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Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'
The Cthulhu Casebooks: Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove
1 review
rhi_books's review against another edition
2.5
Felt way too fanfic for a published book. The author desperately wanted to use all the big hitters of Sherlock lore, so had to keep saying that the "published works" aka canon (this purports to be a secret history rather than a straight alternative universe) were wrong so that the timeline here made sense. It is suggested that Watson therefore is writing straight fiction in The Strand.
But still writing about, from his POV, real people? People that some of the readers would know? So when a named character dies in this book rather than years later, well that doesn't uh, that doesn't work does it, Watsonianly. Because they've been dead for years. So everyone would know it was fiction all along. The internal logic crumbles. It's the first in a trilogy, it could be a Reichenbach Situation/Comic Book Death, but eh. I find those lazy and overused so either way it doesn't work for me.
And then there's so much exposition. The action will frequently grind to a halt for ages so that they can explain the inner workings of the gods and magic or whatever and it's not particularly relevant or interesting.
Sherlock is an alchemist or magician now, I guess. He learned this in about 2 months, exclusively from books they have at the British Library. It all works perfectly first time. Which yeah okay, it's Sherlock Holmes, but Watson learned to speak an eldritch language in the same timeframe and manner.
Worst of all it's not that interesting, not that Holmesian. I've read one of this author's somewhat straight published Sherlock fanfics, and it was alright. Don't know what went wrong here but strongly not recommended from the Holmes side of the mashup. Perhaps it is better if you're really into Lovecraft.
But still writing about, from his POV, real people? People that some of the readers would know? So when a named character dies in this book rather than years later, well that doesn't uh, that doesn't work does it, Watsonianly. Because they've been dead for years. So everyone would know it was fiction all along. The internal logic crumbles. It's the first in a trilogy, it could be a Reichenbach Situation/Comic Book Death, but eh. I find those lazy and overused so either way it doesn't work for me.
And then there's so much exposition. The action will frequently grind to a halt for ages so that they can explain the inner workings of the gods and magic or whatever and it's not particularly relevant or interesting.
Sherlock is an alchemist or magician now, I guess. He learned this in about 2 months, exclusively from books they have at the British Library. It all works perfectly first time. Which yeah okay, it's Sherlock Holmes, but Watson learned to speak an eldritch language in the same timeframe and manner.
Worst of all it's not that interesting, not that Holmesian. I've read one of this author's somewhat straight published Sherlock fanfics, and it was alright. Don't know what went wrong here but strongly not recommended from the Holmes side of the mashup. Perhaps it is better if you're really into Lovecraft.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Fatphobia