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Author: Bob Byrne

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes for Halloween

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes for Halloween

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halloween_arcanumI don’t really do horror. Now, I am a huge Robert R. McCammon fan and of F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack. Of course, I’ve read a fair amount of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu stuff (man, that creeps me out). And bits here and there from Robert E. Howard, Les Daniels, Anne Rice and a few others. But overall, I don’t really enjoy the genre, so it’s not an area I have a lot of experience with.

However, I have come across several examples of Holmes in the genre. And it being Halloween, let’s take a quick look at few titles that involve horror or the supernatural. Those two things aren’t always the same, you know.

The Unopened Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (John Taylor) There was a time when Holmes pastiches were relatively uncommon and, pre-Amazon, you grabbed what you could when you saw them on the shelves. I still remember being excited to buy books from Richard Boyer, L.B. Greenwood and Frank Thomas. Another was a short story collection by John Sherwood, a writer for the BBC. “The Wandering Corpse,” “The Battersea Worm,” “The Paddington Witch,” “The Phantom Organ,” “The Devil’s Tunnel” and “The Horror of Hanging Wood” are all supernatural-tinged stories. The last one remains a favorite of mine and something I wish I’d thought up.  Taylor wrote four more Holmes adventures, which were read aloud by Benedict Cumberbatch. I’ve not heard them, but every couple of years, around this time, I read a few stories from his book.

Gaslight Anthologies (edited by J.R. Campbell & Charles Prepolec) In 2008, Canadians Campbell and Prepolec put out Gaslight Grimoire, a collection of eleven creepy Holmes tales. It was followed by thirteen more in Gaslight Grotesque, and finished up with another dozen in Gaslight Arcanum. That’s 36 stories of horror and weirdness. You can certainly tell what you’re getting from the covers of the last two books. If you’re a Holmes fan and really like the horror genre, these three anthologies are just what you’re looking for.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Poul Anderson’s “The Archetypal Holmes”

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Poul Anderson’s “The Archetypal Holmes”

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Poul's wife Karen, also a sccifi author and Sherlockian, drew these for his essay.
Poul’s wife Karen, also a scifi author and Sherlockian, drew this for his essay.

As far as Sherlockians go, I have a rather large Joseph Campbell library. I’ve even written about Holmes and the Monomyth (“The Hero’s Thousand-and-First Face”). Through Campbell, I discovered Carl Jung’s The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. However, all attempts to read it were abandoned rather quickly. I found it tough going. I do have a decent handle on archetypes from Role Playing Games, though.

Anywhoo…The late Poul Anderson was one of the giants in the field of science fiction: he was racking up Hugo Awards when that meant something.  He was also a devotee of Sherlock Holmes and a member of The Baker Street Irregulars. For good measure, he was also a Solar Pona fan and a Praed Street Irregular. Anderson wrote some odd Holmes pastiches and some, insightful, erudite Sherlockiana about the great detective.

In September of 1968, The Baker Street Journal included “The Archetypical Holmes,” a fine essay by Anderson and the kind of excellent Sherlockiana that is sadly all too rare these days – made obsolete by pop-centric, culture-appeasing works. Take it away, Poul!

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Milton F. Perry’s ‘Harry S. Truman, Sherlockian’

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Milton F. Perry’s ‘Harry S. Truman, Sherlockian’

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Perry with Harry S. Truman
Perry with Harry S. Truman

It’s well known in Sherlock Holmes circles that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States of America (now THERE was somebody worthy of that office) was a great fan of the world’s first private consulting detective, even having written about Holmes more than once. The third of his three Vice Presidents, and his successor at the Oval Office, was Harry S. Truman. Truman was also a follower of Holmes and like FDR, was granted membership to The Baker Street Irregulars.

Milton F. Perry himself became an Irregular in 1990. As he mentions in this essay, he was the Curator of the Museum at the Harry S. Truman Library from 1958 until 1976. The position gave him enviable access to the former President. Perry wrote the following essay for the December, 1986 Baker Street Journal. Truman’s interest in Holmes is not as well-known and certainly deserves to be publicized. So, as a frightful election day looms, Come, the game is afoot! – Bob

 

“Mr. President,” I asked, “What did the dog do in the night time?”

Harry S Truman grinned and looked at his glass of bourbon and branch water. “Perry,” he said, “you ought to know better than test an old Holmesian like me, the only honorary member of the Baker Street Irregulars. You know damned well the dog did nothing in the night time!”

This was my introduction to Harry Truman as a Sherlockian, a relationship I was able to develop from time to time during the years I was associated with him as Curator of the Museum at the Harry S Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, from 1958 until 1976. I was fortunate to have been able to discuss many things with him during those years, mostly in the uninterrupted privacy of his office.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Back to the Television

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Back to the Television

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sherlock_season4So, episode 98 of Elementary aired weekend before last. That, of course, is the modern day Sherlock Holmes show, set in New York City, featuring Johnny Lee Miller as the brilliant, socially challenged detective, and Lucy Liu as a female Doctor Watson. The show, which began in 2012, just kicked off season five.

Meanwhile, on January 1 of 2017, BBC’s Sherlock FINALLY airs season four. Set in modern day London, it has launched Benedict Cumberbatch to superstardom and also escalated Martin Freeman’s (that Bilbo guy) career. There have been nine episodes since the show began in 2010, plus one television movie, The Abominable Bride. It’s no surprise, with two year and eleven months between episodes, that rumors abound that season four will be the end.

Do you want the bad or the good first? The bad? Ok, we’ll open with Sherlock. Among my top five all-time favorite shows after season two, season three was a self-indulgent, “we can do better than Doyle” and “look how clever we are” claptrap. Somehow, The Abominable Bride won an Emmy for best television movie. The ending of it was worse than Matt Frewer’s Hound of the Baskervilles.

I think Sherlock is now a bad show and hope that it gets put to rest after these three episodes.

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Modular: Eye of the Beholder – The Art of Dungeons & Dragons

Modular: Eye of the Beholder – The Art of Dungeons & Dragons

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Art is a HUGE part of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). In fact, you can’t separate the amazing illustrations, (from black and white sketches to glorious color panoramas) from the actual playing of D&D. Of course, this applies to other role playing games. Wayne Reynolds’ illustrations were a big draw for me in trying Pathfinder. But there’s a reason I mentioned D&D.

Eye of the Beholder: The Art of Dungeons & Dragons, a documentary by X-Ray Films and Cavegirl Productions, is due out next year. And what a BRILLIANT idea! In addition to featuring artists and their work, it will also include interviews with game designers, authors, insiders and fans.

 

If this preview doesn’t grab you, I’m not sure you’re a D&D fan. If you read Part One of my history of Necromancer and Frog God Games (you did, didn’t you?), you saw those awesome Necromancer covers. I’ve loved D&D art since I started playing and I even had a puzzle with Larry Elmore’s drawing from the cover of the Red Box.

There’s a very short article about it in Format Magazine that has a bunch of wonderful D&D art from several of the greats. Makes me think of those great Dragon Magazine covers.

You can read Bob Byrne’s ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column here at Black Gate every Monday morning.

He founded www.SolarPons.com, the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’ and blogs about Holmes and other mystery matters at Almost Holmes.

He is an ongoing contributor to The MX Book of New Sherlock Stories series of anthologies, with stories in Volumes III, IV and the upcoming V. 

Modular: Swords & Wizardry Complete Kickstarter Explodes

Modular: Swords & Wizardry Complete Kickstarter Explodes

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swords-and-wizardry-new-rules-smallLast month I wrote a post on why I chose to use the Swords and Wizardry (S&W) Complete Rules, instead of Pathfinder, for my latest campaign. S&W is a redesign of Original Dungeons and Dragons (pre-1st Edition), written by Matt Finch and put out by Frog God Games. Due to a stretch goal achieved in the Sword of Air Kickstarter, the S&W rules are permanently free in PDF format from Frog God. You can also buy a hardcopy with a cool Earl Otus cover.

On October 14, Frog God launched their thirteenth Kickstarter to fund a third printing of S&W Complete. But this is a little different than just a simple reprinting effort. Designer and RPGer Stacy Dellorfano had suggested to Finch that Frog God print a new version of the S&W rules, but with art and design done entirely by women. Within minutes, Finch and Bill Webb were on board and the project moved ahead.

There are minor revisions to some of the game play examples, but otherwise it’s a reprint of the second edition. However, there are two brand new adventures included: “The Five Maidens” and “Zaya’s Promise.”

Finch explained that the intent was for Dellorfano to come up with a design that was no less appealing to males, but more appealing to females. Webb has cited Lisa Stevens of Paizo as a huge influence on the role of women in the gaming community (as well as “saving the game industry when WotC cratered on 4th Edition”) and has said that his daughter will taking over Frog God from him some day. So, he was very much into the concept.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Bogart’s The Caine Mutiny

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Bogart’s The Caine Mutiny

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caine_posterI’m fortunate in that the powers that be at Black Gate let me roam way off topic once in a while. The fantasy stuff isn’t really a stretch, since that’s at the heart of Black Gate itself. Other times, I’m just talking about something I really like. Such as, say, Humphrey Bogart.

The first two posts (The Return of Doctor X and The Maltese Falcon) about the greatest actor of all time actually fit within the Black Gate milieu. The third (about Bogie and George Raft), not really. Today’s has a military tie-in, which is a sometimes Black Gate subject.

Bogart had broken through in 1941 and was still a superstar in 1954, when he made three very different types of movies.  The second, Sabrina, was a light-hearted romantic comedy, costarring Audrey Hepburn and William Holden. I actually prefer the remake, with Harrison Ford, Julia Ormond and Gregory Kinnear.

The third, The Barefoot Contessa, was a ponderous, garish melodrama. Four-time Oscar winner Joseph Mankiewicz directed, with Ava Gardner and Edmond O’Brien co-starring. The movie collapses under its own weight.

Say it Again, Sam – Bogie only managed to secure one Oscar: for The African Queen. He certainly deserved more.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes & Watson (more from Otto Penzler’s SH Library)

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Holmes & Watson (more from Otto Penzler’s SH Library)

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roberts_holmeswatson(Third in a series of posts about the nine-volume Otto Penzler’s Sherlock Holmes Library)

So, I’ve done a post on Vincent Starrett’s two books in Otto Penzler’s Sherlock Holmes Library. And a second post looked at the two books from James Edward Holroyd. So, that covers four of the nine tiles in this series. As I wrote in the Starrett post:

“Bear in mind, every bit of anything you ever wanted to know wasn’t available on the internet back when Penzler republished these books. Heck, the Baker Street Journal wasn’t even available as a collection on CD yet. This collection of Sherlockiana was uncommon for the time.”

Sir Sidney Castle Roberts’ Holmes & Watson first saw the light of day in1953. He had already been Secretary of Cambridge University Press, Vice Chancellor of the University of Cambridge by that time and was at the time Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge, Chairman of the British Film Industry (BFI) and President of The Sherlock Holmes Society of London. Add in the many books he had authored and it is a pretty impressive resume.

Roberts opens the book with a long chapter featuring several Holmesian themes: his creation, his life, his temperament, his attitude to women, his music and his kinship with Doctor Johnson. There are far more through pieces of Sherlockiana out there on these topics, as well as full-blown biographies and memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. But this slender volume offers an enjoyable look at each of the topics.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: RPGing is Story Telling

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: RPGing is Story Telling

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inspiration_tomblizardAs I recall, I began playing Dungeons and Dragons at the very end of 1st Edition. Most of my early memories are of playing AD&D and that’s still my favorite Role Playing Game (RPG) system. My buddy Chris and I used to ride our bikes to Hobbyland and he would get a shiny new TSR module, while I grabbed a color-bled, paper-bound supplement from Judges Guild.

I had read Moorcock and Lieber by then (though I didn’t get to Tolkien until early high school). I had acquired a love of Greek mythology (and to a lesser extent, Norse) earlier, and The Trojan War was probably my favorite subject matter (I rooted for Troy: that was disappointing: I mean, c’mon, tear apart the walls to drag in a giant horse your enemy left you???).

You know, The Iliad is like a game of Chainmail: a mass combat wargame with the fantasy supplement for individual heroes. Then  you’ve got The Odyssey, which is an overland (over-the-sea, mostly) D&D campaign. After you’ve played that one a time or two, you could switch to The Aeneid and you’ve got an overland campaign with a kingdom building mechanic. Huh – there’s fodder for another post…

My earliest fantasy gaming memories are of playing Adventure on an Atari 2600. That led to Temple of Apshai on an Atari 1200XL computer. I mapped out every room of that game (and The Upper Reaches sequel) on graph paper. Eventually I got an IBM-compatible PC and tore through the gold box games from SSI. I made the graphical leap to Dungeon Master from FTL (this preceded the more successful but derivative Eye of the Beholder by a few years). Even when I stopped playing pen and paper D&D, I continued on through Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Morrowwind and right up to Age of Conan.

Though I stopped playing, I still read a lot of 3rd Edition D&D stuff and began playing once again with Pathfinder. And as I wrote here at Black Gate just a few weeks ago, I’ve begun running a Swords & Wizardry game for some non-pen and paper fantasy players (it’s a good post. Really. You should go read it!).

And from Dungeon! to Wrath of Ashardalon to the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, I’ve played fantasy board games for decades.

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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Back to Otto Penzler’s SH Library

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Back to Otto Penzler’s SH Library

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holroyd_byways(Second in a series of posts about the nine-volume Otto Penzler’s Sherlock Holmes Library)

A couple of weeks ago, The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes looked at Vincent Starrett’s two entries in Otto Penzler’s Sherlock Holmes Library series. Another author provided two entries for the series: James Edward Holroyd.

Holroyd helped establish the Sherlock Holmes Society of London in 1951, the original London Sherlock Holmes Society having been disbanded some years earlier. He was also the first editor of the Society’s Sherlock Holmes Journal. This collection of essays reads as a combination of personal reminiscences and musings about a topic that was certainly dear to his heart.

Baker Street Byways

“Where it All Began” gives us a picture of how Holroyd came to become a Sherlockian and also states his claim that he provided the genesis for the popular Sherlock Holmes Exhibition of 1951. The Westminster Library has a page dedicated to the Exhibition on Sherlock Holmes.

Two essays discuss Sidney Paget, Frederic Dorr Steele and other illustrators of the Canon. It is easy to forget in this internet age that the average individual did not have access to thousands of pictures and nearly unlimited information with the click of a button. Holroyd helped provide illumination in a darker time. And may I recommend my own “The Illustrated Holmes” regarding this subject.

There is the seemingly obligatory pondering about the actual location of 221B Baker Street, a topic that most Sherlockians never seem to tire of (I exclude myself from this category and skip over such articles). “Fanciful Furnishings” includes some humorous asides indicating that Holroyd’s wife was less than supportive of his dream to someday construct a version of Holmes’ sitting room within his own establishment. The man who believes that he is king of his own castle should try telling the queen that he is going to build a Victorian-era sitting room, based on some fictional stories, in the basement.

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