A Fail by Gaiman? Why?
I love Neil Gaiman's work, I can't help it. He has this way of blending the supernatural with the natural in a way that makes it almost believable. He's a genius at world building (As evidenced by Neverwhere, which I recommend to anyone who will listen) which is why I was so surprised when I found something by him that made me think "WTF were you thinking, Gaiman?"
To be fair, it's a short story in a book, not the entire book that I consider to be a fail, I haven't finished the collection yet. The book it's from is "Fragile Things" the story itself is titled "A Study in Emerald" and it won a Hugo Award in 2004 as best short story.
Let me break it down for you. The premise is actually kinda brilliant. The world of Sherlock Holmes meets the supernatural in the form of Lovecraftian monsters. (I think I'd love to see a story in which Holmes is faced with irrefutable evidence of the supernatural, provided it was executed better than Gaiman managed.)
Which brings me to the execution. Basically (It wasn't exact, but it was close enough to be a rip-off), it's "A Study in Scarlet" 's plot, rewritten with Lovecraft monsters. And the monsters are the crown heads of state. What bothered me? It was one of my favorite stories, ripped off and mixed with monsters, right down to Holmes' deductive resoning from the origional. Gaiman couldn't be brought to come up with his own story, he had to steal one and change it, just a bit. If he'd made up his own mystery and not made monsters a general accepted fact of the universe, it could have very well been brilliant, but this is perfectly rediculous.
And now I'm going to spoil the ending for you, because for me, it was the only only only strong point in the novel, and it wasn't that good. It turns out the main character and the narrator weren't Holmes and Watson, they just acted, sounded, and had the same quirks as them, in fact, the "Villians" who were trying to take back the world from the Lovecraft monsters were in fact Holmes and Watson. Which I admit, I started to expect about halfway through, but still it made me grin, just a touch.
To be fair, it's a short story in a book, not the entire book that I consider to be a fail, I haven't finished the collection yet. The book it's from is "Fragile Things" the story itself is titled "A Study in Emerald" and it won a Hugo Award in 2004 as best short story.
Let me break it down for you. The premise is actually kinda brilliant. The world of Sherlock Holmes meets the supernatural in the form of Lovecraftian monsters. (I think I'd love to see a story in which Holmes is faced with irrefutable evidence of the supernatural, provided it was executed better than Gaiman managed.)
Which brings me to the execution. Basically (It wasn't exact, but it was close enough to be a rip-off), it's "A Study in Scarlet" 's plot, rewritten with Lovecraft monsters. And the monsters are the crown heads of state. What bothered me? It was one of my favorite stories, ripped off and mixed with monsters, right down to Holmes' deductive resoning from the origional. Gaiman couldn't be brought to come up with his own story, he had to steal one and change it, just a bit. If he'd made up his own mystery and not made monsters a general accepted fact of the universe, it could have very well been brilliant, but this is perfectly rediculous.
And now I'm going to spoil the ending for you, because for me, it was the only only only strong point in the novel, and it wasn't that good. It turns out the main character and the narrator weren't Holmes and Watson, they just acted, sounded, and had the same quirks as them, in fact, the "Villians" who were trying to take back the world from the Lovecraft monsters were in fact Holmes and Watson. Which I admit, I started to expect about halfway through, but still it made me grin, just a touch.