A Novel You’ve Been Waiting For Your Whole Life, and Then Some: The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss
What if a genius decided to combine a fantastical feminist romp with a classic whodunnit of the mackintosh-wearing era… and tossed in some madcap Dickensian adventure?
You’d have yourself The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss, a 400-page extravaganza featuring five women you have dreamed of in your heart of hearts but have never seen on paper. Better yet, they’re the daughters of legendary characters from classic fantasy and science fiction.
When Mary Jekyll’s mother dies, the young inheritor of her meager estate discovers her father — Henry Jekyll himself — associated with a troubling league of gentlemen endowed with brilliant scientific ambition. With the help of Diana Hyde, a feral and headstrong spitfire (and daughter of Mr. Hyde), and a miraculous and unwilling scientific marvel named Beatrice, whom her revered father has tainted with poison from noxious plants, Mary embarks on a quest to discover just what her father’s band of brothers sought to accomplish.
Along the way, they enlist the help of an exemplary detective named Sherlock Holmes, his cherished assistant, Watson, and Catherine Moreau, daughter of the most barbaric and daring scientist of them all. Unless you factor Doctor Victor Frankenstein into the equation… whom, now that we mention him, happens to be the father of the last partner in crime, a kindhearted giantess named Justine who harbors a tale potent enough to warrant a novel of its own.
I appreciate Goss’s innumerable acts of kindness toward readers who have not yet read the classic works of literature to which she has paid tribute. (I confess, I am guilty as charged. Dear friends have told me in the past that I need to read Frankenstein, and I agree. It must happen). By doing so, Goss has eschewed the How Much Do You Know About This Facet of Nerddom? quiz routinely thrust upon so many innocent fans, allowing her readers to bask in the wisdom and whimsy of her characters instead.
Additionally, Goss honors the infamous gentlemen who have carried their stories through the years with the fierce compassion of an author reckoning with the staggering contradictions of the human species. And these men have to contend with their fair share of reckoning. That is, the ones who survive.
Weird Heroes was a series of eight books put out by Byron Preiss Visual Publications from 1975 through 1977, a copiously-illustrated mix of novels and short stories that aimed at creating a new kind of pulp fiction with new kinds of pulp heroes. The series had a specific set of ideals for its heroes, linked with an appreciative but not uncritical love of pulp fiction from the 1920s through 40s. Well-known creators from comics and science fiction contributed to the books, and one character would spawn a six-volume series of his own. And yet Preiss’ long-term plans for Weird Heroes were cut short with the eighth volume, and today it’s hard to find much discussion of the books online (though 
They say it’s the question most often asked of writers, but to be honest, no one has ever asked me where I got my ideas. Maybe I’ve been asked where a specific idea came from, but that was more of a “how did you think of that?”
