Win Scott Eckert literary merging between novels, a crossover between multiple works, linking standout fictional characters into a deliberate family and coherent chronology. Farmer's two fictional "biographies" of the fictional characters Tarzan ("Tarzan Alive") and Clark Savage, Jr. ("") proposed that actual meteorite which landed in Wold Newton, Yorkshire, England, on December 13, 1795 caused a genetic mutation in the occupants of a passing coach. Their (fictional) descendants, therefore, became the stalwarts of fantastic fiction. Farmer's initial family trees include such luminaries (and their ancestors and descendants) as Sherlock Holmes, Lord Greystoke, A.J. Raffles, (Conan Doyle's) Professor Challenger, Sir Percy Blakeney, (Poe's) C.
Black Knight (Sir Percy) foe of the evil knight Mordred the Evil (Arthur's traitorous "nephew") and Morgan le Fay, in time Sir Percy retired his dual identity and married Lady Rosamund. Percy is eventually killed at Castle Scandia by Mordred during the fall of Camelot when stabbed from behind with an enchanted blade made of the same material as his own Ebony Blade - although Mordred then dies himself of wounds inflicted by Arthur during the Battle of Camlann earlier that day. Merlin ensures that Percy's spirit will live on by casting a spell that will revive his ghost if Mordred should ever return.