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Dec. 26th, 2011 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darchildreMy family opens presents on Christmas Eve, so Christmas Day is always a quiet, laid-back sort of thing, full of playing with new toys and taking naps and eating things.
Thus, yesterday, I spent much of the day quietly reading Kim Newman's Professor Moriarty: the Hound of the D'Urbervilles. I am almost finished with it and can already tell that it's the sort of book that I'm going to finish and then mope about because it is over and there is no more of this book for me to read.
Let me tell you all the things I love about this book:
- It is a Holmes pastiche in which Sherlock Holmes barely appears at all (and, at least thus far - halfway into the last chapter - is never mentioned by name). That's hilarious.
- Also, it is a book about evil people doing evil clever things and profiting by them. I like heroes well enough, but sometimes playing for the evil side is immensely satisfying.
- I have always loved Professor Moriarty*. This book has made me love Colonel Moran. I mean, he's a horrible person and I'd hate him if he were real, but in fiction? He is so much fun. (OMG, he went out of the house specifically to kill a puppy because it would make him feel better. That is amazing.)
- Fiction with endnotes! I love fiction with endnotes! The only thing I love more is fiction with notes and a glossary!
- I really enjoy the whole just-like-Holmes-and-Watson-but-evil thing. Even when it gets silly. Possibly especially when it gets silly.
- This book is hilarious. The Red Planet League especially (squid! party hats!), but much of the rest of the book is also thoroughly giggle-worthy.
- It allows me to cordially dislike Irene Adler. I'm sorry, I've never liked Scandal in Bohemia, I don't like Irene, she's just not my thing. I keep trying and it never works. Give me Mary Morstan or Violent Smith any day.
- "In a long life spent at gaming table, in brothels, up mountains and in the bush, I've gained valuable insights into human nature. Anyone called 'Jasper' is an arrogant, untrustworthy scoundrel. Anyone called 'Cedric' is liable to be worse. And anyone called 'Piers' should be shot on sight. Don't say you've never learned anything from my memoirs, for these are True Facts." Moran's voice is awesome all through the book, but this is my favorite bit. (Close runners-up: the bit where he is trussed up like a mummy and about to be killed and offers "swapsies" for the Jewel of Seven Stars (should reread that), and the bit where he makes a truly terrible station-based pun about the third Moriarty brother.)
- The action scenes are actually really exciting.
- I had never actually read The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God before. I feel educated, somehow. (Moran's annotations of it are awesome, also. Heh.)
- The Black Pearl of the Borgias! (I will admit to spending a good deal of time wondering how it gets from where it is in this book to inside a bust of Napoleon. No matter.)
- Three Moriarty brothers, all named James! That never stops being funny and I'm glad we got to play with it. (And then, at the end of the chapter, it is no longer really very funny at all. Well done, Mr Newman, for making me feel that bad for your Moriarty.)
- The first endnote in the last chapter has a list of various things that are theorized to have happened to Moriarty after Reichenbach. The fun thing about this endnote is that I read through and thought, "I have read nearly all of these pastiches. Even the one where Moriarty was an alien." I greatly appreciated the nod to John Gardner's Moriarty books, of which I was always very fond. (Perhaps I should reread those. They had a glossary and everything.)
- I love the last chapter's Meeting of Important International Criminals. Mostly because I'd never heard of about half of them and now I have a new list of pulpy things with criminal masterminds in them that I can acquire and consume. And a reminder that I really should watch the Dr Mabuse movies - I put the first one on hold at the library. Maybe it will come in on Tuesday.
- Also, oh Raffles. Why are you at that meeting, Raffles? Why in god's name did you bring Bunny? Every time Raffles and Bunny get mentioned in this books, I giggle. (I also thought for a long time about why Fantomas isn't at the meeting, but the meeting is a little before Fantomas' time. Also, I'm pretty sure that Moriarty would cordially loathe Fantomas.)
Look, my entry into Holmes fandom was via a childhood fascination with Professor Rattigan, y'know? The first time I read the Holmes canon straight through (it took a whole summer, I was 9 or 10), it was in hopes of getting more Moriarty. (I spent every story after The Final Problem desperately hoping and then sadly disappointed.) This current book is like my every childhood dream come true.
In short, I kinda want to finish the book and then immediately read it again. I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to go down to B&N today in order to buy it. Hmm.
Thus, yesterday, I spent much of the day quietly reading Kim Newman's Professor Moriarty: the Hound of the D'Urbervilles. I am almost finished with it and can already tell that it's the sort of book that I'm going to finish and then mope about because it is over and there is no more of this book for me to read.
Let me tell you all the things I love about this book:
- It is a Holmes pastiche in which Sherlock Holmes barely appears at all (and, at least thus far - halfway into the last chapter - is never mentioned by name). That's hilarious.
- Also, it is a book about evil people doing evil clever things and profiting by them. I like heroes well enough, but sometimes playing for the evil side is immensely satisfying.
- I have always loved Professor Moriarty*. This book has made me love Colonel Moran. I mean, he's a horrible person and I'd hate him if he were real, but in fiction? He is so much fun. (OMG, he went out of the house specifically to kill a puppy because it would make him feel better. That is amazing.)
- Fiction with endnotes! I love fiction with endnotes! The only thing I love more is fiction with notes and a glossary!
- I really enjoy the whole just-like-Holmes-and-Watson-but-evil thing. Even when it gets silly. Possibly especially when it gets silly.
- This book is hilarious. The Red Planet League especially (squid! party hats!), but much of the rest of the book is also thoroughly giggle-worthy.
- It allows me to cordially dislike Irene Adler. I'm sorry, I've never liked Scandal in Bohemia, I don't like Irene, she's just not my thing. I keep trying and it never works. Give me Mary Morstan or Violent Smith any day.
- "In a long life spent at gaming table, in brothels, up mountains and in the bush, I've gained valuable insights into human nature. Anyone called 'Jasper' is an arrogant, untrustworthy scoundrel. Anyone called 'Cedric' is liable to be worse. And anyone called 'Piers' should be shot on sight. Don't say you've never learned anything from my memoirs, for these are True Facts." Moran's voice is awesome all through the book, but this is my favorite bit. (Close runners-up: the bit where he is trussed up like a mummy and about to be killed and offers "swapsies" for the Jewel of Seven Stars (should reread that), and the bit where he makes a truly terrible station-based pun about the third Moriarty brother.)
- The action scenes are actually really exciting.
- I had never actually read The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God before. I feel educated, somehow. (Moran's annotations of it are awesome, also. Heh.)
- The Black Pearl of the Borgias! (I will admit to spending a good deal of time wondering how it gets from where it is in this book to inside a bust of Napoleon. No matter.)
- Three Moriarty brothers, all named James! That never stops being funny and I'm glad we got to play with it. (And then, at the end of the chapter, it is no longer really very funny at all. Well done, Mr Newman, for making me feel that bad for your Moriarty.)
- The first endnote in the last chapter has a list of various things that are theorized to have happened to Moriarty after Reichenbach. The fun thing about this endnote is that I read through and thought, "I have read nearly all of these pastiches. Even the one where Moriarty was an alien." I greatly appreciated the nod to John Gardner's Moriarty books, of which I was always very fond. (Perhaps I should reread those. They had a glossary and everything.)
- I love the last chapter's Meeting of Important International Criminals. Mostly because I'd never heard of about half of them and now I have a new list of pulpy things with criminal masterminds in them that I can acquire and consume. And a reminder that I really should watch the Dr Mabuse movies - I put the first one on hold at the library. Maybe it will come in on Tuesday.
- Also, oh Raffles. Why are you at that meeting, Raffles? Why in god's name did you bring Bunny? Every time Raffles and Bunny get mentioned in this books, I giggle. (I also thought for a long time about why Fantomas isn't at the meeting, but the meeting is a little before Fantomas' time. Also, I'm pretty sure that Moriarty would cordially loathe Fantomas.)
Look, my entry into Holmes fandom was via a childhood fascination with Professor Rattigan, y'know? The first time I read the Holmes canon straight through (it took a whole summer, I was 9 or 10), it was in hopes of getting more Moriarty. (I spent every story after The Final Problem desperately hoping and then sadly disappointed.) This current book is like my every childhood dream come true.
In short, I kinda want to finish the book and then immediately read it again. I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to go down to B&N today in order to buy it. Hmm.
