Outside of a Dog: Doyle, Arthur Conan: (07) The Valley of Fear

Kathy Li

Kathy Li wrote on April 10, 2003 at 9:57 PM:

And this is why Holmes pastiches are so numerous. :-)

Maybe find a really good pastiche as a substitute? Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald" will be coming out in Shadows Over Baker Street (a Holmes-Cthulu anthology). And there's always Saberhagen's The Holmes/Dracula File, Nicholas Meyer's The Seven Percent Solution, and Laurie R. King's The Beekeeper's Apprentice, along with legions of others.

Although, now that I look at this list, it's amazing how so few pastiches are actually strict Holmes stories along Holmesian lines...

Kate

Kate wrote on April 10, 2003 at 10:06 PM:

The Beekeeper's Apprentice is on my list, definitely, but I figured I should finish canon first.

I might also try those Carol Nelson Douglas books, though when I flipped through one in the bookstore, I wasn't impressed by the voice.

A pastiche I'm fond of is by Stephen King, in which Watson solves a case before Holmes. It's in Nightmares and Dreamscapes.

Kathy Li

Kathy Li wrote on April 14, 2003 at 3:27 PM:

Yeah, with The Beekeeper's Apprentice you're going to need a fair amount of the canon under your belt. And the first of the Douglas series (which I enjoyed but promptly forgot and do not recommend out of hand) weaves through some of the storise as well. Turning Irene Adler into a detective (not to mention a soprano) makes no character-logic to me, and nearly every pastiche that's centered around her tends to do both things.

Another Holmes pastiche I like is a YA title, The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars, by Robert Newman (Merlin's Mistake, The Testing of Tertius).

Thanks for pointing out the Stephen King story!