Tag Archives: sherlock holmes

The Adventure of the Empty Blog

Some of you may be wondering: what happened to Holmesian Derivations?

Last December, all my sites got taken out by pharma-hackers. I’m doing my best to restore this site to the best of my abilities—moving to WordPress.com for extra security. I don’t trust quite a lot of my backups, so this all will be done little by little as I re-build.

On the upside, this means that you’ll get regular posts for quite some time, even if they’re oldies (I hope they’re goodies as well).

What’s coming up next, both from the archives and upcoming plans?

  • Older essays that don’t appear on Spontaneous ∂erivation.

  • The Sherlock Holmes Redux—a review of the original canon, the BBC Radio 4 series directed by Bert Coules, and (when possible) the Granada series starring Jeremy Brett.

  • Thoughts on the more recent and modern BBC series Sherlock.

  • Some book reviews.

  • Snarking.

I’m going to make it back from my personal Reichenbach.

New Post at Tor.com: My Favorite and Mostly Improper Items of Holmesiana: A Letter

Dear Fans of the new Sherlock Holmes movie:

Let me apologize on the behalf of older Sherlock Holmes fandom for the bits of it that have been generating get-off-my-lawn reboot wank, not five days after the release of the movie. The Sherlock Holmes fandom has thrived for over a hundred years and multiple generations, and every generation has its… special snowflakes.

But fortunately, every generation has also produced creative fandom work (though they may not see it that way), from the solidly analytical to the wondrously fanciful. I may not agree with all of them, or even remotely like some of them, but they all occupy a place in my heart, because there wouldn’t be a Sherlock Holmes fandom without constant re-interpretation of the works. Yes, even the fic pastiche where Moriarty is a vampire who falls madly in love with Holmes.1

I present to you the more amusing pieces of Holmesiana I’ve gathered throughout the years. I’ve strived for a varied collection here that is at the very least sometimes accessible, even if it knocks out some of my absolute favorites. Too much of the fandom is out of print; I hope that changes one day, so that reading all the ’ship wank doesn’t cost 500£.

[Love and adaptation: that's how legends survive.]