There is a deeply annoying phenomenon in modern publishing, the rise of professional fanfic. The renowned writer of detective fiction Baroness James was on the telly the other day talking about her new book, a sequel to Pride and Prejudice. She seemed to think that it was a very brave thing for her publishers to do. I disagree.
It is a murderously safe bet that anything with P.D. James' name on it will sell very comfortably, be it a murder mystery, science fiction or genre busting regency romance. The publishers have an established writer, selling towards her own established fanbase, plus the equally established devotees of Jane Austen. Even if the book is appalling, and being P.D. James, it probably isn't, it will sell comfortably. Which is nice.
James of course is hardly the only one. Eion Cooper is busy writing a Hitchhiker sequel no-one felt the burning need for, Anthony Horowitz proudly announces that he has written the first post-Doyle Holmes novel, blissfully unaware of the dozens, if not hundreds of other Holmes writers out there.
I don't, you understand, have a fundamental objection to writers treading in others' footsteps, it can be a valid way of getting published, finding a voice, attracting a readership. There does seem something basically screwed up though, when a publisher's entire publicity budget is devoted to pumping a very well known writer's dabbling with very well known characters. They've only got so much after all, and there can't be very much left for new writers, with new ideas.
So what, you might well be asking by now, has this to do with the book named above? Well, it's fanfic again, even if the writer is one I'd otherwise never came across, and I wanted to get that rant over.
It is 1915 and Mary Sue Russell is wandering across the Sussex downs when she encounters a middle aged man studying bees. Soon Sherlock Holmes, for it is he, recognises that she has the best mind he's encountered in years, starts teaching her detective skills and they have adventures.
Now the thing you can at least say about this is that it's doing something with the characters and the genre. It's not House Of Silk, just telling a story that Conan-Doyle didn't think of, nor is it Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, taking the piss (not that I've actually read either) nor worse still Thrones and Dominions, picking up again a story that Sayers had sensibly set aside (gave up about the same point as she did).
Once you get over the idea that Watson is an unreliable narrator, that Holmes is in fact much younger than ACD would have had us believe, that characters surely celibate might have wives and families, there are stories that can be told. Some of course have already been told. There are hints in this book (I understand the detail is told in flashback circa book six of the series) of daring boys own stories of Great War Palestine, which makes me wonder if the Young Indiana Jones might be in there as well. But that kind of thing aside, would Holmes have coped with the roaring Twenties, flapper feminism and the like? Not 100% convinced that it's a question the world needed answering, but it is at least a question.
Not a bad book really, read on a recommendation, not feeling an overwhelming urge to read the rest of the series.
