May. 16th, 2004

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I've finished what is probably the best Mary Sue story ever written: "The Beekeeper's Apprentice" by Laurie R. King. One of the two main characters is Sherlock Holmes, the other is a young woman he befriends. I am a fan of Holmes from way back, and I am almost always disappointed at attempts to add to the Canon. This was excellent, and truly in the spirit of the original, and perhaps better than a few of Doyle's later stories. The author has an excellent understanding of both Holmes and England at the time. The plot is episodic, with interludes that seem to end, and yet are necessary to the building of the final climax. I don't want to say too much about it, lest I spoil it for others. And thanks to [livejournal.com profile] rutemple who recommended it.

Right after I finished it, I had the misfortune to read another book, "The Arcanum", set at the same time. This one had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as the protagonist, and frankly, it sucked. I think it was written originally as a movie script, since the back cover describes the author as a script writer, and says it's his first novel. It has too much graphically described action, not enough plot and one dimensional characters, made worse by giving them the names of real people. He did not bother to actually research these people, or he would have known that H.P. Lovecraft did not study the occult or consider himself an occultist; rather he was a student of mythology. Doyle was a Spiritualist, not a ceremonial magician, and so forth. If you're going to write a two bit horror novel, at least make up names instead of tossing around real ones. I think he thought he was writing a horror novel, but he was really writing a horrible novel.

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