Monday, May 21, 2007

"The Adventure of the Second Round" - A New Sherlock Holmes Mystery

Since Scott Monty of the Baker Street Blog was kind enough to offer to link to it, I have decided to make my Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Second Round”, freely available online. It is a very traditional Sherlock Holmes pastiche (I even went so far as to reread several stories and parse sentences in order to get as close to the syntax of the originals as possible) and is set very late in Holmes’ career, just before Watson's last marriage and Holmes' subsequent retirement. Once again, Holmes and Watson find themselves "moving in high life" after they are called in by the Yard to help solve a murder in Kensington. Here is a link to the story:

The Adventure of the Second Round

Some of you, who are aware of this story’s circumstances may be a little surprised that I’ve decided to go this route, so I would like to briefly explain myself. I actually wrote the story in May of 2005 and submitted it to Marvin Kaye (the editor of The Game's Afoot) for his forthcoming magazine, called Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, that was to be published by Wildside Press. Kaye said he would be interested in publishing my story and would be able to buy it as soon as the magazine began publishing. Unfortunately, that was two years ago, and the first issue has yet to appear. Now, I have nothing but good things to say about Kaye, who is extremely approachable and great fun to correspond with, and Wildside, which publishes some absolutely brilliant magazines and reprints, but the future of SHMM just looks entirely too dubious at this point for me to wait. Since there are so very few markets for stories such as this one (not even the Baker Street Journal publishes them anymore) and those that do exist are utterly uninterested in new authors, and since, as a librarian, I'm acutely aware that subscription-based printed magazines are quickly disappearing, I have been trying to figure out some simple, online alternatives. While such venues may not yet have the same aura of respectability as print, they have the potential for reaching more readers more quickly.

That is why I have I decided to experiment with this manner of publishing. I probably would not have had the guts to do it were it not for the support of Scott, who already has quite a large group of dedicated readers, and if any of you do make your way here and read the story, please leave a comment. Of course, this goes without saying for my friends who are already aware of this blog.

Thanks in advance for taking a look and letting me know what you think. And thanks to Chris Fowler for all the help with the writing and proofing of this story.

Update: The story has finally been published in issue 5 of Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine!

15 comments:

Burntdisk said...

Printed and on the to do list. Thanks.

Mark said...

Thanks, man. I'll still include you in the email I'm going to send as soon as Scott posts his link.

Anonymous said...

Hi
I read your comment concerning a dissertation about Doyle's early fiction. Could please say how I might get hold of it. Further more Recently I am also attracted to the impact of Bryan Charles Waller, lodger, landlord, and benefactor of the Doyles, on Arthur Canon Doyle's life and career. Some, of course, have voiced some suspicions too. Could you please kindly help to get a list of articles or books or any thing on this. I so much appreciate any help you could give.

my email is behsol[at]gmail.com

Mark said...

Thanks. I'm glad I was able to turn up something useful for you. I'll see what I can find on Waller and then drop you a line this weekend. In the meantime, it would probably be best to get the dissertation through your academic library's interlibrary loan service.

Of course, you realize that now you'll have to provide me with a copy of your dissertation after you've completed it ;-)

Anonymous said...

Thanks. I keep an Eye on this.

Of course, you realize that now you'll have to provide me with a copy of your dissertation after you've completed it ;-)


;-)

Just another Sample said...

Mark,

Do you have the title or author of the mentioned dissertation? If so, I may be able to locate a place that could help behrooz in his/her search.

I'm going to give your story a read as well. Thanks for sharing.

Mark said...

Hey Justin,

Thanks for helping out--here's the info:


Burton, Joan Charlene. A Panoply of Visions: Female Archetypes in the Life and Selected Early Fiction of Arthur Conan Doyle. Ph.D. State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1992 United States -- New York.

I'm planning on sending a mass email to all my friends as soon as Scott reads the story and posts his review, but I'm glad you've already found it. Hopefully, you'll like it. If you do, feel free to spread the word.

Thanks, again.

Just another Sample said...

OCLC#27281772

It looks like only Stony Brook.

It looks like you can buy it for $41.00 dollars at UMI though...

http://wwwlib.umi.com/dxweb/details?doc_no=307268

sherlock said...

Whilst few 'scholarship' publications are willing to publish pastiche, you'll find hundreds of places on the internet with people who are enthusiastic about this. There are even entire blog communities dedicated to this and have a wide audience. There's always zines.

Mark said...

Thanks, Sherlock, and thanks for the kind words on Scott's blog. I decided to start there, because I had corresponded with Scott in the past and knew that, because of the BSI connection, he had a very smart and dedicated group of readers (take us, for instance). What other avenues would you recommend?

sherlock said...

If you're willing to pop over to livejournal (www.livejournal.com) you'll find two (well three, and several spin-offs but I don't think you'd be interested in those) communities dedicated to Sherlock Holmes where I have no doubt that people would be willing to read and talk about your story. I can't think of any zines that you'd want to send it to, but there's also several dedicated Holmes lists on Yahoo!Groups (mailing lists), as well as places like fanfiction.net that have a large-ish Sherlock Holmes community.

If you don't mind I could post a link to your pastiche on one of the livejournal communities as that's where I maintain my blog.

Mark said...

Thanks, Sherlock! If you'd like to link to the story that would be fantastic!

I just glanced at your blog and will pop over during lunch, when I have more time to explore. I'll also check out the other threads, as well.

Best,
Mark

sherlock said...

I've put a link on my blog entry and on the two entries I submitted to other communities.

If you look in the 'memories' section and go to 'thoughts' you'll find my review and discussion of the Russian TV series, as well as a random essay response.

I have somewhat alternative Holmesian views so I would avoid any of my stories (most of which are tongue in cheek, but there is one that you might like it) but life would be boring if everyone was the same :)

Mark said...

No worries, you won't offend me. I'm enjoying the reviews of the Russian series. I've never seen it and your screen captures are great.

sherlock said...

It's a brilliant series, feel free to comment. I have the 'anonymous' comments turned on.