All-Consuming Fire

All-Consuming Fire is an original novel written by Andy Lane and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The novel is a crossover with Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes featuring the characters of both Holmes and Doctor Watson, and also with H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. A prelude to the novel, also penned by Lane, appeared in Doctor Who Magazine #213.

As with all Doctor Who spin-off media, its relationship to the televised serials is open to interpretation.

Plot

Sherlock Holmes finds himself united with the Seventh Doctor to solve the mystery of the theft of arcane tomes from The Library of St. John the Beheaded.

Susan Foreman, the First Doctor, and the Third Doctor have cameo appearances.

Notes

1. Holmes and Watson reappear in the fiftieth New Adventure, Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, brought into the present to attend Benny's wedding, Holmes subsequently helping the Doctor's companion Roz Forrester investigate recent drug activities. They make further appearances in Erasing Sherlock by Kelly Hale, in the Faction Paradox range of Doctor Who spin-off novels, and in the Iris Wildthyme anthology Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate from Obverse Books. Holmes' creator Arthur Conan Doyle appears in the Virgin Missing Adventures novel Evolution by John Peel, where it is implied that he based some elements of the fictional Holmes on the Fourth Doctor.
2. Other Doctor Who novels with Cthulhu Mythos elements include White Darkness by David A. McIntee and Divided Loyalties by Gary Russell.
3. As well as Sherlock Holmes, the novel includes appearances by Sherlock's older brother Mycroft, who first appeared in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter", and another yet older brother, Sherringford (sic) along with a cameo from their father, Siger (Siger and the similarly named Sherringford were invented by Holmesian scholar William S. Baring-Gould to resolve an apparent contradiction in the canon).
4. Amongst the cameo appearances of existing fictional characters is a mention of Diogenes Club agent Charles Beauregard, from Kim Newman's Anno Dracula. Newman's Diogenes Club stories are themselves filled with similar cameos. Also mentioned is Prof. Litefoot from The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
5. In the acknowledgements for The Empire of Glass, Lane notes that All-Consuming Fire was his own version of Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates.
6. Bernice would finally meet Mycroft Holmes in the 2008 audio adventure The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel. He was voiced by David Warner.

See also

• Shadows Over Baker Street, an anthology of short stories that similarly pit Sherlock Holmes against the Cthulhu Mythos
• Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened, a computer game that involves Holmes stopping a Cthulhu cult

External links

• All-Consuming Fire Prelude
• All-Consuming Fire at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• All-Consuming Fire at The TARDIS Library

Reviews

• All-Consuming Fire reviews at Outpost Gallifrey

• All-Consuming Fire reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide