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Drawing from Wells' novel 'War of the Worlds' and the short story 'The Crystal Egg' the Wellmans have reworked five of their previously published short stories into a loosely constructed novel. The premise is intriguing - what if Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle's other great adventurer Professor Challenger were in London during the Martian invasion? But the fact is that do a lot of theorising, much speculating, a bit of running back and forth avoiding capture...and that's all. They spend almost the whole book away from the main action. For instance the heroes visit the scene of the first cylinder landing and the first deaths from the heat ray, then they move on without actually doing anything constructive. And this was my problem with the whole book. The heroes don't really DO anything that significantly alters events.
It's a tricky proposition given that the invaders were eventually destroyed by bacteria, not human intervention. It means that Holmes and Challenger can only suggest what might happen (eg the Martians are coming, they might be susceptible to bacteria) then congratulate themselves for being correct. Heroes, and certainly Holmes and Challenger, should being active and propel events along. Certainly the Holmes of Conan Doyle does. The versions in this story, however, do nothing but think and talk. It was frustrating to be constantly reading, willing them to DO something constructive.
Holmes' affair with Mrs Hudson is of course ludicrous to any Sherlockian and adds only a pointless romance and a reason for Holmes to see her safely out of London thus AGAIN taking him away from the action to a place where he merely receives reports of what the Martians are doing back in London. It's poor plotting and a waste of a great characters and a great idea.
For some genuinely fun and exciting Holmes pastiches in a similar vein read Loren Estleman's wonderful 'Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula' and 'Doctor Jekyll and Mr Holmes'. Particularly in the Dracula novel Estleman (a terrific writer across several genres) really solves the problem of having Holmes offstage from the main Stroker narrative yet furiously working behind the scenes to solve the case. I only wish the Wellmans had been equally creative.
Drawing from Wells' novel 'War of the Worlds' and the short story 'The Crystal Egg' the Wellmans have reworked five of their previously published short stories into a loosely constructed novel. The premise is intriguing - what if Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle's other great adventurer Professor Challenger were in London during the Martian invasion? But the fact is that do a lot of theorising, much speculating, a bit of running back and forth avoiding capture...and that's all. They spend almost the whole book away from the main action. For instance the heroes visit the scene of the first cylinder landing and the first deaths from the heat ray, then they move on without actually doing anything constructive. And this was my problem with the whole book. The heroes don't really DO anything that significantly alters events.
It's a tricky proposition given that the invaders were eventually destroyed by bacteria, not human intervention. It means that Holmes and Challenger can only suggest what might happen (eg the Martians are coming, they might be susceptible to bacteria) then congratulate themselves for being correct. Heroes, and certainly Holmes and Challenger, should being active and propel events along. Certainly the Holmes of Conan Doyle does. The versions in this story, however, do nothing but think and talk. It was frustrating to be constantly reading, willing them to DO something constructive.
Holmes' affair with Mrs Hudson is of course ludicrous to any Sherlockian and adds only a pointless romance and a reason for Holmes to see her safely out of London thus AGAIN taking him away from the action to a place where he merely receives reports of what the Martians are doing back in London. It's poor plotting and a waste of a great characters and a great idea.
For some genuinely fun and exciting Holmes pastiches in a similar vein read Loren Estleman's wonderful 'Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula' and 'Doctor Jekyll and Mr Holmes'. Particularly in the Dracula novel Estleman (a terrific writer across several genres) really solves the problem of having Holmes offstage from the main Stroker narrative yet furiously working behind the scenes to solve the case. I only wish the Wellmans had been equally creative.
