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Five Things I Think I Think (March 2024)

Five Things I Think I Think (March 2024)

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And it’s another installment of Five Things I Think I Think. Because we all like to tell EVERYONE else our opinions, right? Social media was a godsend for mankind’s overweening self-absorption. Not that I have a problem with that…

Hopefully I hit on an item or two of interest.

1) BARKER & LLEWELYN IS AN EXCELLENT SERIES

Will Thomas has written fourteen novels and one short story featuring Sherlock Holmes’ “hated rival upon the Surrey shore” (“Adventure of the Retired Colourman”). Cyrus Barker is an Eastern-trained private inquiry agent. Thomas Llewelyn is his Watson. I had read the first several novels years ago.

Audible has most of them, and I went back to book one, the aptly-titled Some Danger Involved, and am about to start book eight, Hell Bay. I highly recommend this to Holmes, or Victorian detectives, fans.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Jack Tracy’s ‘The Published Apocrypha’

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Jack Tracy’s ‘The Published Apocrypha’

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I am bringing back The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes for a Doyle-centric run in April. Getting in the mood, here’s my review of Jack Tracy’s cornerstone book, Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha.

Sherlockians like to hold the Canon (Doyle’s sixty Holmes stories) in the same esteem that Christians hold the Bible. So it should come as no surprise that there are some works by Doyle that are comparable to apocrypha. The term refers to early Christian writings not included in the Bible.

Jack Tracy, author of the superb Encyclopedia Sherlockiana, collected some authentic and near-authentic Holmes works that are not part of the Canon. Few books made up of Holmes fiction can justifiably sit on your bookshelf next to Doyle’s short stories and novels about the wisest and finest man Dr. Watson ever knew. This book should be the very first one.

No one who has looked at Tracy’s Encyclopedia can doubt his Sherlockian scholarship. He utilizes his vast knowledge in an efficient and readable way in Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha. Each section begins with info about the writings that follow. Interesting and “must know” details set the stage for the pieces themselves.

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The Best of Bob – 2023

The Best of Bob – 2023

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Happy 2024! Let’s kick butt for another year. Or at least, limp to the finish in 52 weeks. I take what I can get.

One of my greatest talents as a blogger, is finding folks more talented than I, to write my weekly column for me. Hey – the reader gets a better end product, so they win, right? I brought Talking Tolkien to Black Gate in 2023. And I had some great help yet again for A (Black) Gat in the Hand.

So some of you Black Gaters may be surprised that I occasionally actually write my own essays for the Monday morning slot. John O’Neill is too savvy an editor for me to completely fool him for almost ten years.

So here are what I thought were ten of my better efforts in 2023. Hopefully you saw them back when I first posted them. But if not, maybe you’ll check out a few now. Ranking them seemed a bit egotistical, so they’re in chronological order. Let’s go!

Don’t Panic! We’ve Got Douglas Adams Covered Here at Black Gate (January 2, 2023)

If I do say so myself, things absolutely started off strong, the second day of the new year! Black Gate has a bunch of Douglas Adams fans. This was my eighth Adams-related post, and I included links to five prior posts by Black Gaters (Steven H Silver, and M. Harold Page).

Thirteen posts about Douglas Adams. SURELY you can find something interesting. This current post included me fooling around with a new entry for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I think it’s pretty funny. And if you’re not familiar with Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, that’s actually my favorite Adams book. Click on this one and get a larf.

 

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes Shelfies (#3)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes Shelfies (#3)

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I was posting Shelfies over in a the r/bookshelf subreddit. The Mods seemed to be growing more persnickity, and spam selling posts were getting more common, so I quit the group. I’ve already done a couple posts here at Black Gate with my shelfies from over there. Here’s the third and final one from my Sherlock Holmes shelfies. Links to the prior posts at the end.

Holmes Shelfie #15

I am aware of four sets of annotated Sherlock Holmes. We’ll get to the first two in a bit.

The most recent is The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, from Leslie Klinger. Klinger has gone on to do other major annotations, including for Bran Stoker’s Dracula, and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu.

It’s my favorite annotation, and not just because the slipcases are cool as heck. Love the Holmes silhouette. This is a masterfully annotated look at the entire Canon, in the order the stories were printed (you’ll see that’s relevant when I talk about William Baring-Gould’s annotation).

With over almost 1,000 illustrations on high quality paper, it’s a masterpiece. This was Klinger’s second annotation – the first set is to the right of the pic. And it’s different, (and I think better), because it deals with the stories, and the world, in reality.

His second set treats Holmes and Watson as if they were real people, and it’s a different way of annotating. Still neat, but I prefer the New Annotated. It’s a terrific resource, and a fun way to read the stories. One of the treasures of my collection.

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What I’m Reading: November 2023

What I’m Reading: November 2023

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I’ve been juggling reading with catching up on a bunch of TV/streaming stuff. But I’ve worked in a couple of good reads.

I thought about a post on series’ I’m behind on in my reading. I probably will do one – sadly, it would be VERY long. But I did just finish two novels in one such, and I started a third.

HOLMES ON THE RANGE

I wrote this essay back in 2019 on Steve Hockensmith’s Sherlock Holmes-influenced cowboy brothers. Dear Mr. Holmes is a collection of the seven short stories that kicked off the series. And just last month, the seventh novel – Hunters of the Dead– came out.

I had read the first three novels and the short stories. But book four – The Crack in the Lens – came out in 2009. I was WAAAAY behind. So last week I read Crack… – and then immediately tore through The World’s Greatest Sleuth!. Now I’m on book six, The Double-A Western Detective Agency.

Check out my prior essay for a more in-depth look at the series. But the premise is that brothers Gustav (Old Red) and Otto (Big Red) Amlingmeyer, are trail-riding cowpunchers in the Old West. This is during the time of Sherlock Holmes’ Adventures and Memoirs. Gustav can’t read. So, while they’re sitting around the campfire at night, Otto reads aloud the Holmes stories from a dog-eared magazine.

Gustav is totally enthralled with Holmes’ methods and sets out to do some deducifyin’ on the trail. And these two fall into malice and mayhem like a spinster in one of Agatha Christie’s villages. Gustav is the brains, and Otto is the brawn.

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