In theory, The Peerless Peer, Philip Jose Farmer’s 1974 Sherlock Holmes pastiche featuring Holmes, Watson, Tarzan, and a cast of dozens, is about stopping a German agent named Von Bork from stealing a genetically engineered microbe that eats sauerkraut. In actuality, it’s about where exactly Tarzan fits into Holmes’ case files and the Greystoke family tree.
In retrospect, further investigation into the sauerkraut plot might well have been preferable.
Serious fans of Sherlock Holmes — or at least ones who take their Holmes very seriously — are probably going to have all sorts of issues with this one. It may be the way various pulp characters, from The Shadow to G-8 to Allen Quatermain, all get crammed in willy-nilly. It may be the arrant silliness, from a pilot who screams about giant bats to the aforementioned sauerkraut-eating microorganism. It may be the rather unflattering way in which Holmes is depicted: aging, prone to violent airsickness, and needlessly vicious with Dr. Watson. Or it may be that, as with so many Holmes pastiches, there’s no mystery here, just a very talky and occasionally parodic pulp adventure.
And talky it is. The real climax of the story is not the thrilling escape from a village straight out of H. Rider Haggard and through a barrier of lethal bees, but rather a lengthy genealogy discussion wherein it’s mapped out in exhaustive detail how exactly Tarzan fits into the established Holmesian continuity. (In a word: awkwardly). Most of the action takes place off-screen; we’re told about it, but rarely see it, and Holmes and Watson make for rather inert protagonists here. Only at the end of the narrative do they drive the action, stealing away the local high priestess so that she might become Mrs. Watson #4, and running for their lives. Prior to that, they get captured multiple times, they get on a couple of aircraft, and Holmes is frequently violently ill, something Farmer takes a little too much joy in calling out.
So much for the content; the context leaves something to be desired as well. While there’s really no plot to sustain things — the whole story is set up to show off a clever set of deductions regarding how Tarzan, Lamont Cranston and a few others fit together — the book is still extremely short. To pad it out, Titan has included a teaser section from Kim Newman’s upcoming Col. Sebastian Moran-based Holmes pastiche, which feels considerably tighter and more interesting than the main event.
The considerable cult followers The Peerless Peer acquired after its original publication will no doubt be ecstatic to see it back in print. Unwary readers who think, however, that they’re going to get Tarzan swinging into action in the streets of London, or Holmes testing his deductive skills in the jungle, or indeed any functional pairing of Tarzan’s brawn and Holmes’ brains, will be sadly disappointed.
(Titan, 2011)
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