Rip Off Twice Over?

I first noticed Pulptastic's Sherlock Holmes stories for the blatant rip of the movies poster used on the cover.  Then I read an Amazon review stating the stories are a blatant rip of public domain stories about other detective, and not a very thorough one at that.

And I agree with that review when they say: "...give credit to R. Austin Freeman, who actually produced 99.9% of these stories, instead of showing the names of Arthur Conan Doyle and John H. Watson on the covers and copyright pages."

NPH Sherlock

Neil Patrick Harris as Sherlock Holmes

The Adventures of Shakespeare and Watson

The Adventures of Shakespeare and Watson is a comedy web serial that will apparently hit some gay material, at least according to Bleeding Cool writer Hannah Means-Shannon: "It’s also an easily developed idea that Watson, finding himself in a more liberal era, might find every opportunity to acknowledge that he is gay..."

Kissing Sherlock Holmes

In Kissing Sherlock Holmes (by TD McKinney and Terry Wylis) Watson is surprised to find that Sherlock Holmes is engaged, and wants to practice the amorous arts to better romance his fiance. There follows a story of mutual exploration with a slash aesthetic (quite a bit of sex and a few small servings of angst)

I suppose everyone has a slightly different version of Holmes and Watson in their head.  This version is certainly charming, but Holmes seems perhaps a little too easy going and considerate when it comes to Watson and not all that sharp when it comes to the investigation.

The plot centers upon Holmes being engaged to a women as an excuse to be in her father’s household to investigate a very serious crime (she, meanwhile, believes the engagement to be genuine).  Both men take part in leading ladies on like complete cads and I was fairly sure I knew who the villain was within twenty pages.

Nevertheless the story becomes very engaging as the lives and loves of various characters come into play. The villain’s reasons were rather more nuanced than I expected.  And Holmes ends the story a little more true to his usual just-slightly-sociopathic form. The style is easy to ready but the use of American phrasing (like “gotten”) is sometimes a tad jarring.

Overall this is an enjoyable and entertaining story, although more in terms of being a slash romance than a Sherlock Holmes pastiche.

I [HEART] Leslie Klinger

You may have seen me bitching on this blog about the Conan Doyle estate and how they insist Sherlock Holmes is still under both copyright and trademark.

Leslie Klinger has stepped up to take one for the team and challenge this in court. He wants the court to make it 100% clear that any Sherlock Holmes works first published prior to 1923 are in the public domain.


Kudos.

See also:

• Boing Boing
• Galleycat
• New York Times blog

The Adventure of the Blue Police Call Box

The Adventure of the Blue Police Call Box by MJ is a 139 page spiral-bound, digest-sized, one-column zine released in 2012 by Agent With Style. It contains 1 story, which is Holmes/Watson (BBC-verse).

The notion of throwing together current Dr. Who and current BBC Sherlock is obviously appealing. However, I found this story works only on a basic level.  The main characters and relative back stories seem a tad one dimensional, with some inaccuracies of detail (e.g. Amy and Rory never cared for an infant River Song, as they are apparently during while this story occurs. She was abducted as a newborn and next met her mother as a teen--unless this is meant to place us in a parallel reality?)

I am more of a canon-verse Sherlock fan so maybe I am not the best audience for this story.  But at the same time I am familiar with both modern shows being mixed here... and I think so much more could have been done with combining them. But I did enjoy the charming little Mycroft/other subplot.

See also:

• Fanlore

Upcoming Review

The Adventure of the Blue Police Call Box
by MJ
from Agent With Style

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