On 25 Nov 2014, at 07:46, Richard Aiken <raikenclw@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 2:08 AM, Timothy Collinson <timothy.collinson@port.ac.uk> wrote:
And bonus marks for the Sherlock Holmes reference. One of my earliest treasures (bought when I was at boarding school IIRC) is 'Sherlock Holmes Detected' by Ian someoneorother - I'd look it up on the shelf five feet away from me, only believe it or not all my Sherlock Holmes stuff is an exhibition at the moment.

One of my favorite authors is Laurie R. King, who's written an entire series of novels featuring the "retired beekeeper"

Oh yes! I happen to be five books into reading all her books. Really enjoying her work.

and his very eccentric (and scandalously young) wife. Of course, there have been many others who've done various versions of this with Holmes, but I think King is perhaps the best at capturing the mood of the original books.

Absolutely. Although I think Anthony Horowitz did a good job with House of Silk and I'm looking forward to his 'Moriaty' for Christmas!

King even manages to work a Sherlock Holmes link into her modern detective series, by way of a club of eccentric fans who have monthly Holmes Dinners in period costume . . . until one of the characters is murdered, of course.

I didn't know that as I've not read anything else of hers. But I might have to try.

The ObTrav of this is that I've often wondered whether it might be possible to do a Third Imperium Holmes, but I think it's beyond my capabilities. Plus it's quite hard to get much 'atmosphere' of times past when there's no real equivalent of the 'Victorian' period - or even much differentiation of eras despite Traveller's long history. But I'd love to see it done.