What if Sherlock Holmes was an Angel?
What if the Angel named Crow needed a roommate and accepted Doctor J. H. Doyle (a Watson clone) as a partner. What if London was full of vampires, werewolves, and Magic galore?
Blend in Jack the Ripper and a twist on The Sign of the Four and a few other classic Sherlock Holmes touches and you have The Angel of the Crows (Tor, 2020). Lovers of fantasy fiction and Sherlock Holmes will enjoy the adventures of Crow and Doyle. I found The Angel of the Crows.a bridge too far. I prefer my Sherlock Holmes pastiches grounded in more substance and less fantastical surroundings.
I’ve enjoyed James Lovegrove’s mashup of Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu but that’s about as far as I’m willing to go with extending A. Conan Doyle’s creation. But if you’re fond of vampires and werewolves and Magic, by all means check out The Angel of the Crows. C+
Vampires and werewolves and magic, oh my.
Pass.
Jeff, I have several Sherlock Holmes pastiches with unusual characters like this one coming up for review.
I really wish writers would stop piggybacking on the ideas of earlier writers. So seldom does it work.
Patti, it may not work to piggyback on ideas of earlier writers, but it sure can make money!!! I have some similar examples coming up in the next few weeks.
I can enjoy the occasional clever pastiche with a twist and there have been a few good Holmes efforts. This however sounds like the worst kind of ferret-girl fan fiction. I could imagine throwing it across the room with a few choice expletives.
Byron, THE ANGEL OF THE CROWS is not for Sherlock Holmes purists. But, there seems to be a market for this type of pastiche since I have a stack of books that play with Holmes in various ways.
I wish I had seen this before it was 20 hours old, just to let people know that this is not a junk book, that Katherine Addison is a serious fantasy writer with one exceptional book (The Goblin Emperor) and several other good ones. Not a hack.
Jeff, I’ve seen THE GOBLIN EMPEROR and that might be the next Katherine Addison book I read.