The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: War of the Worlds [Paperback]

I'm not THAT precious about Sherlock Holmes that I expect every attempt to write a new story about the World's Greatest Detective to be totally faithful to Arthur Conan Doyle's version. So whilst I wasn't entirely bowled over by the idea of Sherlock Holmes joining Professor Challenger to tackle a Martian invasion I was more than willing to give the book a chance. What I found was very disappointing indeed.

The first thing to note is that this is more of HG Wells story than an Arthur Conan Doyle one; whilst the character of Challenger is instantly recognisable, Holmes is a mere sliver of what he should be. Yes, he lives at Baker Street, has Dr. Watson as a companion and has Mrs Hudson as a housekeeper (and something more, in this story) but that's all that identifiable. The character of Holmes does very little at all in this story and his detection skills are hardly brought to the fore at all.

If you wish to see Holmes "re-invented" as some form of romantic action hero you might enjoy this but if your love for the character of Holmes is the reason you want to try and read a non-Conan Doyle story then you will find little here to amuse you. It could be John Smith or Fred Bloggs helping Professor Challenger for all the attention that is paid to him.

But even without my misgiving about the use of Holmes, the book itself isn't very captivating in it's own right. To be blunt, nothing much seems to happen. It's probably worth a read if you are going through the enitre "Further Adventures..." series but it has very little to commend it as a stand alone title.

The high concept, and possibly one that might have inspired Mr Moore's second LoEG volume, is that Sherlock Holmes is caught up in the War of the Worlds, by way of the "Crystal Egg" from Wells' oeuvre, with aid from Conan Doyle's Professor Challenger. What comes out of it is, as another reviewer points out, a pretty uneventful story. Holmes and Challenger spend a lot of time staring into the Crystal Egg, and running around the countryside in the manner of the narrator of Wells' original tale, but very little is added to make it more flavoursome. There is the attempt to make the science of Wells' story more palatable by suggesting the Martians weren't from Mars, because as modern day readers know, there is no life on Mars (or is there?)... but that isn't really enough. Then there's the use of Holmes and Challenger to fill in some backstory from Wells' tome, though within the text Wells' tale is considered a fiction of real events and treated in a slightly derogatory manner. And again, I need more.

Part of the issue, no doubt, is that the novel is actually made up of what were three short stories, and so there is some repetition of past events that would have made sense when the stories were being served up in magazines some months apart.

Another thing is that while I don't think the Wellmans wholly miss the mark in the way they write Holmes and Challenger, it's clear that Challenger is favoured, as he gets a meatier role in the action, and their version of Holmes is very Basil Rathbone. You can hear Jeremy Brett saying the lines, but this Holmes is not so quirky. And Watson is drawn as a slightly buffoonish, very proper Victorian gentleman, again a version of Watson of yesteryear. But then this was written back in the 70s, I think.

The other slight problem with an otherwise handsome little paperback is that there is a preponderance of typographical errors (just let me go back and spellcheck that...). Not a huge amount, but they are stark when they appear.

I didn't dislike the book. It was a pleasant way of passing the time, and the Holmes fanatic liked the little touches of mention Holmes' North Country background and the suggestions of who Mrs Hudson was and why Holmes became a beekeeper in the Sussex Downs. But it doesn't send me to the same heights as the Nicholas Meyer books.

In "The War of the Worlds" (first published in 1975 as "Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds") Manly Wade Wellman, with his son Wade Wellman, pits Holmes, Watson and Professor Challenger against H G Wells's Martian invaders. In this version, the aliens are not native to Mars, and their defeat owes much to the resourcefulness and courage of our heroes. It's intelligent, exciting and literate - as you'd expect from a multi-award-winning science-fiction writer who was also a Baker Street Irregular. The suggestion that Holmes and Mrs Hudson are conducting a clandestine love affair stretches belief to its limits, however.