recent read; The Secret Files of Solar Pons

THE SECRET FILES OF SOLAR PONS by Basil Copper

Pons finds himself dealing with four separate mysteries in this collection - "The Adventure of the Crawling Horror," "The Adventure of the Anguished Actor," "The Adventure of the Ignored Idols"
and "The Adventure of the Horrified Heiress."

I admit to sometimes being too easily entertained. I am still new to original Sherlock Holmes tales and the tales of Solar Pons.  I thought these tales were enjoyable, at least.

In "The Adventure of the Crawling Horror," Pons must solve the mystery of a ghostly monster in the marsh lands. "The Adventure of the Anguished Actor" features a tale of theater as Pons and Parker race to save an actor from assassination. In "The Adventure of the Ignored Idols," a brazen thief challenges a museum to stop his imminent procurement of exhibits. And "The Adventure of the Horrified Heiress" is a tale of murder and inheritance.

I found the last story surprisingly predictable.  "Ignored Idols" seemed to have an odd central conceit - the museum thief is initially introduced as known forger. So, why turn to thieving? I was expecting an artifact forgery swap somewhere in the story but it is also a straightforward tale of burglary and Pons's attempt to stop the thief.

So, I'd say the first two stories were the better of the collection.

Copper favored novella length adventures for Pons and his stalwart companion, Parker. I enjoyed settling into all of these longer stories, soaking up some atmosphere and spending more time with the mainstay characters of the series.

(The original Basil Copper stories came in the series of books published by Pinnacle Books back in the day and included Derleth's run. Hence, the first edition of SECRET FILES was numbered 10, not 3. Story content is the same.)

 

recent read; The Papers of Solar Pons

THE PAPERS OF SOLAR PONS by David Marcum

I'll come right out and say I wanted to enjoy this book more than I did but that is not to say it is bad. I brought a lot of expectations to the Kickstarter-funded book. As such, this review is probably longer than it needs to be.

I am new to the Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes original stories and also new to Pons. I was fortunate enough to secure the first Derleth Pinnacle paperback collection, so I had some familiarity with Pons before starting.

Pons has a long history. In a nutshell - August Derleth was a Sherlock Holmes fan. When no more Holmes stories were coming, he created a pastiche character, Pons, who is essentially Holmes. All the bells and whistles of Holmes are in Pons - a London address, a doctor confidant, a untouchable enemy, a gang of helpful street urchins. Later, Basil Copper took over the character. But, Pons has been dormant a long time until now.

THE PAPERS OF SOLAR PONS, authorized by the Derleth estate, are new tales that harken back more to Derleth's style, though Marcum has his own style, certainly.

The book opens with many essays from various writers about Pons and their joy at seeing his return. I did enjoy their excitement.

The stories are all well written and I enjoyed them to an extent. Some went where I wasn't expecting. One story even turned out to be of the "weird menace" category, which was pleasant surprise. Marcum certainly knows the ins-&-outs of Pons canon.

Now, on to some of the negatives.

First, there was constant cross-referencing to other cases - both Holmes's and Pons's. Being new to both canons, I never knew when Marcum was referencing previous tales or creating "lost tales." It's an old tradition to drop hints of cases we've never read but it just felt overboard in this collection.

The final story is a long one. It is a Holmes story, concerning the origins of Solar Pons. It isn't a bad story and it written well enough. But this novelette-length story just didn't jibe with me.

If you know me by now you know I'm a big Robert E. Howard fan. I have mixed feelings on continuations and pastiches, anyway. When it comes to origin stories, I am of the mind, mostly, that any origin story from the original author is fine. But I really have a hard time with origin stories coming from follow-on pastiche writers.

There is that old quote about whether a nude picture is art or pornography, and the answer is "I know it when I see it." I feel the same way about amateur fan fiction vs. a professional tie-in or authorized by an estate story. Don't get me wrong, sometimes (as with anything) you can find better fan fiction than authorized canon and sometimes fan fiction vibes creep into authorized canon.

I felt the story - as regards to Pons's origins - was fan fiction and far too obvious. The constant Easter egg cross-referencing of stories also felt like fan fiction - if only because it was done so often. But it is authorized canon, so that's fine.

If I gave it stars - as someone new to Holmes and Pons - I would give it three out of five, I'd say. It's not a bad addition to the canon. But as a starting point for someone new to Pons, I would have preferred something a bit more accessible and in the vein of a restart than something with deep tendrils into the canon world of Pons (and Holmes.)

Your mileage will almost certainly vary.

recent reads (listens) ; back to basics

I've been rather lazy about book reviews lately. Part of that is I've been reading older stuff by authors who have passed on - so they don't necessarily need the Amazon/goodreads review bumps.

I've surpassed my goodreads reading goal (65 books) for 2017. Yes, that includes some graphic novels but not nearly as many as last year. Audiobooks have helped - I listen to them on my daily commute.

Two recent listens;

THUNDERBALL by Ian Fleming, read by (actor) Jason Isaacs.

This was absolutely stellar. If you're a Bond fan, you should try this when you have time. I am going to press on with these and finish off the original Fleming books. This particular run of audios features British celebrity readers. Looking forward to more though I'm a little disappointed Isaacs didn't perform any of the others.

THE VALLEY OF FEAR by Arthur Conan Doyle, read by Derek Jacobi.

A fun reading. Jacobi works solidly with accents, including Americans. I'm only getting to the original Sherlock Holmes tales now - largely thanks to the influence of Charles R. Rutledge (also responsible for my interest in Burroughs's original Tarzan tales, too.) My only complaint is that this story - like A STUDY IN SCARLET - features a second half prequel story set in America without Holmes at all. However, I didn't feel quite as cheated as with A STUDY IN SCARLET, because here the midpoint reveal doesn't come out of the blue.

Aside from audios, Rutledge is also responsible for kindling my interest in Solar Pons.

Pons was August Derleth's Holmes pastiche who went on to a life of his own, with Basil Copper continuing the stories in the 1970s. Recently, Copper's tales came back into print in paperback from PS Publishing in the UK.

Also, a Kickstarter campaign launched brand new stories written by David Marcum with the permission of the Derleth estate. Marcum is a Holmes/Pons aficionado. (The campaign was successful. If you missed out, the book can be ordered from Amazon.)

Because the original Derleth tales are now the ones out-of-print, I hope this campaign carries on to reprint the original Derleth stories in the near future.

Not sure how long I'll be deep diving on thrillers, mystery and crime but I might be here a while.