Forgotten Allegoric Serial Killer Science Fiction

[calangst]

I have been looking for this book for several years and am not making much progress. It was a paperback novel as I recall. I read it in the late 1970s but it could be from as early as the late 1960s. My memory is pretty hazy, but here goes.

In the far future people are immortal and have near omnipotence but have nothing to do and no reason to be. Somehow they have been convinced to assume the identities of characters from fiction. As an aside, the fat detective and his witty legman (Nero Wolf and Archie Goodwin, I am guessing) break out of the lethargy of immortality and disappear from the story.

Back in the main story someone begins doing the impossible - killing the immortal as a serial killer (a sort of Jack the Ripper). The main "plot" of the story is how a group of friends (which includes a character "The Demon" and a semi-competent Sherlock Holmes type) try to track down the serial killer. It turns out that the killer is just someone who had overheard the friends talking about how the disaffection of immortality and omnipotence would lead to someone doing terrible things and thought it sounded like a good idea.

It is a very allegorical novel, obviously. Not all of which I got at the time. It also included a fairly long aside about the fan fiction/science fiction fan community in disguise.

Any ideas?

THanks in advance. - Chris

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

I suspect this is An East Wind Coming (1979) by Arthur Byron Cover. It definitely has an immortal Holmes and an immortal Jack the Ripper (or their immortal archetypes, anyway) along with a whole bunch of fictional (and, I suppose, given Jack, non-fictional) characters who are described but, coyly, not named.

Original cover art ("An immortal Sherlock Holmes: A Deathless Jack the Ripper!" is a strong clue) and a brief description here:

This Old Book: 'An East Wind Coming'

It was two million years in the future and they were immortal — Holmes, Watson, all the Great Ones. With nothing to master but limitless Time. But that was before the killing began, before the world’s greatest sleuth discovered that history’s most heinous criminal was also “alive” and steeping the East End of the Eternal City in the blood of goddesses.

 

[Danny McG]

suspect this is An East Wind Coming (1979) by Arthur Byron Cover

I've got this one as an ebook but haven't yet read it..

. OMG! 821 ebooks ebooks to read!



(As soon as i get a dozen or so finished its the start of a new month so Amazon buying spree again - when will i ever learn?)

 

[monkeypooper]

I feel the same way Danny I downloaded 13gb from somewhere awhile back and boy it's taking some sorting nevermind reading but mainly reading Amazon new ones as they're released due to such low prices tbh I haven't held a real book and read one in 3 years just digital