The Adventure of the Peerless Peer [Hardcover]

Philip Jose Farmer (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Rue Morgue Press (November 1, 1974)
• ISBN-10: 0915230062
• ISBN-13: 978-0915230068
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,594,390 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Ah, yes," Mycroft said. "Greystoke is living in a tree house with an ape.", September 2, 2007

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H. Bala "Me Too Can Read" (Just moved to posh Marina Del Rey, CA - where if you drop a quarter, why, you just keep on walking) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Adventure of the Peerless Peer (Hardcover)

Three and a half stars for this one, but first, a bit of background: Hugo Award winning fantasy/sci-fi author Philip Jose Farmer had long been keen on heroic literary figures and, specifically, on pulp heroes. To satisfy this fascination, he imagined the Wold Newton universe, in which he hypothesized that the meteorite which crashed into Wold Newton, England in 1795 was the source of the family-tree of "supermen" whose feats have since then been fictionalized in books. Two members of this family are Sherlock Holmes and Tarzan of the Apes. In 1974, Farmer "edited" John Watson's THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEERLESS PEER, which chronicled the fateful encounter between the Great Detective and the Jungle Lord.

In 1916, set in the throes of the first World War, Mycroft Holmes of the Front Office sends his brother Sherlock and Dr. Watson on a perilous mission to regain a stolen formula. Their adversary is the dangerous German agent Von Bork, whose criminal exploits Watson had previously chronicled in "His Last Bow" (His Last Bow: Some Reminiscences of Sherlock Holmes (The Oxford Sherlock Holmes)). But very inclement weather and the whims of their mad pilot cause Holmes and Watson to be captured by a zeppelin. However, this German aircraft is itself rendered so structurally damaged that its crew and captives are forced to abandon ship. They parachute into the dark African jungles, and, this is, naturally, where Tarzan of the Apes makes his appearance.

THE ADVENTURE OF THE PEERLESS PEER, at 127 pages, is more of a novella than a novel. It's a brisk and fun read, and it isn't for everyone, definitely not for the Sherlock Holmes purist. So read this with a grain of salt, maybe two grains. I happen to have enjoyed reading this one, but, then again, I've read a lot of Philip Jose Farmer's fantasy/sci-fi stuff and figured this one to involve more high adventure than cerebral mystery solving.

The author's presentation of Tarzan is close enough to Burrough's original take, with Farmer placing him very much in his prime and firmly in his arboreal purview. But, you could look at Farmer's portrayal of Holmes in one of two ways: Holmes is either realistically humanized or is misrepresented, and woefully so. THE PEERLESS PEER takes place in 1916 and presents Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as decidedly older gentlemen in their 60s. Maybe that's why they spend much of the time wheezing for breath and seemingly in stark terror (yes, sadly, even Holmes). Figure in too that they're mostly out of their element as much of the events take place inside rollicking, storm-tossed airplanes and in dense, exotic African jungles. Nevertheless, it's offputting to see Holmes depicted as less than he is, even given his advanced years. For much of the book's first half, Holmes doesn't get to do much more than be airsick and bitterly complain about flying as he's ferried thru the air to his mission destination, which he doesn't even reach.

Also disappointingly, if you're a hard core Sherlock Holmes fan, there's a dearth of deductive analysis here. Holmes does figure out Greystoke's true history and there's a bit at the end, when he ferrets out the formula's location. But, if anything, it's Holmes' study of bees that saves everyone's hash. I guess, with regards to how Holmes was written, I'm not too pleased with Farmer. But, at least, Watson has a very happy ending. Again, with this book, a grain of salt. Maybe two grains.

Farmer strays from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's somewhat detached and clinical style. Rather, Farmer affects a tone that is brisk, action-oriented, and sometimes even wink-of-the-eye. Not surprisingly, given that Farmer's inclinations and sensiblities lie more with Burroughs than with Doyle, the narrative pace is more suited to a Tarzan adventure than a Holmesian mystery. He also throws in a few puns and in-jokes, the most groan-inducing of which is: "Holmes commented several times that he could use a little cocaine to relieve the tedium, but I believe that he said that just to needle me."

Farmer isn't about to miss out on this opportunity to have others of his Wold Newton family-tree cross over into these pages. He peppers in early sightings of John Dickson Carr's future sleuths Gideon Fell and Henry Merrivale. Even better, we see in action the great but quite demented aviator G-8 and, also, Colonel Kentov aka Lamont Cranston aka the Shadow (this is before he became the Shadow, of course).

The McGuffin itself is rather silly, involving some formula which details a bacteria tailored to consume all the sauerkraut in Deutschland, thus devastating the enemy's food supply and morale. But, being the McGuffin, its silliness is negligible. For the interested Tarzanphile, with regards to chronology and continuity, this adventure seems to take place somewhen around the events of Tarzan the Untamed (Tarzan #7) (Vintage Ballantine, F751), when Lord Greystoke still believed his wife Jane to have been killed by Germans. For those who might want to look into Farmer's other Wold Newton novels, there are, among others, Wind Whales Ishmael, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, Barnstormer In Oz/a, Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, and his bible, the awesome mock biography of Lord Greystoke, Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke (Bison Frontiers of Imagination). Philip Jose Farmer is also known for his well-regarded Riverworld and World of Tiers series. One of my favorite novels by him, however, is the fantastic Dark is the Sun; it's worth giving a try.

Side note: due to copyright issues, this book was later rewritten by Farmer as "The Adventure of the Three Madmen" to be included in his anthology book The Grand Adventure. The Jungle Books (Signet Classics)'s Mowgli takes over Tarzan's place. But it's just not the same.