Sherlock Holmes vs Caina Amalas

A Sherlock Holmes marathon tonight – I shall watch THE SPECKLED BAND and THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER with Jeremy Brett playing Holmes. I think the Jeremy Brett version of THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER achieves the rarest of all feats – a TV adaptation that slightly improves upon the original short story. Like, if I was rewriting THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER, I would make the changes to the story that the TV adaptation made.

Still, THE SPECKLED BAND and THE ADVENTURE OF THE NORWOOD BUILDER are some of the best examples of short fiction in the English language, and everyone should read them.

It’s a pity that the public domain status of Sherlock Holmes is still in flux. About two years ago I wrote an outline for a short novel where Sherlock Holmes meets Caina Amalas, in a version of Victorian Britain where the Royal Magisterium uses sorcery to defend and protect the British Empire, and the Ghosts act as a check upon the power of the Queen’s Ghosts, but I decided that the risk of legal complications was simply too high, so I dropped the idea.

I suppose I shall simply have to write GHOST IN THE PACT instead. 🙂

-JM