don't be dull, be fannish

"The Valley Of Fear (Sherlock Holmes #7)" by Arthur Conan Doyle

♦ ♦

Well, I liked the part that focused on Holmes and Watson and on their investigation - though the whole thing was fairly obvious from the get-go - and I also loved that it explained why Holmes was so obsessed with catching Moriarty that he sacrificed everything to it. The rest though...

A whole half of the book was set in the past, explaining the background of the secondary/guest characters. And stuff like that is so not my cuppa. I didn't like it in "A Study in Scarlet" and I didn't like it here. It would've made a good short story but in the context of the Sherlock Holmes canon, not so much. I really don't like it when a titular character becomes a guest star in their own book.

To sum it up, it's good to read this to understand Holmes' obsession with Moriarty. Other than that, I have to agree that novels weren't Doyle's strength, his short stories are much better.

I wanted to try something different, that's why I read 3 short stories that I got for free in ebook form.

"Sherlock Holmes Investigates. The Pink Jewel Conundrum" by Philip van Wulven

♦ ♦

A very short story - only 13 pages long - in which Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson investigate the disappearance of a precious jewel from a locked room. And if it was just that, I would've liked the story much better. But all the coincidences put together - the jewel, the window, the squirrel - that was just way too much.

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"Be My Boy" by Casey K. Cox

♦ ♦ ♦

Only 20+ pages but the author managed to squeeze a lot into them. This is a D/s story with an older sub and a younger dom; Owen, the "boy", is 47 and Mitchell, the master, is 28. I usually don't read stories with such a huge age difference but this one snuck up on me and I really wanted to know how it ended. It was oddly sweet considering it started with Owen turning tricks in a bar. The author managed to flesh out the characters, the story wasn't just about sex, and it turned out to be quite an interesting read. Original, at the very least.

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"Last Dance (Getting Better)" by Lee Benoit

♦ ♦ ♦

A sweet story about an openly gay high school teacher who chaperons the LGBT youth at a prom. Quirky and humorous. I liked Suyai's fathers, the way he talked about them.

"After School Nightmare, Volume 1" by Setona Mizushiro

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

What a weird manga. And I'm not talking about the shared dreams, that's a part of the setting. I'm talking about the gender and sexuality of the main characters. You see, Mashiro is half boy, half girl. He insists on being a boy, yet he sees himself as a girl in his dreams. Then there's Sou, who's not gay or bi but he's in love with Mashiro because he sees him as a girl, a beautiful girl. And then there's Kureha, who hates men because she was sexually assaulted as a child yet she's in love with Mashiro whom she sees as a boy even though she knows that his genitalia is female. Confusing doesn't even begin to cover it!

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"After School Nightmare, Volume 2" by Setona Mizushiro

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

If the author planned for Kureha to be a likable character, someone with whom readers could sympathize, she failed - at least in my case. I get that Kureha is a victim and I hate victim blaming and I hate it when people expect victims to just bounce back and be the way they used to be, on everybody else's terms - but it's one thing to be a victim, it's another thing completely to use your trauma as an excuse to be casually cruel and vicious to people who refuse to do what you want. Mashiro is always trying to please Kureha - but I was glad that Sou finally told her to stuff it. She really needed to hear that.

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"After School Nightmare, Volume 3" by Setona Mizushiro

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I'm glad that Mashiro's finally starting to open up to Sou, admitting to himself that maybe he isn't a HE after all, maybe he really is a SHE. Sou's attention, his admittance that he loved Mashiro the way she was, a tall, bony, beautiful girl, that it didn't matter to Sou that Mashiro dressed like a boy, trying to convince everybody - herself included - that she was male...

It's a bit difficult to choose the correct pronoun for a review because Sou sees Mashiro as a SHE, Kureha sees Mashiro as a HE and Mashiro? Has no clue. So I guess it depends on the situation and POV.

"Assassin's Creed: Revelations (Assassin's Creed #4)" by Oliver Bowden

♦ ♦ ♦

Oliver Bowden still isn't a master writer but he knows his history, that's true. Ezio meets so many historically important people, like Prince Suleiman or his father Selim, it's just too bad that Bowden doesn't know how to utilize what he knows so well right.

In this book, both Ezio's and Altaïr's story reach their closure. And I admit freely that despite not feeling much affection for Ezio, I cried at the end. For the first time while reading an "Assassin's Creed" story, Bowden managed to bring me to tears. Maybe he is getting better at writing after all. For that, I'm giving this book 3 stars.

"Hands Off!, Volume 3" by Kasane Katsumoto

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The boys' lives are disrupted by the arrival of Udou, another young man with special abilities. A mysterious girl photographer catches them all in action and starts following them. And Tatsuki's powers spin even more out of control.

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"Hands Off!, Volume 4" by Kasane Katsumoto

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A very cool character of Kyoko, a damsel who doesn't need rescuing, is introduced. And the little Akira becomes even creepier. Tatsuki's powers go haywire when he's arrested and forced to spend a night in jail. And Kotarou is, once more, kidnapped.

"Julius Caesar" by William Shakespeare

♦ ♦ ♦

In this drama, there wasn't one person that could be seen as honest and/or "good". I get that Shakespeare tried to show Brutus in a positive light, that Brutus helped kill Caesar for the good of all Rome - that didn't change the fact that he helped murder a man who trusted him, who considered him a friend. There was absolutely nothing positive about that. And not just that - his wife committed suicide in his absence and he wasn't moved by it at all, even though he proclaimed his love for her shortly before his departure. Eh. And Marcus Antonius and Octavian - they spouted how they wanted to bring Caesar's killers to justice, but all they really wanted was to take power away from Brutus and Cassius. Maybe I'm judging these characters too harshly but that was the impression they made on me.

Also, I didn't like the style in which the drama was written. At the beginning, there were these long, long scenes where the characters plotted Caesar's demise - at the end, the drama suddenly became really choppy, with scenes barely half a page long. It felt like the author ran out of space/time or something. Very weird.

"Ghosts of Ascalon (Guild Wars #1)" by Matt Forbeck & Jeff Grubb

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

3.5 stars. Based on the Guild Wars RPG. And much better written than, for example, "Assasssin's Creed" by Oliver Bowden. The characters are funny, intelligent and capable, and as a reader, I liked spending time in their company. It was an easy read that gave you the good feeling of time well spent. I also liked how the authors handled exposition, making the characters tell each other stories during their march to Ascalon City. I wouldn't mind visiting them again. Well done, Mr. Forbeck and Mr. Grubb, well done.

"The Dark Knight Rises: The Official Novelization" by Greg Cox

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

That's how a novelization should be written! Greg Cox doesn't add any new scenes that weren't in the movie itself but he lets the reader peek at the characters' thoughts and emotions. I wanted to learn more about Talia and Bane and I did a bit, most importantly though, their genuine affection and devotion to each other was confirmed by this book. And we also learned more about John Blake and Commissioner Gordon! Batman and Catwoman have never been a big draw for me in this book/movie so I appreciated that other characters got so much space.

Basically, if you liked the movie, you will like the book.

"Dark Blood (Tristopolis #2)" by John Meaney

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

3.5 stars. Incredible world-building and likable characters that unfortunately don't get explored enough. In my opinion, the author sacrifices character richness to style. You would have to read it to understand what I mean by style - this is an alternate universe unlike any other I've ever encountered in a book. So yeah, the ideas are brilliant, I just wish the author built more of a connection between his characters and the reader.

The book ends with a terrible cliffhanger and considering it was published in 2009 and since then nothing, it doesn't look like a 3rd book will ever come to be.

"The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Veiled Detective" by David Stuart Davies

♦ ♦ ♦

A very good Sherlock Holmes pastiche. A what-if scenario. What if John Watson wasn't John Watson but John Walker? What if he was dishonorably discharged? What if he was recruited by James Moriarty to spy on Sherlock Holmes?

What an intriguing idea! And the first third of the book is excellent, the set-up, Moriarty pulling all the threads together, weaving a net around Sherlock Holmes. I read it with a bated breath, curious about what would happen next. Unfortunately, Davies then tackles "A Study in Scarlet" in great detail and with that the story falls apart a bit.

"A Study in Scarlet" is, in my humble opinion, the weakest of all Doyle's Sherlock Holmes works. And Davies' version isn't any better. The second third is basically about Holmes and Watson's first case and Watson's courtship of Mary Morstan. Both of which the reader knows by heart, so the book starts to feel tedious.

The last third then leads to Reichenbach - where Holmes' encounter with Moriarty ends in a different way than in Doyle's books. During the last third you also finally start seeing and feeling the friendship between Holmes and Watson. Yet it cannot erase the boring middle.

This is the second book by David Stuart Davies that I read and I'm starting to notice a pattern - he knows how to write a strong beginning and an emotional ending but he flounders terribly in the middle. It's too bad. I would've loved to give the book more stars...