A Fail by Gaiman? Why?

[archangelremiel]

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

Comments

[lady_carfax]

This is a really interesting review to me. As a lifelong Sherlockian, I know people on both sides of the win/fail fence for this story. Unusually, for me at least, you weren't approaching this from a "I love Holmes" angle but from an "I love Gaiman" angle. Since I love both, I've often found it hard to express my feelings towards this piece. Personally, I enjoyed it, but I did go away thinking "this could be so much more"

ETA: Wrong icon, wrong sentiment!

I'd be very interested to hear your views on other Holmes pastiches & the canon.

[archangelremiel]

I actually love Holmes and Gaiman, I just feel Gaiman failed by ripping off the plot. It's the same story (For the most part). He could have done so much with this, and he just didn't. (I'm also disappointed that one of my favorite authors ripped off another.)

As far as the other Holmes pastiches, I've read one or two; they never appealed like the original but they never felt like outright rip offs before either. It's one thing to use the characters, but to outright hijack a story is pitiful.

[aesa_haettr]

Eh, as both a Sherlock Holmes and Neil Gaiman fan I've always felt like it was paying homage to the story, not ripping it off. I enjoyed it; it's one of the stronger pieces in Fragile Things.

[muse_books]

Ditto. This to me was a complete homage to Holmes with that amusing Lovecraftian twist.

[dalaat]

I agree with you on Neverwhere. It's a fabulous novel. I read it twice in one month. It's too bad the short story wasn't that good, but at least it was only a short story, so you didn't have to slog through a whole novel.

[archangelremiel]

It wasn't actually a bad read, it was just that it felt like cheating for him to use a story that already existed.

[tonksinger]

I'd say that Gaiman was paying homage to the story--writing crossover fanfiction, if you will. He doesn't exactly mask it, what with the title being only one word away from the original. I love the twist at the end, of it not really being Holmes and Watson.

[archangelremiel]

The twist made it better, but I don't go in for the "homage" thing. I've always seen it as laziness, even in fanfiction.

[lynn_pryderi]

I know absolutely nothing about this short story or "A Study in Scarlet", but I will say that Gaiman's done this before. It was with his own story, yeah, but still. Coraline and Mirrormask (the movie he wrote the screenplay for) are just about the same. Both are worth watching in my opinion, for the sheer difference in visuals, just...the story is exactly the same.

[hashishinahooka]

Hm, I am going to have to look up Mirrormask. I might even be able to write about the similarities and differences for my film class. Thanks for bringing this up.