[books 2012] Kim Newman
52. Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman
I've been looking forward to this since it came out. It's more or less the Sherlock Holmes universe from the point of view of Watson's opposite number in the Professor Moriarty enterprise, Colonel Moran, with a whole lot of other elements from early genre fiction thrown in. And Thomas Hardy's Wessex. Moriarty and Moran are evil mirror images of Holmes and Watson in sometimes quite intricate ways.
It's freaking hilarious and has quite a lot going on. Too bad I never have time to re-read anything, because I think there's a whole lot I'm sure I missed.
For me, it suffered (as does most of the original Conan Doyle stuff) from the episodicness of the short story format, even though there's a story arc. It's not a coincidence that the only original Sherlock Holmes story I'm particularly attached to is the only novel length outing.
And there are times when the odiousness of the narrator (completely intentional, I assume, plus I think Newman is slipping in the point that by our standards, *all* Victorians were racist, sexist bigots) gets really tiring. One of the things I remember disliking about the original stories were how anti-foreigner they all were.
Holmes ("The Thin Man") doesn't come in till the very end. Something I hadn't appreciated until I read Newman's Afterword is that is because Moriarty doesn't come in to the original canon until right at the very end. Popular culture has made us think that he's a recurring element.
Although it's flawed, I greatly enjoyed putting together where it all came from. I love things that play with the development of genre, and Newman himself points out that people were borrowing Sherlock Holmes to put into their own stories more or less right from the start. I haven't read any of Conan Doyle's stuff since high school, but last year I bought the editions the Radio Times put out to coincide with the Benedict Cumberbatch dramatisations, and now they've moved way up my priority list.
I also found out from the Afterword that there is such a thing as "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes", "The Annotated Dracula" and "The New Annotated Dracula". My book budget is spoken for until the end of November, but I shall have to get them at some point. Would also love to sit around with Newman and talk about this stuff some time.
I've been looking forward to this since it came out. It's more or less the Sherlock Holmes universe from the point of view of Watson's opposite number in the Professor Moriarty enterprise, Colonel Moran, with a whole lot of other elements from early genre fiction thrown in. And Thomas Hardy's Wessex. Moriarty and Moran are evil mirror images of Holmes and Watson in sometimes quite intricate ways.
It's freaking hilarious and has quite a lot going on. Too bad I never have time to re-read anything, because I think there's a whole lot I'm sure I missed.
For me, it suffered (as does most of the original Conan Doyle stuff) from the episodicness of the short story format, even though there's a story arc. It's not a coincidence that the only original Sherlock Holmes story I'm particularly attached to is the only novel length outing.
And there are times when the odiousness of the narrator (completely intentional, I assume, plus I think Newman is slipping in the point that by our standards, *all* Victorians were racist, sexist bigots) gets really tiring. One of the things I remember disliking about the original stories were how anti-foreigner they all were.
Holmes ("The Thin Man") doesn't come in till the very end. Something I hadn't appreciated until I read Newman's Afterword is that is because Moriarty doesn't come in to the original canon until right at the very end. Popular culture has made us think that he's a recurring element.
Although it's flawed, I greatly enjoyed putting together where it all came from. I love things that play with the development of genre, and Newman himself points out that people were borrowing Sherlock Holmes to put into their own stories more or less right from the start. I haven't read any of Conan Doyle's stuff since high school, but last year I bought the editions the Radio Times put out to coincide with the Benedict Cumberbatch dramatisations, and now they've moved way up my priority list.
I also found out from the Afterword that there is such a thing as "The Annotated Sherlock Holmes", "The Annotated Dracula" and "The New Annotated Dracula". My book budget is spoken for until the end of November, but I shall have to get them at some point. Would also love to sit around with Newman and talk about this stuff some time.