Fri 13 Nov 2009
A Review by Ray O’Leary: JOHN R. KING – The Shadow of Reichenback Falls.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[4] Comments
JOHN R. KING – The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls. Forge, hardcover. First Edition: August 2008.
I was drawn to this one by the idea of having Sherlock Holmes meet up with William Hope Hodgson’s supernatural sleuth Carnacki The Ghost Hunter, albeit in this case, Carnacki isn’t a ghost hunter yet.
The year is 1890, and Thomas Carnacki has been bumming around Europe. He’s just reached Meiringen, Switzerland and is pretty darn hungry, when he spies a pretty young woman named Anna Schmidt carrying a picnic basket. She’s about to hire a carriage to take her up to the foot of Reichenbach Falls, and Carnacki agrees to drive it for the pleasure of her company and part of her lunch.
Shortly after their arrival they spot two men fighting at the top of the falls and one of them plummets over. When he lands they fish him out, but he has amnesia. What’s more, the other fellow starts shooting at them, wounding Carnacki as he drives them to safety.
Soon the three of them will be in a life and death struggle with the man with the gun, a certain Professor Moriarty, while trying to restore the memory of the man they temporarily name Harold Silence — but you all know who he is.
The story is divided into three parts: The first and third are told in alternating chapters narrated by Carnacki and Silence / Holmes, while the second is taken up by the memoirs of Professor Moriarty.
The trouble with this book is that, since Carnacki is involved, there is a large supernatural element, and that element isn’t original. Though the ending implies that there will be further Holmes / Carnacki adventures, I probably won’t read them unless I get them much more cheaply than what I paid for this one.
Perhaps someone should try their hand at having Hercule Poirot meet up with Seabury Quinn’s supernatural sleuth Jules DeGrandin and have them exchange fractured French phrases.
Editorial Comment. In fantasy circles John R. King is better known as J. Robert King, author of 20 or so paperback originals for Forgotten Realms, etc., and a hardcover Arthurian trilogy from Tor.
November 14th, 2009 at 1:34 am
Poirot and Jules De Grandin! Sacre Bleu! The mind, she boggles does she not? The English, neither she nor the French would ever be the same. The little gray cells, they have the headache just thinking about it.
I suppose it could be worse, they could have teamed Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto.
November 14th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
This is a book that was published in absolute secrecy, as far as I’m concerned. I’d never heard of this book until I read Ray’s review, and any book with both Holmes and Carnacki in it should have generated some publicity. If it did, it didn’t reach my eyes or ears.
I do see that it got a starred review in BOOKLIST, but Amazon’s reviewers are mixed. They either loved the book or hated it, ending up with an average of 3.5 stars out of five.
As Ray suggests, it’s the supernatural element that’s proved to be the toughest pill for most commenters to swallow.
— Steve
November 14th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
You can hardly do Carnaki without the supernatural, and it isn’t as if Holmes hasn’t gone there before — notably in Loren D. Esteleman’s works where he encounters Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde and Dracula.
And keep in mind, while the explanation is always non supernatural Doyle teased us with vampires and spectral hounds as well as those mentions of worms unknown to science, giant Sumatran rats, and the sudden disappearance of James Philmore.
There is a small cottage industry of books published by Gary Lovisi (Paperback Parade etc.) where Holmes encounters everyone from Tesla and Lovecraft to the elder gods of the Cthulu mythos.
Not always to my tastes, but certainly well within the tradition of the canon, and as I said if you read a book with Carnaki in it you really don’t have room to complain if the supernatural figures in the plot.
Now if the complaint is that the book is not very good or you just don’t like books with supernatural elements that’s a different kettle of fish, but just because the supernatural is involved, when that is the intent of the author from the beginning, is different.
You really can’t buy a western and then be upset because it has cowboys in it.
As for how this slipped by, King seems to be mostly known for gaming related fantasy novels, which is a whole world into itself, with it’s own bestselling and popular writers that many of us have never heard of. You see their books in their own special section of the SF racks at the big chains but if you don’t follow them you may well not see anything about the writers in traditional mystery related outlets of information and pre publication publicity.
It is very much a world unto itself.
November 14th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
I suppose that a reader could pick this book up knowing who Holmes is but not Carnacki, but I also imagine that the blurbs on the jackets flaps would give that same would-be reader some idea what the book’s about.
Here’s one the more negative of the Amazon reviewers:
“This is so far from what writing about Holmes should be, I can’t find enough derogatory words. If you want to read stories much closer to Holmes, postulating his post-retirement life and without supernatural beings, try Laurie King’s novels. But don’t, please don’t waste your money on this book.”
Here’s a positive one:
“King does an amazing job here of perfectly capturing the essence of a Sherlock Holmes story while not getting bogged down with out-of-date language or scenery. The story begins at the ‘final’ confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls (thus the name of the book) and carries us on from there.”
As I said, the reviewers on Amazon loved it or hated it, with seven giving it a 4 or a 5, and four giving it a 1 or a 2, for a slightly better than average 3.5. Not a single “3.”