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setraI totally fell down on the job in my story reviews, so here's to getting started back on the right track.
A Study in Scarlet (STUD) was the first story I even heard, and The Musgrave Ritual I listened to first back in early February. My initial run through of the canon was a bit sketchy and this was one of the stories that got passed by or only listened to while I was distracted/working/sleeping. Also tacked on to this post are a couple of stories that I re-read and re-listened to in the past day or two while working/driving/etc.
The intro of this story is a goldmine for details about Holmes's home habits and his early history. The persian slipper, the cigars, the massive stacks of paper, and the jack knife in the mantelpiece to name a few. (The Montague Street rooms which I now know to have been referenced in TTOBB also make an appearance)
It is over all a strange little problem, Sherlock's techniques are a bit more scientific and less fluid. There's a woman behind some of it of course, in the power of an evil man and her "passionate celtic blood". There's even some history and a valuable artifact in the offing. It's a descent story, but not one of my favorites.
I've listened to STUD several times now, from the first story I ever heard to again more recently after rewatching the BBC Sherlock unaired pilot. It has the same issues that most of the later novel-length stories do, which is that it has to be deeply convoluted and have a massive backstory in order to pad out the pages. I assume this may actually have meant that Conan Doyle liked them that much better, since it was his period social and romance novels that he cared more about.
My biggest problem with STUD and VALL is that you reach the point in the story where everything should be wrapping up and then it goes SCENE CHANGE - AMERICA! Watson at least appologizes for it in VALL, but in STUD it's particularly jarring and takes so long to come around to the relevence to the story (not that I don't find Mormon conspiracies enthralling, just...) that it's a bit hard to listen to.
Anyway, what is there to say about it? The mystery is brilliant, there's the all important meeting, there's Lestrade, there's the pills, and it was the first so I have to approve.
A Study in Scarlet (STUD) was the first story I even heard, and The Musgrave Ritual I listened to first back in early February. My initial run through of the canon was a bit sketchy and this was one of the stories that got passed by or only listened to while I was distracted/working/sleeping. Also tacked on to this post are a couple of stories that I re-read and re-listened to in the past day or two while working/driving/etc.
The intro of this story is a goldmine for details about Holmes's home habits and his early history. The persian slipper, the cigars, the massive stacks of paper, and the jack knife in the mantelpiece to name a few. (The Montague Street rooms which I now know to have been referenced in TTOBB also make an appearance)
It is over all a strange little problem, Sherlock's techniques are a bit more scientific and less fluid. There's a woman behind some of it of course, in the power of an evil man and her "passionate celtic blood". There's even some history and a valuable artifact in the offing. It's a descent story, but not one of my favorites.
I've listened to STUD several times now, from the first story I ever heard to again more recently after rewatching the BBC Sherlock unaired pilot. It has the same issues that most of the later novel-length stories do, which is that it has to be deeply convoluted and have a massive backstory in order to pad out the pages. I assume this may actually have meant that Conan Doyle liked them that much better, since it was his period social and romance novels that he cared more about.
My biggest problem with STUD and VALL is that you reach the point in the story where everything should be wrapping up and then it goes SCENE CHANGE - AMERICA! Watson at least appologizes for it in VALL, but in STUD it's particularly jarring and takes so long to come around to the relevence to the story (not that I don't find Mormon conspiracies enthralling, just...) that it's a bit hard to listen to.
Anyway, what is there to say about it? The mystery is brilliant, there's the all important meeting, there's Lestrade, there's the pills, and it was the first so I have to approve.
