This semester just gone, I had the first chapter of the book I'm working on work-shopped in class at uni. One of the questions I asked for feedback on was "what type of society do you feel this story is set in from this introduction?" One classmate came back with "Hasidism meets Armish meets 'Victorian' Vienna meets Conan Doyle's London meets weird-science mechanisation". Now that was pretty close! the Hasidism/Armish side of it isn't so much what I was going for, but I could see how that was read into the first chapter. But what struck me was "Conan Doyle's London". It occurred to me that I had never read any Sherlock Holmes and how much doing so might help put me in the right mindset to understand what I was trying to achieve with my own writing.
I quickly procured a lovely old fashioned bind up of the four novels from a second hand shop and started by reading the first story.
It was fantastic! Even if you're not writing a novel set in a Victorian inspired fantasy world, they make fascinating reading.
I must admit, I found Sherlock himself to be a bit more conceited than I expected him to be. And this didn't seem designed to be mysteries that the reader is expected to solve before the answer is revealed, as much of the small details that Sherlock uses to figure it all out aren't reviled to us until he is explaining how he came to his conclusion.
But, all that said it's a great ride to go along with Watson on!
I can't wait to read the rest! Good thing I've got some time off coming up.
Find it on Goodreads
