The Martian Menace

March 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.