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The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Sidney Paget Draws the Great Detective

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Sidney Paget Draws the Great Detective

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Paget_Cornell
Australian Phil Cornell is perhaps the finest modern Holmes illustrator. Here he gives us Sidney Paget

Last month, I mentioned that it was illustrator Sidney Paget who first adorned the head of Sherlock Holmes with a deerstalker. Along with Frederic Dorr Steele, Paget is certainly one of the two most significant illustrators of the great detective.

Baker Street Essays is one of my two, free, online newsletters. The most recent issue (#5, February 2014) contained my essay, “The Illustrated Holmes.”

Strongly influenced by Walter Klinefelter’s excellent (though black and white) book, Portrait of a Profile, I believe it to be the best look at the history of illustrators of the Canon you’ll find on the internet (it’s not exactly a crowded field!).

Today’s post, with a bit of fiddling, contains the Paget portion of that essay. Did you know Sidney was chosen by mistake? The Strand Magazine meant to hire his brother, Walter, who ended up modeling for Holmes! And Doyle thought that Paget made Holmes too handsome!

A few illustrators, including the author’s own father, Charles Altamont Doyle, had provided drawings of Holmes for the first two stories, the novellas A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, without making much of an impression.

And as we know, those two books didn’t do very well. It was the short story format that Doyle applied to Holmes for The Strand Magazine that turned the world’s first private consulting detective into an enduring literary and pop culture icon. And there we meet the first (and arguably foremost) Holmes illustrator…

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Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro Tip From Laura Anne Gilman

Things Your Writing Teacher Never Told You: Pro Tip From Laura Anne Gilman

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Laura Anne Gilman-smallOccasionally, I’ll be hosting the wit and wisdom of professionals across the Spec Fic field. I’ve compiled a list of some of the most frequently asked questions posed by new authors, and provided that list to some of the pros. They’re invited to pick one and respond to it.

This week, Laura Anne Gilman — a Nebula nominated author, prolific novelist, former NYC editor, and author of the non-fiction book Practical Meerkat’s 52 Bits of Useful Info for Young (and Old) Writers — shares her advice on:

What do you do to get unstuck and solve writer’s block?

Someone asked me a similar question recently — I’d been talking about how I get up every morning, and from 7am to around noon, I focus on the work in progress, usually with a word goal in mind, and they asked “but what if the words don’t come? What do you do then?”

And my answer was that the words always come. The trick is, they’re not always the right words, or the best words. And there may not be as many words as I’d like. That’s okay. So long as I’ve shoved the scene forward, however ugly the shove, I can go back and fix it later. And — probably not surprisingly — once I’ve gotten past that first ugly push, with permission to suck… the right words usually show up. Being there is 70% of the gig. The other 30% is staying there.

Laura Anne Gilman is the Nebula award-nominated author of more than 20 published novels, including the forthcoming Silver on the Road, Book 1 of The Devil’s West (October 2015). Ms. Gilman also writes mysteries under the name L.A. Kornetsky.

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Narrative Dance: Darcy Tamayose’s Odori

Narrative Dance: Darcy Tamayose’s Odori

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OdoriDarcy Tamayose’s novel Odori was published in 2007, and in 2008 won the Canada Council of the Arts’ Canada-Japan Literary Award for an English-language book. Lush yet understated, Odori uses dreams, ghosts, and the fantastic to frame the story of a woman’s life, told across generations. I think more than most books, it can profitably read in a number of ways; but what for me is most striking is its approach to storytelling and the layering of tales.

In southern Alberta in 1999 a woman named Mai Yoshimoto-Lanier is in a car accident with her husband and children. Caught between life and death, Mai finds herself in another place, a world where her dead great-grandmother, Chiru, tells Mai a series of stories about the land of Chiru’s birth: the Ryukyu Islands, what is now Okinawa and was once a separate kingdom of its own. The stories begin far back in the past, presenting myths and history of the Ryukyus; then move quickly forward to the late 1930s, to tell the story of Mai’s mother Emiko and her twin sister Miyako, an aunt Mai never knew she had. Emiko and Miyako, the daughters of Japanese immigrants to Alberta, return to Chiru and Japan for schooling — but things don’t go as planned, and their stay becomes longer than they expected as the Second World War looms.

Tamayose nicely balances story against story, building the tales of Chiru, Emiko, and Mai as the book goes along. Questions are raised, then answered; and as this is fundamentally an unusual character piece, the result is the depiction of three women’s lives and how they tie together. It is also a story of sea-surrounded Okinawa and landlocked southern Alberta, and how they’re linked by the experience of a family: a story of place and of the distance between places, as it is a story of time and of time outside of times. You can see how character and events are shaped by history — the annexation of the Ryukyus by Japan in the late nineteenth century, the development of an Okinawan community in southern Alberta in the twentieth, the battles of the Second World War. But you also feel how the rhythms of the seasons and the revolving years shape story and experience; and see how those rhythms in fact provide a frame by which the developments of history may be understood. Stories are told, stories are retold, and stories return across time bearing the meaning of the past with them.

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Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1952: A Retro-Review

Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1952: A Retro-Review

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Galaxy Science Fiction October 1952 back-small Galaxy Science Fiction October 1952 cover-small

Galaxy celebrated its second birthday (and start of its third year) with a cover depicting some of its staff and contributors (illustrated by E. A. Emshwiller). The artwork wrapped around the back (interrupted by the spine) and included a “key” on the inside cover to identify each person, including the robot and alien.

October 1952 Cover Key

Editor H. L. Gold is on the left on the front cover, halfway down the picture, shown in a blue suit and holding a cup. (Click on the images above for bigger versions.)

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The Series Series: Knight’s Shadow by Sebastien de Castell

The Series Series: Knight’s Shadow by Sebastien de Castell

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Knight's Shadow-smallWhen I reviewed the first book in the Greatcoats series, this was my conclusion:

Is Traitor’s Blade destined to be a classic? Well, that’s a kind of question I ask myself about books I can get some distance from. I don’t want any distance from this book. What I want, just as soon as I finish writing this review, is to read Traitor’s Blade again, immediately. And maybe once more right after that.

Now that I’ve read the second book in this planned series of four, I’m pretty sure de Castell is carving himself an enduring place in the fantasy canon.

Usually when a new author stumbles after a stellar debut, it’s on the second book. I wondered whether I’d see that play out here… right until I read the first page. Then I forgot I was wondering or worrying or writing a review, because the stalwart, somewhat cracked hero Falcio Val Mond was tugging me back into his story. I’d follow Falcio anywhere. Okay, so he’s an idealist in a world that despaired of those ideals years ago, and he’s slowly dying from a little poisoning incident in the last book, but his berserker episodes are much improved, and he hardly ever froths at the mouth anymore.

And he makes us laugh, raucously, especially in the bleak moments when he and we need it most. Yes, I’d definitely still follow him anywhere. In the spirit of lively and surprising storytelling, though, in this volume, some of Falcio’s friends and allies stop being so sure they can do the same.

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When is Reality Too Real? Or, Still Stuck in the Woods

When is Reality Too Real? Or, Still Stuck in the Woods

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Austen PrideLast time I was talking about those real life events and happenings that never seem to occur on TV, or in books. If you have a look, the comments are well worth reading, and not only because most everyone agrees with me (and William Goldman) on the whys and wherefores of this phenomenon. There were also many examples given of fantasy characters pooping, though not necessarily in the woods.

There did seem to be a consensus that we were in agreement with Goldman, that too much reality could slow things down, not only in TV and movies, but in the written narrative as well. If we do include what one commentator called “the earthier things” they’re usually plot or story related. Or, as another put it, “if it doesn’t propel the plot (not the plop!) strike it.” Couldn’t have put it better myself.

The subject also sparked a lengthy comment stream on Facebook, thanks to James Enge sharing a link to my original post. One woman was prompted to point out that female characters in fiction don’t menstruate – in the same sense, that is, that they don’t poop, which is to say, we don’t talk about it. As a woman, it took me a surprisingly long time to become aware of this particular example of the phenomenon (or perhaps not, considering the dearth of female protagonists until fairly recently). It’s particularly odd, when you think about it, since so many of us link the appearance of psychic abilities in our characters with the onset of puberty.

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Art of the Genre: Bill Willingham Loved the Ladies, Even if TSR Wouldn’t Always Let Him Show Them…

Art of the Genre: Bill Willingham Loved the Ladies, Even if TSR Wouldn’t Always Let Him Show Them…

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Check out the lady below Elric in this Willingham done for White Plume Mountain. Bet you didn't realize it was cropped, did you?
Check out the lady below Elric in this Willingham done for White Plume Mountain. Bet you didn’t realize it was cropped, did you?

Former TSR Artist and now comic writer sensation [Fables] Bill Willingham wanted to be Frank Frazetta, or so I surmise. I’ve always been a fan of his work, dating back to those early days in the RPG field when he was a member of ‘The First Four’ at TSR.

Along with Jim Roslof, Jeff Dee, and Erol Otus, Bill managed to produce some absolutely lovely interior illustrations and acrylic covers for the first sets of D&D modules, once the business took off and TSR could afford color. His tenure there, which ended with a blow up concerning the termination of artists that removed both he and Dee from the company, ended up being the best thing for him as he went on to relative fame and fortune in comics, a place that his talent certainly spawned from.

I sat with Bill at a seaside café back on 2009 when ComicCon was still a monster, but not the headache it is today and we discussed his work in the field. Nothing too in-depth, and sadly he was unable to add his art to my Art Evolution project because it had been too many years since he’d done that kind of work. Still, he looked over all the other artists who had donated work and was most pleasantly surprised to see his old friend Jeff Dee in there. Obviously Dee was ‘the kid’ during his time in the burgeoning TSR ‘pit’, and at 19 there was no doubt that was the case, but Bill seemed to have a twinkle in his eye for Dee’s version of Lyssa in the project, and I was at least happy to somehow connect the two again, if even for a just a nostalgic moment.

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Adrian Simmons on Pseudopod

Adrian Simmons on Pseudopod

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Pseudopod-smallAdrian Simmons is one of our favorite editors. With his team of cohorts he edits the marvelous Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, which you should be reading.

He’s also a prolific and popular blogger, and his articles for Black Gate — including Fools in the Hotzone and Frodo Baggins, Lady Galadriel, and the Games of the Mighty — are some of the most popular pieces we’ve ever published.

But he’s also a fine fiction writer. This week Pseudopod, the premier horror fiction podcast, has posted his story “A Fan Letter To Joe Landsdale,” alongside the story it’s based on, Joe Landsdale’s “Boys Will Be Boys.”

The reader is Jared Axelrod. Check it out here.

The Dark Island by Henry Treece

The Dark Island by Henry Treece

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Britain is a dark island of mists and woods. It lies farther north than any other known land, so that the sun is seldom seen there. The people of this island are brave in battle but fearful of their gods and priests.

Arminius Agricola, Ambassador to Camulodunum, A.D. 25 – A.D. 30

The first written of Henry Treece’s Celtic Tetralogy, the second chronologically, and the third to be reviewed by me, The Dark Island (1952) is a story of 1st century AD Britain. I’ve previously reviewed The Great Captains and Red Queen, White Queen here at Black Gate. The fourth is The Invaders. Together, they present one of the most artistically successful attempts to portray ancient Britain and its people. Treece’s ancient Britons are the inhabitants of a dark and violent world, where signs and portents are seen in every event. For them, the gods and their blessings and curses are real. Fiercely independent as they believe themselves to be, even kings and princes bow down before the blood-soaked hands of the Druids. Under their direction human sacrifices to the gods are a regular occurrence. It is a world alien to us today and Treece presents it without condescension or sentimentality, and as completely believable.

The Dark Island is a story of trying to hold on to ideals in the face of overwhelming forces. Gwyndoc, cousin of Caradoc (better known as Caractacus), is a prince and a warrior. He was raised to be loyal, brave, and to fear the gods. In the wake of the Roman invasion, the shattering of the British army at the Battle of the Medway, and the easy acquiescence of most of the population to Roman rule, holding true to his ideals becomes difficult and self-destructive.

Gwyndoc and Caradoc are as close as brothers when they are young. They come of age during the golden days of the rule of Caradoc’s father, Cunobelin (more commonly known as Cymbeline). While Caesar’s invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 BC failed, Roman commerce and culture have made great inroads there. The merchants of Camulodunum and the tribal kings and princes have become richer than ever before. Their sons are educated by Roman tutors. Times are peaceful and plentiful.

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A Brief Guide to Space Race Movies

A Brief Guide to Space Race Movies

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Apollo 13 poster-smallYou could sweat the details, but it’s probably safe to say that the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted nearly 12 years. The Soviets kicked it off on October 4, 1957 with the launch of the little satellite that could, the one known as Sputnik. The Americans fell behind on nearly every front in those early years but then grabbed the brass ring on July 21, 1969, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

Nowadays, four decades after humans last walked on the moon, space exploration fails to stir the public imagination like it once did. Ticker tape parades for astronauts are a thing of the past, and Canadian Chris Hadfield is arguably the closest thing to a “celebrity” astronaut to come along in decades.

But it was not always thus. If you’d like a fictional perspective on how things were in the pioneering days of space flight, you could do worse than to check out the six movies listed below.

Marooned (1969)

Marooned seems to have slipped into something like obscurity in the nearly half a century since it was made. It’s a movie that concerns an Apollo-like mission which runs into difficulties that prevent them from re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. Thus, they are marooned in orbit around Earth with a limited supply of oxygen.

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