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Just Finished:
- Professor Moriarty: the Hound of the D'urbervilles by Kim Newman - First of all, there are two types of non-canon Holmes stories: the pastiches that act like a long-lost Watson story and try to insert themselves into the canonical timeline without contradicting anything, and then there are the "what if" stories. What if Holmes was on the Titanic? What if Holmes met Dracula? What if Holmes was a woman?
Both are enjoyable in their own way, but knowing from the get-go which one you're in for goes a long way toward making the story more enjoyable. Thinking you're in for a pastiche and finding out three chapters in that the story has ghosts in it can be jarring.
The Hound of the D'urbervilles feels like it's not sure which type of story it wants to be. Moriarty is the Holmes figure in this story, and Colonel Sebastian Moran is his Watson. Moriarty is a consulting criminal, and Moran his biographer and henchman, tagging along on cases where someone has hired Moriarty to steal something unstealable or kill someone unkillable. All the cases in the novel parody or parallel actual Holmes cases (sometimes more than one, and sometimes in name only, such as "The Adventure of the Greek Invertebrate" instead of "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter"). Characters from other Victorian-era literature show up by the pound, as well as several characters from the Holmes canon. Holmes himself, however, is never mentioned by name and his presence is not felt for the first three-quarters of the book. It feels like a "what if" novel, in other words, what if Conan Doyle never created Holmes, but wrote about a consulting criminal instead of a consulting detective?
Then, during the final case ("The Problem of the Final Adventure"), the novel suddenly decides it wants to tie everything together and insert itself firmly into the canon. The "death of Holmes" story ("The Final Problem") is retold from Moran's point of view, following Moriarty as he chases Holmes and Watson across Europe and finally finding themselves as Reichenbach Falls. We see Moran acquire his famous air-gun. We see Moriarty take credit for several of the crimes Holmes has solved throughout the years, but it's the first time in the book we've heard of any of these crimes.
Reading the acknowledgments, it turns out each of the cases were written as stand-alone stories for various anthologies before being put together in novel format. It feels that way... a bit disjointed rather than a single cohesive story.
Currently Reading:
- Climbing Mount Improbable by Richard Dawkins (70%)
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (16%)
- Moby-Dick, or The Whale by Herman Melville (28%) [on hold]
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