Okay, after the success of my Wells/Verne thread and my Lovecraft thread, I now present the final installment of what I call “The Lego Literacy Trilogy.” This time, I’m looking for non-Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes stuff. I enjoy Sherlock Holmes, but I’ve read all the Conan Doyle ones. Many people have written other stories with the character and I’ve seen these stories collected, but I’ve always been wary of them. I know there’s a lot of stuff out there, but I’m betting a lot of it is pretty bad, since it seems like something that’s easy to do poorly. So are there good collections of worthwhile Sherlock Holmes stories? By people other than Arthur Conan Doyle, that is.
Hmmm. Well. Mark Frost wrote a book called “The List of Seven,” and as I recall, it was intended to be a Sherlock Holmes book but he was unable to obtain permission to use that character (I’m sure someone, Ike probably, has more info on that). So instead of writing about Sherlock Holmes, he used Arthur Conan Doyle as his main character. It’s not exactly high literature, but at the same time, I thought it was fun because it contains about a million Sherlock Holmes references. It’s book candy for sure.
Mark Frost, fyi, is better known for his work on TV, most notably Twin Peaks.
I really enjoyed The Seven-Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer when I read it twenty-something years ago. Give it a try.
I own something like 300 to 350 Sherlock Holmes pastiches (i.e., Sherlock Holmes books by someone other than Doyle). I have a list of all of them. If you’d like, Legomancer, I could E-mail it to you, or would you really like me to post it to this thread?
Ooooooo, delphica cited me! Be still, my heart!
First off, I should state that I HATE pastiches. Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, okay? You want to write about a Great Detective, make up your OWN fucking character.
That said, the best of a bad lot is Nicholas Meyers’ The Seven Per-cent Solution. It was the first really successful “Sherlock meets…” novel. Meaning that the writer throws Holmes together with some famous fictional or real-life person from the late-Victorian or Edwardian age. Meyers used Freud, but over the years since that novel was published there’s been everyone from Dracula to Jack the Ripper to Houdini.
August Derleth also wrote a number of Holmes pastiches featuring a character who was Holmes in everything but name. He called him “Solar Pons,” for some unheard-of reason, and had him living on “Praed Street” instead of Baker. And in New York, I think, rather than London.
I haven’t read the stories, but there are dozens of them, and lots of Sherlockians swear by them.
Alas, my secret passion for Ukulele Ike has at long last been outed on these boards. New plans for weekend: take to chaise and sob daintily over unrequited love, for it is fated that Ike shall never lower himself to return my affections as I adore the pastiches that he so vehemently loathes.
Anyway, I remembered another recent one that I like: Laurie King’s The Beekeeper’s Appentice, which features ol’ Sherlock acting as a mentor to a young woman detective during his supposed retirement.
Oooooog. I hate that one most of ALL.
– Uke, twirling his moustaches like the Vile Cad he is
(del’s in good company there, though. The King books were extremely popular, and hit a few regional bestseller lists, if I recall)
THE EXPLOITS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES is a very interesting curiosity, being a collection of short stories authored by Adrian Conan Doyle (Sir Arthur’s son) and/or mystery novelist John Dickson Carr. The stories are based on the many references by Dr. Watson to stories he could not tell at the time, for one reason or another, and at the end of each tale the reference that inspired it is quoted.
Actually, the connection between these references and the stories that emerged is often slight. Obviously, the younger Doyle and Carr just used this as a gimmick to write new Holmes stories, many of them coming across like little more than variations on the old stories. Still, there are moments when they managed to capture something worthy of the originals, and the whole idea is enough of a curiosity to make the book worth checking out for the hardcore fan.
steve biodrowski
www.thescriptanalyst.com
A kind of reverse-pastiche that’s well worth reading are the A.J. Raffles stories by E.W. Hornung. The initial collection was entitled *The Amateur Cracksman. *
Raffles was the great gentleman burglar/crook of the late Victorian period, and makes a nice mirror-image of Holmes, as he employs a similar ingenuity in carrying out his crimes as the detective does in solving them.
Interesting side-note: Hornung was Conan Doyle’s brother-in-law, and the man responsible for coining the phrase “Though he might be more humble, there’s no police like Holmes.”
I gnerally dislike Sherlock Holmes pastiches, but I agree that Nicholas Meyer’s The Seven-Percent Solution is a good one, although it’s been a very long time since I’ve read it. His sequel, The West End Horror, is dreadful.
Reading Solar Pons is like getting whacked in the head with a two by four of boredom.
I’d much rather read parodies of Holmes, since there is so much to make fun of. Robert L. Fish’s series on Schlock Homes are beyond laugh out loud funny. I’m considered a parody expert and I think these are the best series of parodies anybody’s ever done of anyone.
A shameless hijick – did you know that one of my cats is named Raffles, because he was a wayward stray who came in from the fire escape?
And yes, I completely stole that from Lawrence Block, because I’m not nearly clever enough to think of it myself.
Carry on.
Mark Frost’s two Sherlock Holmes books The List of Seven and The Six Messiahs are both excellent.
Esther Friesner wrote a steampunk Sherlock Holmes novel Druid’s Blood that quite excellent.
The current comics series Ruse issue #6 (came out Wednesday) is placed in a Victorian setting and features the brusque detective Simon Archard, although the main character is his partner/assistant Emma Bishop. It’s very good.
–Cliffy
Aargh…here’s a teaser of a non-helpful post.
There’s a woman that writes books that are written from the perspecive of a young female genius that Sherlock Holmes sort of adopts as his confidante/daughter/assistant. The first two books were very good (I mean, better than internet fan fiction at least! :))-the two after that sort of lagged. I’m not sure if the above poster is referring to the same one.
Just to collide two of your threads, there is a (thin) book titled Pulptime by Peter Cannon in which Sherlock Holmes comes to New York and solves a crime with the aid of H.P. Lovecraft. I thought it was only so-so though.
The Frost books are not “Sherlock Holmes” books as Holmes does not appear in either book as a character. In The List of 7 Doyle (pre-Holmes) meets Jack Sparks and uses him as a model for the Holmes character. The Six Messiahs is post-Holmes.
Years ago I read a book called “Sherlock Holmes, Bridge Detective.” Each chapter is a bridge lesson highlighting a particular bidding or playing convention. Holmes learns the game in about twenty seconds and then invents about two dozen conventions (even those which are named for other people). About all I remember is that in one chapter he invented the “strip play” and a proper Victorian lady player was shocked at the name.
I concur about The Seven Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer–it was the first non-Doyle Holmes story I ever read and I still quite like it. I also recommend The West End Horror by the same author.
Other Holmes stories I’ve enjoyed (apologies for not being able to remember the authors):
Exit Sherlock Holmes–this one is weird, so be warned. Well told, though.
Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula–surprisingly better than it sounds by the title. 
Holmes for the Holidays–a collection of Holmes stories with a Christmas theme. Spotty but some are good.
The Beekeeper’s Apprentice–this is the first of a series, and the stories get increasingly (IMHO) improbable and Mary Sue-ish as they go on. The first one’s not bad, though.
Revenge of the Hound–a “sequel” to “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” Pretty good.
One Holmes book I’ve never been able to penetrate is called An East Wind Coming–it’s a very bizarre story about a time-traveling, immortal Holmes.
You people rock. Thanks everyone, especially Wendell Wagner for the email.
Just out of curiosity how is this possible? Is it because the stories are out of copyright or something? I assume if I published my own Jack Ryan story I’d hear from Tom Clancy’s lawyers.
The one I was referring to was Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Thanks winterhawk.
The books are written with permission from the Doyle Estate (Baskerville Properties or something like that). Given the hundreds of such books available now, it’s obvious that the Estate is pretty liberal about granting approval.
I wouldn’t try it with Clancy.