I'm a little over halfway through The Vulcan Academy Murders. The mystery is easy to solve, but it is fun spending time with these characters on Vulcan. Up next are three more unread or little-remembered books: The IDIC Epidemic, Uhura's Song, and The Starship Trap.
So What Are you Reading?: Generations
- Thread starter captcalhoun
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Never heard of it. I'm guessing it's not about a certain iconic platen press.
Got X to read on my kindle at some point, but I didn't know he'd done novels of the other two yet. (Only seen the film of X too - not the others yet).
Currently, Slow Horses by Mick Herron. (Seen the series, finally getting started on the books)
PEARL is part of an acclaimed horror-movie trilogy starring Mia Goth. It's the second film in terms of release date, but the first in terms of chronology. It's also probably the high point of the trilogy, although the other two films are worth checking out as well.
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As it happens, I looked it up around the same time as when I made my snarky remark. I also figured that "X" isn't about Elon Musk.
Sam Siciliano's The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Gentleman Burglar, featuring Maurice LeBlanc's Arsene Lupin.
In the LeBlanc canon, gentleman-burglar Lupin and consulting detective Holmes (or Holmlock Shears or Herlock Sholmes, depending on the translation) face off on several occasions -- "Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late," the two novellas in Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes, and The Hollow Needle -- and these are told from the perspective of Lupin and his chronicler, LeBlanc. In The Gentleman Burglar, Siciliano remixes The Hollow Needle as a Sherlock Holmes story, set during the Great Hiatus, as Holmes is employed to find the ancient lost Treasure of France, and he quickly comes up against the notorious French gentleman-burglar Arsene Lupin, who is also most interested in finding the treasure.
I used the word "remixed" deliberately, as this isn't a straightforward retelling of The Hollow Needle, and Siciliano makes clear in his preface that he's going to do his own thing: "I see Holmes and Lupin more as kindred spirits and speculate on what might happen if the two chose to work together on the same enigma." In Siciliano's book, the battles between Lupin and Holmes before The Hollow Needle don't happen; this is their first meeting, and they really do take to each other as colleagues and, eventually, friends. Which very much carries on the spirit of LeBlanc; the end of Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes shows that, had things gone differently, they could have been friends, and as the LeBlanc books progress Lupin becomes more of a detective and less of a thief. (One of the later books is titled in English, Arsene Lupin, Super Sleuth, which gives you an idea.) It's also in line with the children's book series, Sherlock, Lupin & I, in which Holmes, Lupin, and Irene Adler (the "I" of the series title) are childhood friends.
It's a sprawling adventure, moving from Paris to an enigmatic castle in the French countryside, to the coast of Normandy, and then a climax... well, that's would be spoilers. It's not really a mystery, and at times it feels a bit akin to an Indiana Jones story with strange puzzles, secret corridors, and so on. The third and climactic part of the book may feel a little "out there" for a Sherlock Holmes story, but it's very much in the spirit of Arsene Lupin.
Siciliano's Sherlock Holmes stories use a non-Watson narrator, in this case, Holmes' cousin Henry Vernier, and they're set during "The Great Hiatus," the period when Holmes was believed to be dead after Reichenbach Falls. Similar to The Seven Per-Cent Solution, there was no Reichenbach Falls, however; Holmes and Watson had a little bit of a falling out. Vernier's Holmes doesn't "feel" wrong, though Vernier also doesn't feel like a late 19th-century writer. There are a couple of references to previous adventures in his series, notably to The Angel of the Opera, about Holmes' investigations of the Paris Opera Ghost. (Honestly, I prefer Angel to Nick Meyer's The Canary Trainer as a Holmes-versus-the-Phantom story.)
Previously familiarity with Arsene Lupin in not required, as Henry Vernier and Sherlock Holmes are meeting the gentleman-burglar for the first time, though some familiar names, like police inspector Ganimard and boy detective Isidore Beautrelet (one of the major characters of The Hollow Needle), poke their heads in.
It was fun.
In the LeBlanc canon, gentleman-burglar Lupin and consulting detective Holmes (or Holmlock Shears or Herlock Sholmes, depending on the translation) face off on several occasions -- "Sherlock Holmes Arrives Too Late," the two novellas in Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes, and The Hollow Needle -- and these are told from the perspective of Lupin and his chronicler, LeBlanc. In The Gentleman Burglar, Siciliano remixes The Hollow Needle as a Sherlock Holmes story, set during the Great Hiatus, as Holmes is employed to find the ancient lost Treasure of France, and he quickly comes up against the notorious French gentleman-burglar Arsene Lupin, who is also most interested in finding the treasure.
I used the word "remixed" deliberately, as this isn't a straightforward retelling of The Hollow Needle, and Siciliano makes clear in his preface that he's going to do his own thing: "I see Holmes and Lupin more as kindred spirits and speculate on what might happen if the two chose to work together on the same enigma." In Siciliano's book, the battles between Lupin and Holmes before The Hollow Needle don't happen; this is their first meeting, and they really do take to each other as colleagues and, eventually, friends. Which very much carries on the spirit of LeBlanc; the end of Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes shows that, had things gone differently, they could have been friends, and as the LeBlanc books progress Lupin becomes more of a detective and less of a thief. (One of the later books is titled in English, Arsene Lupin, Super Sleuth, which gives you an idea.) It's also in line with the children's book series, Sherlock, Lupin & I, in which Holmes, Lupin, and Irene Adler (the "I" of the series title) are childhood friends.
It's a sprawling adventure, moving from Paris to an enigmatic castle in the French countryside, to the coast of Normandy, and then a climax... well, that's would be spoilers. It's not really a mystery, and at times it feels a bit akin to an Indiana Jones story with strange puzzles, secret corridors, and so on. The third and climactic part of the book may feel a little "out there" for a Sherlock Holmes story, but it's very much in the spirit of Arsene Lupin.
Siciliano's Sherlock Holmes stories use a non-Watson narrator, in this case, Holmes' cousin Henry Vernier, and they're set during "The Great Hiatus," the period when Holmes was believed to be dead after Reichenbach Falls. Similar to The Seven Per-Cent Solution, there was no Reichenbach Falls, however; Holmes and Watson had a little bit of a falling out. Vernier's Holmes doesn't "feel" wrong, though Vernier also doesn't feel like a late 19th-century writer. There are a couple of references to previous adventures in his series, notably to The Angel of the Opera, about Holmes' investigations of the Paris Opera Ghost. (Honestly, I prefer Angel to Nick Meyer's The Canary Trainer as a Holmes-versus-the-Phantom story.)
Previously familiarity with Arsene Lupin in not required, as Henry Vernier and Sherlock Holmes are meeting the gentleman-burglar for the first time, though some familiar names, like police inspector Ganimard and boy detective Isidore Beautrelet (one of the major characters of The Hollow Needle), poke their heads in.
It was fun.
I'm only familiar with Lupin through his manga/anime descendant Lupin the Third, and through the Lupinrangers in the Super Sentai franchise, whose series was driven by rival factions' pursuit of a collection of superpowered treasures collected by Arsène Lupin during his lifetime. There was also Kamen Rider Lupin in a Kamen Rider Drive movie special, a modern-day phantom thief who modeled himself after Lupin. The Lupin stories are apparently very popular in Japan, though I wonder how much of that is due to Lupin III and how much it predates it.
And yes, Lupin III did encounter Sherlock Holmes III once or twice. And his police nemesis Zenigata is supposedly a descendant of a 1930s Japanese literary detective character created as Japan's answer to Holmes.
Incidentally, Tubi is showing the 1954-5 American Sherlock Holmes TV series starring Ronald Howard (son of The Scarlet Pimpernel's Leslie Howard, no relation to Ron Howard) and Howard Marion-Crawford (who was credited as H. Marion Crawford to avoid repetition, I suppose). It's a lot of fun, and though most of its plots are original, it's generally pretty authentic to the characters and lore. Its Holmes is modeled more on the younger A Study in Scarlet version of the character and is much more of a cheerful absent-minded professor type than Holmes is usually portrayed, but otherwise pretty authentic. He has the mercurial interests and impish sense of humor of Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes with none of the bitterness or trauma, as well as a similarly cavalier attitude toward breaking and entering, and his relationship with Watson is similar too, with lots of teasing on Holmes's part and disapproving glowers on Watson's. Marion-Crawford's bulldoggish Watson is pretty authentic, a robust and stalwart Army veteran and a skilled medical man, often played for humor but never a Nigel Bruce-ish buffoon. Archie Duncan's Inspector Lestrade is a semi-regular, and it's one of the few productions (along with the Jeremy Brett series, Enola Holmes, and apparently the early 1930s film series) that rhymes "Lestrade" with "trade" (as Doyle reportedly did) instead of "trod."
And yes, Lupin III did encounter Sherlock Holmes III once or twice. And his police nemesis Zenigata is supposedly a descendant of a 1930s Japanese literary detective character created as Japan's answer to Holmes.
Incidentally, Tubi is showing the 1954-5 American Sherlock Holmes TV series starring Ronald Howard (son of The Scarlet Pimpernel's Leslie Howard, no relation to Ron Howard) and Howard Marion-Crawford (who was credited as H. Marion Crawford to avoid repetition, I suppose). It's a lot of fun, and though most of its plots are original, it's generally pretty authentic to the characters and lore. Its Holmes is modeled more on the younger A Study in Scarlet version of the character and is much more of a cheerful absent-minded professor type than Holmes is usually portrayed, but otherwise pretty authentic. He has the mercurial interests and impish sense of humor of Jonny Lee Miller's Holmes with none of the bitterness or trauma, as well as a similarly cavalier attitude toward breaking and entering, and his relationship with Watson is similar too, with lots of teasing on Holmes's part and disapproving glowers on Watson's. Marion-Crawford's bulldoggish Watson is pretty authentic, a robust and stalwart Army veteran and a skilled medical man, often played for humor but never a Nigel Bruce-ish buffoon. Archie Duncan's Inspector Lestrade is a semi-regular, and it's one of the few productions (along with the Jeremy Brett series, Enola Holmes, and apparently the early 1930s film series) that rhymes "Lestrade" with "trade" (as Doyle reportedly did) instead of "trod."
It's a gem, to be sure.
I have this series on three different DVD collections. (Public domain Sherlock Holmes films get packaged and repackaged in different combos.) I've never watched all of it, but I've generally liked what I've watched, and Howard's younger take on Holmes is enjoyable.
The buffoonish Watson predates Nigel Bruce by a bit. Robert Barr's parody, "The Great Pegram Mystery" from 1892 features an idiot Watson-like character. And Wilson, LeBlanc's renamed Watson in Arsene Lupin vs. Herlock Sholmes, is very much in the Bruce buffoon mode. I tend to think Bruce's Watson may have been based on a cultural, though incorrect, memory of Watson instead of the textual Watson.
There's also an Arsene Lupin Gundam model, which I have. A Gundam mech, with a monocle, top hat, and cape! It was so wild I couldn't resist.
Based on what I know of the character's history, I feel that Lupin must've had some cultural presence in Japan before Lupin III. I do know that Japan didn't respect the French copyrights on Lupin, hence the character was renamed in other territories for a time.
I've never seen any of the Lupin III anime/films (though I do have a Fujiko Mine anime statue, which I bought off clearance at work), but I do have two hardcover collections of the manga, which I understand is a bit darker than the anime/films.
Tubi has all 39 episodes, though they're of differing quality; so far I've seen a couple with breaks in the film and one that seemed to be telecined from a video screen.
Really, Bruce's Watson isn't that far off from canon in his debut in The Hound of the Baskervilles. He's played pretty straight, aside from the odd moment where Holmes pokes fun or plays a prank on him. He was played for laughs more in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and in the later Universal series, he occasionally had his effective moments but got more buffoonish as the series went on. I got the impression that the writers were playing more to Bruce's strengths or inclinations as a performer as they went along.
So I gather. The author, known as Monkey Punch, once said of the film The Castle of Cagliostro that where Miyazaki's Lupin rescued the princess, the original would probably have raped her.
Although I've tried out various Lupin episodes and movies over the years, the only ones I've really liked were Cagliostro and the 2019 CGI film Lupin III: The First, from Godzilla Minus One's director Takashi Yamazaki. Although I understand that the Part IV TV series was written by Yuuya Takahashi, one of my favorite Kamen Rider head writers, so maybe that's worth checking out.
I just read the DS9 Millennium Trilogy, then a re-read of Destiny: Lost Souls (probably third or 4th re-read), then TNG: Dyson Sphere. I think next I'm going to read DS9 Section 31: Control and then Titan: Synthesis
SCE: Breakdowns print omnibus.
BTW, does anybody have the slightest idea what "Sinnravian drad music" sounds like?
BTW, does anybody have the slightest idea what "Sinnravian drad music" sounds like?
Currently working my way through the DS9 Relaunch series, starting with Avatar.
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