One That Almost Got Away
Edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec, and published in October 2008, Gaslight Grimoire (Edge SF&F Publishing paperback, 323pp, $16.95) is another of those books that I am now forced to consider too 'old' for a review in Black Static itself, but two things set it apart from the titles listed in my previous blog post - I read the book and enjoyed it. In the circumstances it seems apposite to post something appropriately commendatory to this blog, though I won't devote the same effort to the book that a full blown review would require, because I've said I won't use this blog for reviews.
Subtitled Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes, and with an introduction by David Stuart Davies, a writer who has done more than his fair share of Holmes pastiches and crossover fiction, Gaslight Grimoire seeks to challenge the famous detective by placing him in situations where his usual reliance on deduction and the laws of logic will fail him. It tests to destruction the Holmesian adage about what happens when you have eliminated the impossible, though I have to admit that there is little consistency to the eleven stories in this volume, with Holmes' attitude swinging between scepticism and belief.
To deal briefly (and, in a couple of cases, not so briefly) with each of the stories, Barbara Hambly opens with 'The Lost Boy', which has perhaps the most marvellous conceit in the book, that when the Darling children are whisked off to Neverland, their father calls in the legendary consulting detective to solve the disappearance. Despite this wonderful pitch, the story didn't quite work for me, seeming a little too out of step with the other cases, in that here Holmes clearly not only believes in the supernatural but is a skilled practitioner, using his powers to foil an otherworldly menace and bring about a resolution in the personal life of his companion Watson. It was all a little too touchy feely for credibility and, entertaining as it undoubtedly was, didn't seem like a Sherlock Holmes story so much as the tale of an adept and sensitive soul who just happened to have the same name.
'His Last Arrow' by Christopher Sequeira is truer to the canon, told by Watson, who is discovering the true nature of his friend as repressed memories surface, culminating in a neat twist that truly upsets the apple cart. Barbara Roden's 'The Things That Shall Come Upon Them' is a clever Jamesian fable in which Holmes joins forces with Flaxman Low (a popular Victorian psychic detective created by the mother and son team of H. Heron and E. Heron) to solve the mystery of Lufford Abbey (Karswell's residence in MRJ's The Casting of the Runes). Much of the story's appeal is rooted in the rivalry and philosophical tension between the pragmatic Holmes and true believer Low, with Roden's resolution allowing each detective to preserve their worldview. In 'The Finishing Stroke' by M. J. Elliott an artist with the gift of killing those who own his pictures presents Holmes with a peculiar problem, while 'Sherlock Holmes in the Lost World' by Martin Powell is a romp of a story in which two of Conan Doyle's most famous creations are united, an elderly Holmes despatched to the Lost World to locate the missing Professor Challenger, with Sebastian Moran and cohorts thrown into the mix.
In 'The Grantchester Grimoire' by Chico Kidd and Rick Kennett, Holmes is allied with William Hope Hodgson's psychic detective Carnacki, the two locating a missing occult text, and maintaining their respect for each other despite very different interpretations of what has taken place. An old case resurfaces for Peter Calamai's 'The Steamship Friesland', in which a spirit guides Holmes' hand to ensure justice is done, while 'The Entwined' by J. R. Campbell sees Holmes engaged by a woman safely secured in an asylum to discover if she is committing gruesome murders, with Watson fabricating evidence to see that Holmes' rationalism remains undamaged.
Chris Robeson's 'Merridew of Abominable Memory' has Watson in an asylum recalling the case that undid his sanity with its violence, a fraud scheme involving a mentalist. 'Red Sunset' by Bob Madison brings a centenarian Holmes up against Dracula in WW2 America, where he is helped by a detective who sounds suspiciously like Hammett's Continental Op.
Lastly, and outstripping everything else for sheer chutzpah, we have Kim Newman at his ebullient best with 'The Red Planet League', a delicious pastiche in which Holmes doesn't feature at all. Instead the 'hero' of the story is arch nemesis Moriarty and it's told by his biographer Colonel Moran, Newman having a lot of fun with the idea of the two sharing lodgings like some bizarro version of Holmes and Watson. The plot gets even more outrageous as the villainous duo fake a Martian invasion in the style of the Orson Welles' 'War of the Worlds' broadcast that rocked America, all as part of a plan to discredit a Victorian Astronomer Royal. This is a typical Kim Newman story, packed with invention and erudition, filled with a love of playing literary games, so that the reader can often find something new on a second or even third reading, delighting with its sheer audacity and an affectionate irreverence for the source material. It's a marvellous end to a collection that for pure fun you'd be hard put to beat.
And just to make Gaslight Grimoire even more appealing, each story is presented with a period feel illustration by artist Phil Cornell, but you can check those out for yourself in the book trailer I've posted below.
There's a follow-up volume, Gaslight Grotesque: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes, planned for release in November this year.
Section items by date:
