I am sometimes baffled by the battle lines people occasionally draw between each other.  I'm not talking about matters of politics or religion, though the difference there may only be a question of degree.  I'm talking about the Kirk vs. Picard / Joel Robinson vs. Mike Nelson / crunchy wheat vs. nicely sweet / great taste vs. less filling type conflicts that often lead to blazing flame wars on the internet.  If you like the one, then the laws of astrophysics forbid you (apparently) from even tolerating the other.  And depending on whom you talk to, you're either a magnificent, highly intelligent paragon of virtue, or a morally questionable Communist for taking that side.

I'm not one of those people.  What you like is your business, and what I like is mine.  And I don't see why you can't like both sides.  In my view, James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard are both equally capable starship commanders, though they have completely different approaches to their jobs (and are played by actors who approach their art in completely different ways).  And Michael J. Nelson was just as good a host of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as was Joel Hodgson before he left the show.  The fact that he's a different person, who has a different way of doing things, does not change that.

And now similar battle lines seem to have been drawn between the fans of SHERLOCK, the BBC tv show that updates the Sherlock Holmes mythos to the modern era, and those of ELEMENTARY, a show on CBS that does pretty much the same thing, but also relocates Holmes to New York City (though Holmes himself is still British).  One reason fans of SHERLOCK give for disapproving of ELEMENTARY is the story behind the creation of the latter show: the story goes that the powers-that-be at CBS approached the makers of SHERLOCK and asked if they would make a clone version of their show for American tv.  The makers of SHERLOCK said no.  Whereupon CBS said, "Fine.  We'll just make our own updated version of Sherlock Holmes and call it ELEMENTARY."

To this I say: Sherlock Holmes is a public domain character.  Countless versions of Holmes have been conjured through the years (including Basil Rathbone's rendition, which updated Holmes to World War II, so the idea of updating Holmes is nothing new either) and there's no indication that this will stop.  ELEMENTARY is just one of these versions.

Personally, I like both shows (I have both seasons of SHERLOCK on DVD, and I will probably get the ELEMENTARY DVDs whenever they come out), because they both bring interesting things to the table.  To demonstrate, I give you the following comparison:

Holmes

Each show has their own unique approach to the main character.  The Holmes of SHERLOCK (played by Benedict Cumberbatch, and henceforth referred to as Joel Hodgson Captain Kirk BBC Holmes) is a fastidious, almost prissy character, always nattily dressed when he isn't lounging around 221B Baker Street in his bathrobe (well, aside from the time he was dragged to Buckingham Palace clad only in a bedsheet).  In the show's initial episodes, he often has nothing but disdain for all these room-temperature IQs surrounding him ("What goes on in your funny little minds?  It must be boring."), though he does seem to soften up a little bit as the show progresses.  When he goes through one of his world-famous visual analyses (like when he examines a tennis shoe), helaunchesintorapidfiredialoguewithoutstoppingorevenpausingforbreath, and it shows up on his face like a magnesium flare when a revelation pops into his head.  He has moments of extreme lethargy (to the point that he can't be bothered to take his smartphone out of his shirt pocket to send a text; Watson has to do it for him -- this is entirely in keeping with the original Holmes character), and he throws all-out tantrums if he does not have a case to give him intellectual stimulation, or if he's frustrated by a case (as in The Hounds of Baskerville).

Meanwhile, the Holmes of ELEMENTARY (Johnny Lee Miller, whom I shall call Mike Nelson Captain Picard CBS Holmes) is not nearly as fastidious.  He often wears T-shirts (though when he does wear button-front shirts, the collar button is always fastened even though he never wears a tie -- I can only remember seeing this elsewhere in the tv show American Gothic in the character of Sheriff Lucas Buck), and he is always unshaven -- whereas I'm not even sure BBC Holmes has even started shaving.  (So in short, CBS Holmes dresses like Gregory House MD, while BBC Holmes acts like him.)  CBS Holmes does have his annoying little quirks (like when he decides his Watson needs to start taking self-defense courses, which leads him to start pelting her with tennis balls -- "That could have been a knife!"), but BBC Holmes is far more annoying, to the point that his Watson once beats the crap out of him. ("You were a doctor!  You helped people!"  "I HAD BAD DAYS!")

There are hints of a history of addiction with BBC Holmes.  He often wears nicotine patches, especially when he doesn't have a case to stimulate him, and Watson has to hide his cigarettes (and his older brother Mycroft occasionally offers him a cigarette to test his mood).  But with CBS Holmes, drug addiction is a major part of his establishing story.  The whole reason he's in New York City -- and the reason he meets Watson -- is that he fell into drug addiction while working as a consulting detective for Scotland Yard (the cause for this fall is gradually revealed through several episodes).  His father, an awesomely rich but apparently cold and distant figure who has yet to appear on the show (and might never do so), decides that his son needs a change of scenery, so he says he will pay for Sherlock's rehab if he relocates to New York City.  CBS Holmes, though he doesn't have much affection for his father, acquiesces.  And while he's undergoing rehab, he decides to do consulting detective work for the NYPD.

As for his deductive methods, he doesn't do rapid-fire dialogue like BBC Holmes, but he still notices everything. He also possesses an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure information (though of course, BBC Holmes has his "memory palace").  For instance, when he sees a piece of paper with a typed line of apparently random punctuation symbols, CBS Holmes knows it to be a computer program written in a language called Malbolge, named after the ninth circle of Hell in Dante's Inferno, which is intentionally designed to be virtually indecipherable.

Watson

The differences between the versions of this character are far more pronounced.  The BBC Watson (played by Bilbo Baggins Martin Freeman) is a lot like the original character in the Arthur Conan Doyle stories: coming home from a war in Afghanistan, he meets BBC Holmes through a mutual friend, and they both move in to 221B Baker Street.  In keeping with modern times, he suffers from apparent PTSD and initially sees a therapist (though Holmes's older brother Mycroft tells Watson he should fire her -- Mycroft deduces he isn't haunted by danger; he craves it), and begins the series with a psychosomatic limp (which he soon loses once he meets up with Holmes).  As in the original stories, he's a doctor, which is why BBC Holmes draws him into their first case.  And he seems to have a temper (see above).

The CBS Watson, however (played by Lucy Liu), isn't a veteran of the armed forces.  She isn't even a doctor.  Well, she's not a doctor anymore -- she used to be a highly competent surgeon until she lost a patient through an honest mistake.  She subsequently resigned in shame, and has taken up drug rehab counseling to pay the bills.

(Oh, and she's female.  That's another thing the show's detractors howl about.  I say the hell with them.)

And this is how she meets Holmes.  When CBS Holmes arrives in New York City per his father's edict, she is assigned to him as his live-in rehab counselor, giving him constant companionship and guidance on the road to recovery.  She tags along as CBS Holmes does consulting work for the NYPD, and this is how she's drawn into his cases.

One thing I like about the CBS show is that its Watson is on more of an equal intellectual footing with its Holmes.  The BBC Watson is no dummy -- BBC Holmes calls upon his medical expertise on more than one occasion, he has saved BBC Holmes's life at least once, and he is nothing like the dithering bumbler played by Nigel Bruce in the Basil Rathbone movies -- but he is always one step behind BBC Holmes, who at one point uses him as a guinea pig.  And while he doesn't just sit back and take it (he beats Holmes up at one point, remember?), I think CBS Watson would be far better equipped to deal with BBC Holmes's wacky hijinx. For example, when she first meets CBS Holmes, he deduces nearly her entirely life story at a glance, then makes clear that while they may have to live together for the next few weeks, they don't have to be friends (or something to that effect).  She fixes him with a Death Glare and says, "I notice you don't have any mirrors in your place.  I guess you know a lost cause when you see one."

She also lends a highly useful hand in the cases.  In one episode, CBS Holmes is watching surveillance video of a potential suspect, and he says, "That man is wearing a pager?  Shouldn't be too hard to find."  She glances at the video and says, "That's not a pager.  That's an insulin pump.  Your suspect is a diabetic."

A couple paragraphs ago, I said CBS Watson would be well-matched with BBC Sherlock.  This hints toward a pipe-dream of mine which will probably never happen, but here it is: I wish the makers of these two shows would get together to do a SHERLOCK/ELEMENTARY crossover.  The first meeting of the two Sherlocks would be comical in the extreme, as would the two Watsons trading notes..  Like I said, it will probably never happen.  But I will still watch both shows and enjoy them equally.

http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.htm#saintnicole

MAMA is a horror movie.  It also has the name Guillermo del Toro attached to it (as producer), which means, at the very least, that it will be interesting, a cut above the usual ho-hum slash-and-gore fare -- and that it involves children.

The story starts when a mid-level corporate type (played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Game of Thrones fame) suffers some undefined financial crisis, shoots his estranged wife, bundles his two daughters into the car and heads off for the boondocks.  At one point, eldest daughter Victoria says, quite correctly, "You're driving too fast!"  Dad says, "SHUT UP!" -- and loses control of the car.  And it tumbles off a cliff.

They survive the crash, but the car is totaled.  So they leave the car and head out through the woods.  And eventually, they come across an old decrepit cabin.  As we view them from inside, we know that something is in there (the director, Andres Muschietti, uses the tried-and-true shadow-flashing-across-the-screen trick to establish this), but Dad and his daughters are oblivious.  They go inside, Dad smashes a chair into kindling and uses it to build a fire in the fireplace. 

They settle down to rest.  And this gives Dad's personal demons a chance to catch up with him, and he starts fidgeting with the gun that he still carries.  Finally, he tells Victoria to look out through the window.  He aims the gun at the base of her skull --

You've been waiting for that something to show up, haven't you?  Well, guess what!  You're right!  A pair of unnaturally elongated arms shoot out from the darkness, and snatch Dad away.  And he is never seen again.

So what happens to the kids?  Good question.  It is this same question that Dad's brother Luke (also played by Coster-Waldau) desperately wants answered, to the point that he hires investigators to search the countryside for five years, which puts a strain on his finances (he's an artist).  But at the end of those five years, the investigators find the car, and the cabin.  The two daughters, Victoria and Lily, are inside, and still alive.

They act like feral cats, crawling around on all fours, hissing and paw-swatting anyone who gets too close, and hopping into any cardboard box or enclosed space that happens to be near (Lily, for instance, never stops sleeping under her bed).  But with the help of a therapist, they learn to walk upright, and to speak -- although Victoria, being older, makes more progress than Lily.

Luke assumes custody of the children (at least temporarily: there's an aunt from the other side of the family who would certainly provide a more financially stable household), and brings them to live with his bass-guitar playing live-in girlfriend (played by Jessica Chastain) -- in a most impressive house provided by the therapist!  (What's his agenda here?  Another good question.)

So this newly-formed family settles down, tries to find a daily routine...

You've been waiting for that something to show up again, haven't you?  Well, guess what!  You're right!  Director Muschietti is wonderfully subtle about this, refraining from showing the ghost at first, but making it very clear that something is lurking just around the corner.  He also employs bait-and-switch tactics: we see something moving in the distance, we think it's one of the kids, but a second later we learn that both kids are downstairs...

He also provides a good answer to the why-don't-they-just-get-the-hell-out-of-the-haunted-house conundrum.  It's not the house that's haunted, you see.  It's the kids.

The character that shows the most hidden depths is the live-in girlfriend, named Annabell.  When we first meet her, she is shouting praise to God Almighty for letting her pregnancy test turn up negative (she's not religious at all, but we all become believers in such moments of crisis).  She initially balks at the idea of helping raise a brace of kids who aren't even her own flesh and blood.  She doesn't feel up to it, and she really has no interest in it.  But when one of her fellow band members says, "Why don't you just leave [Luke]?", she replies, "I can't do that to him."  And when Luke gets severely injured in an accident (courtesy of You-Know-Who -- it was probably inevitable since he looks so much like the dad who was going to shoot his daughter), Annabell firmly sets her jaw and assumes the mom role.  These are signs that she truly loves Luke, and that she has a (deeply hidden) sense of responsibility.

Having watched several of del Toro's movies (both directed and produced), I've noticed that he seems to believe that the traditional family (Mom, Dad, and two kids) is a myth.  The Devil's Backbone takes place in an orphanage (as does The Orphanage), Pan's Labyrinth has a daughter with a widowed mother, and Don't Be Afraid of the Dark has a father and daughter abandoned by the mother.  What this says about del Toro, I don't know.  It's just an observation.

As for the ghost, it should be said that she is not pure, mindless evil.  She saves the daughters from their dad, remember?  And she looked after them and provided for them, all by herself, for five years.  So, in her own sad, twisted way, she genuinely cares about them.

I won't tell you what happens in the end -- except, perhaps, to remind you that there are two children.

Meanwhile, check out my novella Saint Nicole:  http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.htm#saintnicole

As I write this review, I will try very hard to do justice to the book that is its subject.  "The best horror novel set in a role playing game universe ever written"?  Not gonna cut it.

Samantha Henderson's Heaven's Bones, ublished by Wizards of the Coast (the people who put out Dungeons & Dragons and the collectible card game Magic: the Gathering), is indeed set at least partially in D&D's Ravenloft campaign setting, which is explicitly geared toward an ambience of gothic horror and supernatural dread rather than simply going for the generic elves-dwarves-and-dragons, paint-by-numbers fantasy setting.  The various campaigns published for Ravenloft include analogs of Dracula (Baron Strahd von Zarovich), Frankenstein's Monster (here called Adam) and werewolves (and wolfweres, which are wolves who turn into humans).  Henderson's novel does include some elements of these campaigns, notably the Vistani, a tribe of nomads which are as close to gypsies as makes no difference, and the dreaded Mists of Ravenloft, which have a habit of surrounding people of an especially villainous cast of mind (such as the aforementioned Strahd von Zarovich), and transporting them from the world they knew to the gothic horror world of Ravenloft, where their horrific proclivities and/or human foibles are allowed to (or sometimes nudged toward) playing out to extremely horrific effect.  But Henderson has chosen not to limit the scope of her novel only to the confines of Ravenloft, or even of D&D.  She also takes us to the antebellum South, and Victorian London.  She uses the latter most cleverly, substituting the Mists of Ravenloft for the ubiquitous London fog.

One of the main characters is Dr. Sebastian Robarts, a well-to-do surgeon in London who is on the verge of making great leaps in medical science.  His descent into madness starts when his wife dies in childbirth, taking the child with her.  Robarts is a sympathetic character.  You understand his suffering, and you understand why he does what he does.  Nevertheless, the fact is that he abducts women off the streets (this is in 1867, well before the Ripper murders), and...does things with their bodies.

(Note that it isn't scary if you're simply, as a character in a movie lampooned by Mystery Science Theater 3000 once said, "DOING THINGS."  It's what you're doing it to that makes it horrific.)

Specifically, he surgically alters their bodies into grotesque parodies of angels, killing them in the process.  This would be bad enough, but then he catches the notice of a man calling himself Trueblood, one of the aforementioned Vistani come to London by means of the Mists of Ravenloft, who knows of a means by which these unsightly monstrosities may be turned into living creatures.

And of course, as more and more women turn up missing, the London constabulary begins to take notice.  Enter Constable Artemis Donovan, a young copper who has had a touch of second sight since he was a child, though he does his best to hide it, using it only sparingly.  Lately, his second sight has been showing him things to give him nightmares, which impels him to get to the bottom of this case post haste.  Also drawn into the proceedings is Dr. Sophia Huxley, a young medical practitioner who is constantly helping the poor women of London while the people around her recoil in horror at the mere thought of a female doctor.

Victorian social mores.  How quaint.

Artemis and Sophia become allies in their quest to stop Dr. Robarts' experiments, and there are hints of a romance developing, but Henderson underplays this wonderfully.  She handles the entire novel wonderfully, paying meticulous attention to historical detail, weaving aspects of the Ravenloft campaign setting and Victorian London seamlessly together, to make a very satisfying whole, and ending on just the right note.  I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, and would recommend it hightly to anyone.

Meanwhile, my novella Saint Nicole is still available at Sam's Dot Publishing http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.htm#saintnicole

And the Final Jeopardy clue was; "For a 1912 play, these characters were named Blick, Glick, Snick, Grick, Plick, Brick, and Quee.  25 years later, they were given new names."  One player wrote "Who are the Munchkins?", which was wrong of course, but he'd accumulated enough money to win anyway.  The other two contestants, both of them, wrote, "Who are the Seven Dwarves?"

Note the spelling.

Somewhere, Tolkien is smiling.  :-)

http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.htm#saintnicole

Hi Folks,

Fellow writer Conrad Zero has reviewed my novella Saint Nicole on his blog:  http://www.conradzero.com/dark-fiction-review-saint-nicole-by-jason-d-wittman/

It's a very flattering review.  Let's hope it's the first of many.  :-D

Conrad provides a link from which you can order Saint Nicole, but you can also order it here: http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.html#saintnicole

"The Curious Case of the Jeweled Alicorn," written by Michael Merriam, is another novella written by a friend of mine.  Like Roy C. Booth & R. Thomas Riley's "The Flesh of Fallen Angels," it is a blend of genres, in this case Victorian steampunk and Celtic fantasy -- with a little international espionage thrown in.

Our hero is one Arkady Bloom, a man of half-human, half-Sidhe (faerie) descent who featured prominently in Mr. Merriam's previous novella, "Horror at Cold Springs."  He also works for Her Majesty Queen Victoria's Secret Service.  His unique heritage gives him both knowledge and abilities that are highly valued by the Crown.

It is also why he is brought in on this particular case.  It seems the Baron de Blackmere is hosting a party at his country estate, during which he intends to show off the "artifact that will act as a source of permanent, perpetual power" that he acquired during his travels abroad.  The people of Her Majesty's Secret Service quite naturally anticipate an attempt to steal said artifact, for which this party would provide a perfect opportunity.  In particular, they tell Bloom to pay close attention to Captain Timur Sahin's current lady companion, one Tresa Willhelm.  Since she is a magic user descended from magic users, the agents of the Crown have had their eyes on her for some time.

And just before Mr. Bloom sets foot on the de Blackmere estate, another faction makes its presence known: a delegation of the Fair Folk confront him on the road and ask him a favor.  Apparently the Baron has another artifact, a unicorn's horn -- and a unicorn whose horn is removed is a mad, twisted spirit.  The Fair Folk want to acquire the horn in order to cast the necessary spells that will set the unicorn's spirit free.  They would get it themselves, but the Baron has cast spells protecting the estate from anyone of full Sidhe blood.  Since Mr. Bloom is a half-blood, he stands a better chance of getting the horn.

Bloom can't help noticing, and he loses no time in pointing out, that the only time the pureblood Fair Folk will have anything to do with a half-breed like him is when he has or can get something that they can't get for themselves.  But for the sake of the unicorn -- and because the Fair Folk would owe him big time if he pulls this off --  he accepts their request.  And he moves on to the Baron's estate.

What follows is a twisted and intriguing plot that is not without romantic tension: when they meet, Mr. Bloom and Tresa Willhelm have an instant liking for each other.  But it turns out that she wants to acquire the unicorn's for herself.

I found "The Curious Case of the Jeweled Alicorn" to be a highly enjoyable novella.  My only complaint is that, like "Horror at Cold Springs," it is too short.  Will Mr.Merriam ever write a full length novel set in this universe?

"The Curious Case of the Jeweled Alicorn" can be found and purchased here:

http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.htm

And while you're at it, you can check out my own novella, "Saint Nicole":

http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.htm#saintnicole

Full disclosure: Roy C. Booth, one of the co-authors of this novella published by Grand Mal Press, is a friend of mine.  He offered to sell me a copy of "The Flesh of Fallen Angels," and when I told him I didn't have that much cash on hand, he sold it to me at a discount (a noble favor which I shall soon return).  With that said, I am happy to say that I found this novella very interesting and highly entertaining.

"The Flesh of Fallen Angels" is one of those rare novellas that is a blend of genres, in this case horror and western.  Though the storyline shuttles between passages marked "NOW" and "THEN" (and, in rare instances, "ABOVE ALL"), the main action ("NOW") takes place in 1860's Kansas, where a man by the name of Gibson Blount rides into a small town, the latest stopping point in a long and weary quest.  For mysterious forces have led Gibson to this town, and he has come armed for battle.

For you see, this novella is not titled "The Flesh of Fallen Angels" for nothing.  The foes that Gibson fights are of the demonic variety.  The kind that rip human beings apart and...do things with their skins.

The "THEN" passages show how Gibson Blount became acquainted with these monsters.  Before, he was an ordinary man, happily married and with a kid on the way.  Then the demons showed up and...well, this is where the horror genre kicks in.

The story leads the reader to some interesting places, not least of which is a desperate quest deep inside the head demon's lair.  And it features a guest appearance by a historical figure by the name of William Quantrell.

I like to think that, even if Roy C. Booth weren't a friend of mine, I would highly recommand this novella.  You can order it via the link below:

http://www.grandmalpress.com/flesh.php

And while you're at it, you might also want to take a look at my own novella, Saint Nicole:

http://sdpbookstore.com/storybooks.htm#saintnicole

This book is the third in Dana M. Baird's Spell Keeper fantasy series, the first two volumes of which, The Spell Keeper, and Veil of Whispers, have been reviewed by your humble scribe on this LJ.  The illustrious Ms. Baird has brought a little something new to each installment, so I was looking forward to reading the latest volume in her series.  I was not disappointed.

The Spell Keeper saga began with Cassie, a girl-next-door type from Illinois who finds herself translated to an alternate universe where an ancient kingdom called Tevious is embroiled in a war with a power-hungry sorceror (as if there were any other kind) named Trevarre.  The first book told how Cassie learned how to use her newfound magical powers to help defeat Trevarre and win peace for Tevious -- where, having found love and a home which she never really had on Earth (her ancestors originally hailed from Tevious), she decides to stay.  As the saga progresses, however, Cassie slowly steps back in terms of story and the reader is given more of an ensemble cast.  And so at the beginning of Broken Legacy, we have Ledia, a native of the Dar Senchian Mountains in the northern part of Tevious, a master huntress and tracker who happens upon a huge army invading from the north.  Seeing firsthand the gravity of the situation, Ledia takes it upon herself to journey to the Tevian capital to inform the king.

Meanwhile, at the royal palace, teenaged Elesia, who is Cassie's niece and granddaughter of King Peterious himself, is your typical teenager aside from being of royal blood, and a bit of a tomboy -- in her introductory scene, she is sword-dueling with a nobleman's son, and beating him soundly.  She is admonished for this behavior, as she has been admonished countless times before, but what teenager has ever listened to anything adults tell her?  As is usually the case, it will take harsh experience to get Elesia to control her impulsive, er, impulses.

And wouldn't you know it, here comes Ledia, eager to inform the king about the invading army.  But the guards won't let her through the gates, as she smells too much of commoner.  Luckily, Elesia happens along, and after hearing Ledia's news (and knowing her for something like sixty seconds), she brings her directly before the king.

So Elesia's impulsive nature serves her well in this instance.  But we still have a lot of story to go.  And the invading army doesn't belong to just any power-hungry warlord.  Its master is Trevarre, Cassie's old archnemesis, returned from the prison dimension that Cassie exiled him to in the climax of Book One.  His armies are populated with animated undead soldiers, mindlessly obedient, and damnably diffiult to kill.  And he has a mysterious general named Ashur, who wears face-concealing armor made from the skin and bones of his vanquished foes.

I enjoyed this book, as I did all of Ms. Baird's others.  Each new book brings something new to the story -- Ms. Baird wisely refrains from rehashing the plots of previous entries in the series -- and this book is no exception.  I have to say, though, that Trevarre had worn out his welcome for me, and I couldn't wait for the self-important jerk to get his comeuppance...but you must read the book to find out if he does.

I've provided a link for purchasing Broken Legacy here:

http://danambaird.com/broken_legacy.html