Revisiting Holmes: The First Collection

Book #26. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Unabridged audio.

This is a collection of the first dozen Holmes short stories, containing stories that were first published in the Strand Magazine in 1891 and 1892. The first two novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, had previously appeared in 1887 and 1890, respectively.

This collection begins with the only appearance of one of the series most notable characters, Irene Adler, in "A Scandal in Bohemia." As time has passed and as the Holmes legend has been continued by authors beyond Doyle, she has become an iconic character. If these stories were written in the modern era, I imagine Doyle himself would have brought her back into later stories himself.

 

It is interesting to note that Holmes is not always successful in the stories in this collection. I will pay attention to see if this trend continues as the legend of Holmes grows throughout Doyle's writing of the character.  The great detective loses to Irene Adler, for example. At the beginning of The Five Orange Pips, Watson reveals that not all of Holmes' cases end in success -- in that case specifically, Holmes' version of justice is stolen by an act of God on the high seas. This story deals with the Ku Klux Klan, in a way that is reminiscent of how Doyle used the mysterious Mormons as a way into the story in The Sign of Four.

Some of these stories have all of the action taking place in the drawing room, the consulting detective truly doing his work with only his mind. I appreciate this element of Holmes, but am glad that not every story is of this variety, as I tend to enjoy the "on location" stories more. Another interesting point is how Doyle seems stumped by how to deal with Watson's marriage. He continually has to invent reasons for the men to come together to tackle a case. In a trick that Doyle will later come to rely on ever more, he presents a few of these stories as having occurred earlier in Holmes' career, one even before he had met Watson.

Ummm, spoiler alert?

There are many stories in this collection that have become classics, and have been revisited often in the many adaptations of Doyle's work. This category of story include "The Speckled Band," the solution of which is revealed on the cover of one version of the printed book -- perhaps the concept of "spoilers" was not a concern at this point in publishing. "The Copper Beeches" and "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League" are also among the memorable stories contained in this volume.

I have read every one of the stories at least once, probably twice, and some many more times than that. But certain of the stories had completely fled my mind, and I found it delightful to read the strange "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb," the mysterious "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" and the bizarre "A Case of Identity" without knowing where the stories were going. This was a pleasant experience for me, and I hope that as I progress with the Holmes canon I run across more of these stories that are "new again" to me. 

source: public library.

Podcast Marathon

Summer vacation + not much on the DVR = opportunity to listen to lots of podcasts yesterday!  Here is what I listened to:

Hope of All Trades, Post 221B Convention episode. host Hope Mullinax talks with Heather & Crystal, the organizers of the recent 221B Convention. They talked about the con, and about general Sherlock Holmes topics, including the Doyle works (which I am re-reading this year), the current BBC and previous PBS adaptations, and Elementary.

The Tony Kornheiser Show. Local sports & general chat from Washington, DC.

A Podcast of Ice and Fire, Episode 110: Second Sons. This is the longest-running podcast dedicated to the George RR Martin books, and during the TV season, about the show. This was a discussion of the most recent episode of the show, and the hosts all thought it was better than the one before.

Arsenal Review USA: Post-Newcastle. A pair of Americans chatting about how the end of the season went for the English soccer team. At least we finished ahead of Spurs.

Who True Freaks, episode 4: Sarah Jane. A very nice discussion about Elisabeth Sladen's character, focusing on the "School Reunion" episode of Doctor Who and the "Death of the Doctor" episode of The Sarah jane Adventures.

More Than One Lesson, minisode #14: Tyler and Josh talked about Josh's 8th favorite movie, The Godfather. These minisodes are counting down each host's top 10 movies, in between their longer, standard episodes.

DH Unplugged, #182: Don't Short! Yet. John C. Dvorak and Andrew Horowitz talked about the drop in the vlaue of gold, recent earnings announcements, and how exactly the stock market is staying so high.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly nookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

Grab your current read.

Open to a random page.

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

From Chapter 6 of The Dalek Generation, by Nicholas Briggs: "The Doctor and the children rolled and scranbled their way to safety. All the while, the thought pounded through the Doctor's mind ... Have I miscalculated thie time? Is this how it ends? A stupid bit of over-confidence on some depressing human colony planet where everyone thought the Dalek were the good guys?"

New 52 Review: The Dark Books

I, Vampire volume 1: Tainted Love, trade paperback. Issues 1-6, by Joshua Hale Fialkov & Andrea Sorrentino. And Justice League Dark, volume 1: In the Dark, Issues 1-6, by Peter Milligan and Mikel Janin.

These are related volumes in that they both fall into the "Dark" line of DC's New 52 titles. They overlap at the end of their stories, and begin a crossover in the issues following these, so I am reviewing them together.

I enjoyed the I, Vampire issues, these being the first I have ever read from that title or with that character. There have been plenty of stories about vampires and/or vampire hunters, and even of vampires who turn to hunting other vampires. But this sentiment that drove this story was unique to a world with super-powered characters, a sentiment voiced by Mary the Queen of Vampires: "Today we begin our holy war against the humans. Many of ours will die, more of theirs will. We were meant to inherit the earth, but instead we let it be stolen by aliens and masked men."

The narrative style was interesting, as Fialkov wrote each of these six issues from only one person's perspective. This made for very tight writing, and perhaps one book that might actually read better as single issues than as a collected whole. Batman guest stars in one of the issues, and this is just enough of a tie to the greater DC Universe.

John Constantine also appears as a guest star in I, Vampire, another tie between these two series. Madame Xanadu (also a character in Demon Knights) peers into the future and sees a coming global destruction, from the out-of-control Enchantress.

She recruits her Justice League friends to take the Enchantress out, but they fail miserably. Xanadu attempts to form a team of more supernatural heroes to aid her instead -- Deadman, John Constantine, Shade the Changing Man, Zatanna and Mind Warp fight the powerful magic of the Enchantress, but they manage to find plenty of time to fight each other, as well.

I enjoyed the fact that even after their joint adventure, these characters all mistrust each other, and many flat out dislike each other. They come across as well-rounded fully thought-out characters, and their conflicts seems natural. It is pointed out at one point that dealing with powers of magic and the supernatural does have consequences, and the wrecks that each of these people have made of their lives are testament to that. The story moved a bit slow for my taste, as the gathering of the team members was a bit repetitive, and dragged on an issue or two more than it needed.

Fortunately, the team never calls itself the "Justice League Dark," at least not in these six issues. But it is a testament to the power of the words "Justice League" that this title continually lands in the top half of DC's monthly sales, despite having a cast of (mostly) little-known or unknown characters. Yes, Constantine is here, but the New 52 version will be much less "mature" than the Vertigo version that lasted 300 issues.

I am personally a fan of Deadman, and thought his portrayal here was strong. Milligan strikes the right balance of including critical parts of his pre-New-52 character, while modernizing him just enough to give this version a fresh start. I am not as familiar with the rest of the cast, except for Zatanna, whose powers and personality seem similar to her earlier incarnations, as well.

The end of issue 6 of both JLDark and I, Vampire was exactly the same, indicating that these two books will cross over in the following issues. I am looking forward to reading those joint issues. This crossover is at least partially an attempt to bring new readers to I, Vampire, which consistently sells about half the number of issues that JLDark sells.

Source: public library

Book Review #25

The Areas of My Expertise, by John Hodgman. Paperback.

You probably know John Hodgman from portraying "PC" in the "Mac vs. PC" television commercials for Apple Computers. He has also appeared regularly on the The Daily Show, and hosts a very entertaining podcast. And he has written a comprehensive three-volume series of complete world knowledge, in the style of the almanacs of old.

This is the first volume, and considering all of the information it contains, which is approximately one-third of all world known knowledge, it is a pretty quick read. And considering all of the magnificent facts that are conveyed, it is quite funny. The author is able to use his ability to write humorously as a method for instilling a wide range of facts in his readers.

I certainly learned many things, especially from the long section on our 51 states. Other insightful articles include "Nine Presidents Who Had Hooks For Hands," "All Kinds of Squirrels," and "700 Hobo names." The role of hoboes in calling down The Dust Bowl, for example, was completely new to me. 

You should read this book. It is quite humorous, and incredibly informative, sort of.
 

That is all.

source: purchased from Half-Price Books.

Quarter Bin Finds!

Three or four times per year, my local comic book shop pulls out the boxes of 25-cent comics, and I usually go!  A few days ago, my daughter and I went, and here is what I came home with:

Fantastic Four, issues 279, 287 & 375, all of which are stories that feature Doctor Doom. Any story with good ol' Victor is worth at least a quarter!

Rune (from Malibu Comics, 1995), issues 4 & 5. I bought these because they were written by my blog-buddy and recent guest on the Book Guys Show, Paul O'Connor from the Longbox Graveyard blog.

ROM Spaceknight, issues 8, 10, 15, 17, 22, 33, 55, 65, 70, and Annuals 2 & 4. At one point in my life, I had the entire run of ROM, all 75 issues and the 4 Annuals. I sold them when I moved about 15 years ago, but thanks to my most recent few trips to the 25-cent bins, I have managed to track down 67 of the 79 issues. I hope to fill in those holes, then I will re-read it all.

Warlord, issues 37, 39, 43, 50, 57, 78, 85, 102, 103, 112, & 121. Similar to ROM, I once had a huge run of Warlord, and sold them when I moved about 15 year ago. Now I am just missing the more expensive issues 1-36, and about a dozen of the other 100.

Starslayer: The Director's Cut, issues 1-8. More Mike Grell goodness. This one looks like Warlord ... in space!

Mike Grell's Shaman's Tears, issues 0, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, & 12.  Now I am only missing #1. What can I say? I am a big fan of Grell.

Book Review #24

The Skin Map, by Stephen R. Lawhead. Unabridged audio.

Stephen R. Lawhead is one of my favorite fantasy authors, but he has dipped into science fiction before, which is the genre where this series (this is the first book of Bright Empires) belongs.

Kit Livingstone is an ordinary fellow, with an ordinary life, an ordinary job, and an ordinary girlfriend. Until he is visited by his long-lost great-grandfather Cosimo. His long-dead great-grandfather Cosimo. With Cosimo's help, Kit finds that he can travel along ancient ley-lines to other times and/or other dimensions, and is recruited to the search for the one complete map of the lines. This is a parchment made from the skin of a man who learned about the ley-lines, and then tattooed them onto his body. It turns out that Cosimo and Kit are not alone in this quest to the find the skin map, and then the race is on.

In the past, Kit in joined in his quest by the enigmatic and flirtatious Lady Fayth, while his girlfriend Wilhelmina struggles to survive on her own in 17th century Prague, as the apprentice to a baker. All of these characters  get caught up in an omniverse of intersecting realities as they chase down the secret of the skin map.

This is just the first in a series of books, so the story does not come to a satisfying conclusion in terms of the overall plot, although branches of the intersecting realities do merge towards the end to give the story a nice launching-point into the next book.

Lawhead is strong in his characterizations, and the relationships between Kit and his compatriots all seem realistic. There are moments where credulity is strained between characters, especially in Wilhelmina's story, but this is a typical issue with time-travel stories -- I just don't think that people would be so blasé about meeting others from hundreds of years in the future. But again, that is a constant worry in this type of tale, and Lawhead does the best he can with that issue. The action is strong, the plot is intriguing, and the dangers that our crew of heroes face in future stories will bring me back to book #2 in the series.

source: public library