Sunday, December 1, 2013

Sherlock Fights The Law!


Sherlock Holmes - The Army of Dr.Moreau is just the kind of literary mash-up I love. This story blends, right off the bat, the worlds of Sherlock Holmes as delineated by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and that of Dr.Moreau as reported by H.G.Wells. We know that going in, so it's a treat to also find characters from other sources bounding in and out of the story. There is Professor Cavor from First Men in the Moon by Wells, Professor Lindenbrook from Journey to the Center of the Earth by Verne, Abner Perry from At the Earth's Core by Burroughs, and Professor Edward Challenger from The Lost World by Doyle himself.

Adams has a light and speedy style which gives Dr.John Watson a rather pugnacious personality, less prim indeed than he's usually painted. The narrator mentions editing several times, so I get the sense that this yarn is perhaps what Watson concocts before it is submitted to the literary swords of his comrades


This is the second novel by Guy Adams featuring the famed duo. The first titled Sherlock Holmes - The Breath of God brings them into conflict with the seemingly demonic and showcases spiritual detectives like Dr.John Silence, Thomas Carnacki, Julian Karswell, and such like. The infamous satanist Aleister Crowley is at the center of this story which challenges Sherlock's notorious logic.

My advice is to definitely read the The Breath of God first (which I have not done), as Adams makes quite a number of references to it in the follow up, though there is no immediate connection between the two novels that I have yet detected.

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