outs from Canuck sci-fi king Robert J. Sawyer and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.... (click to read the full article at the Calgary Herald)

GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: REVIEWED BY SHERLOCKIAN PHILIP K. JONES

Sherlockian reviewer, and compiler of the pastiche database, Philip K. Jones has provided the following review of GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: NIGHTMARE TALES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES to the editors and has also posted it to Amazon.Com.

"This is a collection of Sherlockian tales in which, to quote Leslie S. Klinger's Forward, "...the pillar of Victorian reason and intellect, Sherlock Holmes, would be called upon to confront the forces of darkness in every form." Make no mistake. This is a collection of horror stories, not the usual Sherlockian investigations of human crime. In this book, Holmes and Watson deal with monsters, not twisted humans, but horrors out of myth and nightmare

In the opening tale, "Hounded," by Stephen Volk, Watson attends a seance. What he finds there is what he had hoped to escape, his own memories of The Hound. Once confronted, they lead him to his only escape. "The Death Lantern,"by Lawrence C. Connolly, tells of a magician who filmed himself practicing one of his illusions, catching an explosive bullet in his teeth. The early silent movie is destroyed after Holmes, Watson and Lestrade witness the death(?) of the magician. William Meikle's "The Quality of Mercy" is a story of an old Army friend of Watson's yearning for a dead sweetheart. The form that desire takes is gruesome to say the least.

"Emily's Kiss," by James A. Moore, is one of the most horrifying tales in my opinion. The events are described but the cause and explanation are never stated explicitly, leaving the imagination of the reader to fill in the blanks, over and over and over again. "The Tragic Case of the Child Prodigy," by William Patrick Maynard, has an Aleister Crowley surrogate, disguised as one "Christopher Frawley," preying on an ambitious `stage mother' to control the income generated by a young violinist. "The Last Windigo," by Hayden Trenholm, has Holmes an Watson sent to Canada by Mycroft on The Queen's Business. While waiting for the situation to develop, they stumble on a land theft scheme that is being contested by the local natives. Resolving that dispute requires more than logic and diplomacy.

In "Celeste," by Neil Jackson, Holmes and Watson work, at the request of The Prince of Wales, to put a final end to the recurring nightmare of a ghost ship. "The Best Laid Plans," by Robert Lauderdale, presents an alternative view of events in "The Final Problem," as seen through the eyes of Inspector Lestrade. The view is neither pretty nor simple. "Exalted Are the Forces of Darkness," by Leigh Blackmore introduces Aleister Crowley, this time as an ally of Holmes in dealing with a conjured Demon attacking members of The Golden Dawn. "The Affair of the Heart," by Mark Morris, introduces Holmes to a sort of time travel, which engulfs him and Watson in a trap of double jeopardy. "The Hand-Delivered Letter," by Simon Kurt Unsworth, brings back Moriarty, in a truly stunning and terrifying revenge. "On the Origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles," by Barbera Roden, fills in the untold bits of HOUN deftly and seamlessly and horribly. J. R. Campbell's "Mr. Other's Children" finishes the book on a note of true terror. It's villain escapes and leaves the world at risk.

Sherlockians are not as likely to recognise many of the authors, other than Barbera Roden and J. R. Campbell, since most have worked in the horror genre rather than in detective tales up to this time. That takes nothing away from their abilities and the errors for purists are mostly confined to the villains and `ghosties' introduced, rather than to Canonical problems. In addition, most are not Americans, so the `slanguage' problems are not nearly so much in evidence as in most recent anthologies."