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katikatIn my search for non-Doyle Sherlock Holmes books, I came across this list of SH novels: link. A bit outdated but still useful, IMHO. There's also a list of summaries & reviews listed on this site. Very useful! Especially since it lists characters that actually appear in the story.
You see, I can't read any SH book without Dr. Watson. Or when he's portrayed as a bumbling idiot - seriously, that man was a soldier and a doctor, for Christ's sake. I can't imagine many fools being doctors and managing to work to their best knowledge and abilities under the stress of a war.
Which is why my mind boggles that some of the authors who are actually allowed to play with these characters, with Holmes and Watson, avoid actually exploring them, that they simply use them to introduce their own characters without any regard for of Holmes and Watson's integrity.
A case in point: Laurie R. King. Her books are quite popular but I'll never ever, ever read them, especially not after reading her short story in the collection The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes where she turned Holmes into a misogynist who hated women so much that he disregarded a female witness' account, which is so, so not true for the canon Holmes. But back to her books. In them, she introduces a young Mary Sue who replaces Watson in the position of Holmes' helper and Holmes is so smitten with her that he falls madly in love with her despite being old enough to be her grandfather. First: EWW! Second: King then apologized to her disgruntled readers for how she treated Watson in her books, making him nothing but a useless fool. Dear author, if you have to apologize for how you treated someone else's character, get out of their sandbox, you are doing it wrong!
But now to books that I actually loved. So far, Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald and Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk come to my mind.
Dear authors who want to tinker with Holmes and Watson, read Gaiman's short story. That's how you do it! The incredible twist that it was not Holmes and Watson but Moriarty and Moran blew me away! And that Holmes was the head of the underground movement against the Cthulhu and Watson was the "Voice" and both of them were hiding from the government... Wow. Simply WOW! I would really love for someone to write a fanfic told from Holmes or Watson's POV!
And Anthony Horowitz... His book's the first story officially commissioned and recognized by the Sherlock Holmes estate. And no wonder. It's amazing! I adored how he explored the relationship between Holmes and Watson. The case itself was quite interesting but he never once forgot that SH is all about Holmes and Watson. It was quite heartbreaking that after Holmes' funeral - and despite having had three wives and many children and grandchildren - Watson's heart broke and he died only a few days later, hearing Holmes playing his violin, as if his friend was waiting for him on the other side. That's what TVTropes call "Heterosexual Lifepartners", for sure.
Now, I got my hands on David Stuart Davies' The Veiled Detective, a little AU of how Holmes and Watson could've also met if circumstances were a bit different, and Val Andrews' The Torment of Sherlock Holmes. I also got Gaslight Grimoire for Xmas!
I wonder, are there any non-Doyle SH book fans on my flist? I know of a few who rec'd me The House of Silk, for which I'm eternally grateful. Any other tips? What other books are worth checking out?
You see, I can't read any SH book without Dr. Watson. Or when he's portrayed as a bumbling idiot - seriously, that man was a soldier and a doctor, for Christ's sake. I can't imagine many fools being doctors and managing to work to their best knowledge and abilities under the stress of a war.
Which is why my mind boggles that some of the authors who are actually allowed to play with these characters, with Holmes and Watson, avoid actually exploring them, that they simply use them to introduce their own characters without any regard for of Holmes and Watson's integrity.
A case in point: Laurie R. King. Her books are quite popular but I'll never ever, ever read them, especially not after reading her short story in the collection The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes where she turned Holmes into a misogynist who hated women so much that he disregarded a female witness' account, which is so, so not true for the canon Holmes. But back to her books. In them, she introduces a young Mary Sue who replaces Watson in the position of Holmes' helper and Holmes is so smitten with her that he falls madly in love with her despite being old enough to be her grandfather. First: EWW! Second: King then apologized to her disgruntled readers for how she treated Watson in her books, making him nothing but a useless fool. Dear author, if you have to apologize for how you treated someone else's character, get out of their sandbox, you are doing it wrong!
But now to books that I actually loved. So far, Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald and Anthony Horowitz's The House of Silk come to my mind.
Dear authors who want to tinker with Holmes and Watson, read Gaiman's short story. That's how you do it! The incredible twist that it was not Holmes and Watson but Moriarty and Moran blew me away! And that Holmes was the head of the underground movement against the Cthulhu and Watson was the "Voice" and both of them were hiding from the government... Wow. Simply WOW! I would really love for someone to write a fanfic told from Holmes or Watson's POV!
And Anthony Horowitz... His book's the first story officially commissioned and recognized by the Sherlock Holmes estate. And no wonder. It's amazing! I adored how he explored the relationship between Holmes and Watson. The case itself was quite interesting but he never once forgot that SH is all about Holmes and Watson. It was quite heartbreaking that after Holmes' funeral - and despite having had three wives and many children and grandchildren - Watson's heart broke and he died only a few days later, hearing Holmes playing his violin, as if his friend was waiting for him on the other side. That's what TVTropes call "Heterosexual Lifepartners", for sure.
Now, I got my hands on David Stuart Davies' The Veiled Detective, a little AU of how Holmes and Watson could've also met if circumstances were a bit different, and Val Andrews' The Torment of Sherlock Holmes. I also got Gaslight Grimoire for Xmas!
I wonder, are there any non-Doyle SH book fans on my flist? I know of a few who rec'd me The House of Silk, for which I'm eternally grateful. Any other tips? What other books are worth checking out?
