Books read for May:
29 May 2010 18:46![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cog_nomen-Seaward
-The Ice Palace Murders
-The Beekeeper's Apprentice
-Justice at Risk
-Sherlock Holmes, The Veiled Detective
Total: 24
Very nearly halfway to my goal! Which is good because I may have to slow down for final fantasy big bang.
Seaward-
Cute. Short. A bit dated, but still an excellent piece of young adult fiction.
The Ice Palace Murders-
A Holmes that is much too sharp and poor mannered for my liking, but not a bad mystery overall. I enjoyed the original characters, and it seemed like the setting was well researched - everything was easy to visualize. Sadly, I have two more Holmes novels to read by this author, so I suppose I'll try to get them out of the way sooner rather than later, since I'm not crazy about this guy's depiction of Holmes.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice-
It's frustrating that this author is so good and yet suffers so badly from Mary Sueism. Her Holmes is fantastic, she's a bit unkind to Watson which loses her points. The female lead who she is romantically setting up with holmes at a third his age makes me want to vomit. In and of herself, it's not too bad, but may/december romances are so far from being 'my thing' that they make me queasy. I wish this could just be like an uncle/niece relationship so that I could read the rest of these books. Also the inclusion of Moriarty's supergenius daughter trying to blow everyone up for revenge is a bit... okay, yeah.
Justice at Risk-
Total fluff. Fun fluff, at least. I tore through it in just a couple days, as I usually do with Ben Justice books. I'm still trying to decide if I should keep them or if I'll probably never read them again.
The Veiled Detective-
Juvenile. Quick, but very bad. An alternate take on Study in Scarlet through The Final Problem/Empty House. A poor idea badly executed.
-The Ice Palace Murders
-The Beekeeper's Apprentice
-Justice at Risk
-Sherlock Holmes, The Veiled Detective
Total: 24
Very nearly halfway to my goal! Which is good because I may have to slow down for final fantasy big bang.
Seaward-
Cute. Short. A bit dated, but still an excellent piece of young adult fiction.
The Ice Palace Murders-
A Holmes that is much too sharp and poor mannered for my liking, but not a bad mystery overall. I enjoyed the original characters, and it seemed like the setting was well researched - everything was easy to visualize. Sadly, I have two more Holmes novels to read by this author, so I suppose I'll try to get them out of the way sooner rather than later, since I'm not crazy about this guy's depiction of Holmes.
The Beekeeper's Apprentice-
It's frustrating that this author is so good and yet suffers so badly from Mary Sueism. Her Holmes is fantastic, she's a bit unkind to Watson which loses her points. The female lead who she is romantically setting up with holmes at a third his age makes me want to vomit. In and of herself, it's not too bad, but may/december romances are so far from being 'my thing' that they make me queasy. I wish this could just be like an uncle/niece relationship so that I could read the rest of these books. Also the inclusion of Moriarty's supergenius daughter trying to blow everyone up for revenge is a bit... okay, yeah.
Justice at Risk-
Total fluff. Fun fluff, at least. I tore through it in just a couple days, as I usually do with Ben Justice books. I'm still trying to decide if I should keep them or if I'll probably never read them again.
The Veiled Detective-
Juvenile. Quick, but very bad. An alternate take on Study in Scarlet through The Final Problem/Empty House. A poor idea badly executed.
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no subject
Date: 2 Jun 2010 05:11 (UTC)I chanced upon your journal from hunting down L/R fics (Kudos to you for writing any!!) and I happened to see your review for The Beekeeper's Apprentice *is a sometime Sherlockian*. I must agree, it severely irked me when I read the first book, but it somewhat (slightly) gets better as it goes on. Thankfully, she kept Holmes in character and despite the relationship, there's never much romance. Then again, I never got through all the series either, so maybe I'm not the best judge.
Though, reading your back reviews, I'm glad to see you've come across Meyer! He's definitely one of the more famed pastiche writers and quite a good one. Another one I highly recommend you look up are the ones by Michael Hardwick, especially the Prisoner of the Devil.
Sorry for jumping in out of the blue, and hope you don't mind!
no subject
Date: 2 Jun 2010 11:21 (UTC)Michael Hardwick is FANTASTIC, as I have just discovered. I began reading The Revenge of The Hound, and both his Holmes and Watson are spot on. A glowing review is in the works for when I finish it. Meyer and Chabon have been my favourites so far. I will definitely look up Prisoner of the Devil, and thank you for the suggestion because I didn't know he'd written any other pastiches besides Revenge of the Hound.
no subject
Date: 3 Jun 2010 05:59 (UTC)Ahhh, if you ever get back into writing L/R, that'd be great! There are barely any of their fics out there... perhaps a grand total of 3 on ff.net? I wish there'd be a long one somewhere...
no subject
Date: 6 Jun 2010 03:45 (UTC)There are also a couple of otherwise unpublished (at least I think I haven't seen them anywhere else) fics up at
http://community.livejournal.com/licensedbyroyal/
Sadly that community is mostly dead, however. It is, truly, an obscure fandom.
no subject
Date: 6 Jun 2010 04:37 (UTC)Still, much thanks. I didn't even know there was a L/R LJ community! I didn't think it was big enough to have one. *laughs*