Happy Birthday, Mr. Holmes

[filkertom]

Man, I have been distracted. Almost missed the fact that it's the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

What's your favorite Holmes story, and your favorite Holmes pastiche? I could name a number of either, but I have a special fondness for The Red-Headed League and the movie of Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Per-Cent Solution.

Comments

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

I like The Red-Headed League too, but for possibly different reasons. :)

[vulpine137.livejournal.com]

My favorite story is Hound of the Baskervilles (mostly because it's the only Holmes story that I remember the plot to, I know I've read more than that, but for the life of me I can't tell you what.) My favorite pastiche is Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald".

[djonn]

I really disliked "A Study In Emerald"; it seemed to me a pure gimmick piece and that the gimmick was neither particularly original nor particularly well executed. (See in specific Esther Friesner's highly amusing Druid's Blood, and the Kurland books mentioned downstream.)

[drzarron.livejournal.com]

Hard to pick just one. Hmm.. Wisteria Lodge is a fav cause its a little off formula.

As to media, you have to love the Jeremy Brett series quite nails it.

Slightly Off Topic: I'm tickled by all the Holmes references peppered throughout "House"

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the Google logo today?

by Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual," possibly because it is told by Holmes and not Watson.

I like Meyer's The West End Horror about Holmes, the Giant Rat of Sumatra, and Gilbert & Sullivan.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten the other one Meyer wrote - thank you.

[djonn]

There's actually a third Meyer title, The Notorious Canary Trainer, which finds Holmes in Paris. I didn't like that one quite as well; there's a better novel by Sam Siciliano that covers similar ground, whose title I forget just now.

There are a slew of "Giant Rat of Sumatra" stories, at both novel and short-story length. As noted below, I like Richard Boyer's best, although the Fred Saberhagen take in The Holmes-Dracula File is well executed. The most recent Rat novel, by someone named Vanneman, is by far my least favorite, both for unnecessary forays into the fantastic and a portrayal of Watson that borders on the sacrilegious.

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

I must admit to a fondness for *any* Holmes story starring Jeremy Brett. I thought he was fantastic. Rathbone is the "classic" film Holmes, but Brett nailed the part cold.

I will also admit a soft spot in my heart for Hound of the Baskervilles, the Doyle story as well as the BBC production starring Tom Baker(!); the Sherlock Holmes stage play written by William Gillette, which performance starring Frank Langella was recorded and broadcast and is the version I've seen; and Murder By Decree, starring Christopher Plummer.

A special softness as well for The Speckled Band, which was the first Holmes story I ever read.

(I note that Nick Meyer also wrote The Seven Per-Cent Solution, in addition to directing the film.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Actually, that one he didn't direct. 'Twas Herbert Ross. But, of course, he went on to give us Time After Time and Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (and ST6, but whatever).

[jmthane.livejournal.com]

D'oh! Yeah, that's right. It was still good, though. (And I must admit to liking ST6 as well. But I'm weird, I know.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

No, no, that's fine. It's a good ST film, being even-numbered and all. ;) But it simply didn't have the impact that those other two flicks had (hell, the one cemented the careers of Malcolm McDowell and David Warner).

[kshandra]

RHL is the first Holmes story I have a conscious memory of reading; we studied it in my 7th grade English class. I'm sure I had read others before that, as I now have murphymom's copy of The Collected Sherlock Holmes (with introduction by Christopher Morley), and it must be as old as I am. I also have a distinct recollection of reading Hound of the Baskervilles shortly after the production to which jmthane refers was announced in Whovian Times. I'm not sure I could name a favorite; they're all old, dear friends.

Favorite pastiche is much easier: Death in the Christmas Hour, published in the January 1983 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The story takes place in an English toy shop, in the one hour a year all toys come to life on Christmas Eve; one of the dolls is found badly broken on the floor, and a Holmes doll, with a teddybear acting as his Watson (Holmes deduces said bear is one of the "Bears of the Realm" that was gifted to Queen Victoria as a child - "I wrote a monograph on the subject, you know"), set about determining whodunnit.

*does some random Googling, squees mightily* Over 20 copies of Murder At Christmas And Other Stories on Amazon in the used section! I can own this again! *dances*

[djonn]

I remember that pastiche -- written by James Powell, I think. Definitely a standout, and I had to go check to see if I had the anthology mentioned.

As it happens, I've got the other one -- Mystery for Christmas and Other Stories. That one's also a must-have; it doesn't have a Holmes pastiche in it, but it's got several other excellent stories -- including the single niftiest riff on Dickens ever, Linda Haldeman's "The Marley Case", in which we find out who murdered Jacob Marley, and why.

[greenlantern-oa.livejournal.com]

I believe that this pastiche is also found in an excellent Sherlock Holmes pastiche Anthology entitled "Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space"

[ericcoleman]

I am a big fan of the Holmes-Dracula File by Fred Saberhagen. He does a great John Watson.

[djonn]

Oh, lord, both of these are extraordinarily difficult.

For favorite of the Doyle stories . . . I have to skew toward Hound of the Baskervilles because it does well as whodunit and as adventure, and gives us one of Watson's more active outings.

For favorite pastiche -- oww. There are lots and lots of good ones, and even more that are less than excellent. One that I do come back to fondly is Richard Boyer's The Giant Rat of Sumatra, easily the best of the numerous attempts at that story (and a clever whodunit in its own right).

That said, also well worth exploring are, in no particular order: Michael Kurland's The Infernal Device and its sequels (starring Professor Moriarty); Larry Millett's tales of Holmes in America, beginning with Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon, and Ten Years Beyond Baker Street by Cay Van Ash, in which Sherlock Holmes crosses swords with the diabolical Fu Manchu.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

I've got a fondness for A Study in Scarlet, specifically for the "roommate interview" scene.

And make that a second vote for A Study in Emerald. Though I intend to take several other people's votes as recommendations.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

The Bruce-Partington plans, mentioning as it does the UndergrounD railway (or the Metropolitan District to be pernickety)

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

Favorite Holmes - I can't think of the title, but I think it's The Face in the Window.

Favorite Pastiche - This one I REALLY can't think of the title to, but it's by Stephen King. It was in a volume of tribute shorts that was authorized by Dame Conan Doyle, and it involved WATSON solving the perfect locked room mystery. Because Holmes is deathly allergic to cats...

[greenlantern-oa.livejournal.com]

Hmmm I need to find that one......

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

Once I get my books out of storage (we just moved), I'll let you know what the collection is and who edited it.

[djonn]

It's The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, edited by Martin Harry Greenberg & Caro-Lynn Rossel Waugh; my edition is the Carroll & Graf hardcover (1987; ISBN 0-88184-344-X); King's story is called "The Doctor's Case".

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

THAT'S the one!!!

Thanks! I don't get the boxes until tomorrow, and there are 147 boxes of books to unpack. Who knows when I'll find it?

[youngcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

Favorite Holmes -- Hound of the Baskervilles.

Favorite pastiche -- I'd say House MD, or the Wishbone version of Sherlock, or The Great Mouse Detective, but ... has to be ST: TNG's Data-as-Holmes series. Has to be.

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Arrgh! I was thinking I'd be the first one to cite Sherlock Data and Dr. LaForge. Foils, cursed again!

Anyways, I'll toss out my favorite Holmes story as being the Adventure of the Empty House.

[sdelmonte]

"Scandal in Bohemia," followed by The Sign of the Four.

Seven Per-Cent Solution is up ther, though I have a soft spot for Without a Clue. And I give special mention to The Zero Effect, which is "Scandal in Bohemia" in a clever disguise.

[zillafan.livejournal.com]

Shadows Over Baker Street (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345455282/ref=pd_rvi_gw_1/102-7029125-7632958?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155).... Arthur Conan Doyle meets H.P. Lovecraft! Need I say more!!!

[feinan.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...let me see. For original Holmes, I admit to a fondness for the Dancing Men and the Blue Carbuncle. As for pastiche...I'm surprised that no one's mentioned the Laurie R. King books. The first one is The Beekeeper's Apprentice, and they make for rather fascinating reading. Anyone besides me tried them?

-Feinan

[djonn]

I very much like the Laurie R. King pastiches, but as good as they are, their central feature stretches the canon dramatically in the second and following books(in a way that should not be revealed for someone who's not read the series). I've seen them generate a lot of controversy among Holmes purists, and I therefore tend to exercise caution in recommending them as "mainstream" pastiche.

[salkryn.livejournal.com]

I am quite partial to the Shadows over Baker Street anthology and the Holmes-Dracula File. I can't name a real favorite Holmes story offhand, but I would like to make two short points. First: Holmes never, ever said the line "Elementary, my dear Watson." Second: Moriarty appears only once in person, and is mentioned a few times after his death at Reichenbach, so why do people automatically connect him with Holmes?

[greenlantern-oa.livejournal.com]

Probably because Holmes himself says that the man is pretty much his arch enemy and is responsible for most of the dastardly goings on in England!
Of course he is also connected to him because of his one time "death" story!

[capt-video.livejournal.com]

Favorite canon is probably "The Hound of the Baskervilles" although I also have a fondness for "A Scandal in Bohemia".

"The Holmes-Dracula Files", "Death in the Christmas Hour" and Carole Nelson Douglas' Irene Adler books are among my favorites, non-canon, but the real love is reserved for "Young Sherlock Holmes".

[bald-ruminant.livejournal.com]

Original Holmes: The Adventure of the Empty House

Pastiche: If George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman and the Tiger qualifies, then that.

[khadagan.livejournal.com]

Original Holmes: A Study in Scarlet

Pastiche: Does the Solar Pons series by August Derleth count? If not, then Laurie R. King's Mary Russell series.

Hugs -- K

[djonn]

The Pons stories are indeed generally regarded as Holmes pastiche -- indeed, often among the best of the early pastiches. I like those a great deal, although I'm of mixed minds concerning the additional Pons stories authored by Basil Copper after Derleth's passing.

[mrteapot.livejournal.com]

Michael Chabon's The Final Solution is a good Holmes variant and has a chapter narrated by a parrot.

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

My favorite story is The Adventure of the Abbey Grange, while my favorite pastiche is Robert J. Sawyer's "You See but You Do Not Observe" from Sherlock Holmes in Orbit

[djonn]

My favorite from Sherlock Holmes in Orbit -- admittedly colored by acquaintance with the author -- is the highly unusual "Adventure of the Detective's Smile" by Mark Bourne. A very good anthology, that one.

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was - and I wish it were still in print! I lost my copy in a tragic water main break about 7 years ago - I lost around 600 or so books in that event...
As it is, I've got a standing order for it at a used bookstore down the road. I'm sure I could find it online, but if I'm gonna get it used, I'd much rather support the local folks, 'cause I know that in the Age Of Amazon, our Mom'n'Pop bookstores need every dime I can throw their way :)

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Favorite Holmes story? That would be "The Greek Interpreter."

[the-dark-snack.livejournal.com]

Love Holmes, no favorites. However, I do have a warm fondness in my heart for "Young Sherlock Holmes".

I haven't read the books

[madmanotl.livejournal.com]

It is ironic that I haven't but I never cared much for fiction.
However, I feel that this story is appropriate.
http://madmanotl.livejournal.com/46389.html

[filkferengi]

For original, _The Hound of the Baskervilles_.

For media, Jeremy Brett and "Young Sherlock Holmes."

For written pastiches, Robert Newman's _The Case of the Baker Street Irregular_, the first in a series of excellent YA mysteries; Susan Conant's _The Barker Street Irregulars_; Carole Nelson Douglas' _Good Night, Mister Holmes_ and the other Irene Adler mysteries; and Lois McMaster Bujold's short story in _Dreamweaver's Dilemma_.