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baticeer's review
4.0
Doctor Who meets Sherlock Holmes. Excellent stuff, although I found a few details of the ultimate resolution to be a bit weird. But the pastiche style was done very well and I liked the characterization of the Doctor and his companions. Highly recommended to any Doctor Who fan who likes Sherlock Holmes stories as well.
hammard's review
3.0
This is a terribly frustrating book. It is doing some clever things but also is incredibly straightforward at times. It is exciting to read then a slog. The best way to understand this is probably to consider it in terms of the three parts and the frame.
Frame: Benny, Ace and The Doctor discuss the book
Largely designed to establish this narrative as unreliable. This is both a blessing and a curse, on the one hand it makes it an interesting experiment, on the other it means that outside of the vague outline we are called to not believe any of it happened. As an aside, as we are meant to believe Holmes and Watson are pseudonyms for the real characters, should now in canon it make sense for this to actually be a Vastra and Jenny adventure?
Part One: Holmes, Watson & The Doctor investigate a mystery
This is easily the best part, a very good imitation of a Sherlock Holmes story narrated by Watson, mixed in with Lovecraftian elements along with other pieces from late 19th Century and early 20th century fiction. Tense and well constructed. The only element that is a bit out of place is that it goes a bit far with the darkness, I don't mind it exploring a bit the seedy underbelly of Victorian London but when a cult meeting takes place in a child brothel...
Part Two: Meeting up with Bernice, they chase the Baron across India
This begins to falter as it moves backwards and forwards between Benny's and Watson's narratives (without much need) and with large sections devoted to discussion of India that are rather colonialists. This is explained by the frame as Conan-Doyle's excesses but a lot of it feels pointless
Part Three: Travel to Ry'leh and meet up with Ace, all is revealed
This is where it really starts to fall apart. This should be a great conclusion and monumentally weird but yet it is actually really boring and straightforward. In the end it turns out to be an ancient evil (who actually looks like a giant slug) wants to use an alien army to conquer earth and someone we knew was one of this agents. All the mystery turned out to be covering their tracks. The Doctor stops them by relocating their exit point on Earth.
Also, overall there is very little that actually happens and what is there is largely redoing elements from Birthright and White Darkness.
And yet...what is good is so thoroughly enjoyable. A strange piece overall.
Frame: Benny, Ace and The Doctor discuss the book
Largely designed to establish this narrative as unreliable. This is both a blessing and a curse, on the one hand it makes it an interesting experiment, on the other it means that outside of the vague outline we are called to not believe any of it happened. As an aside, as we are meant to believe Holmes and Watson are pseudonyms for the real characters, should now in canon it make sense for this to actually be a Vastra and Jenny adventure?
Part One: Holmes, Watson & The Doctor investigate a mystery
This is easily the best part, a very good imitation of a Sherlock Holmes story narrated by Watson, mixed in with Lovecraftian elements along with other pieces from late 19th Century and early 20th century fiction. Tense and well constructed. The only element that is a bit out of place is that it goes a bit far with the darkness, I don't mind it exploring a bit the seedy underbelly of Victorian London but when a cult meeting takes place in a child brothel...
Part Two: Meeting up with Bernice, they chase the Baron across India
This begins to falter as it moves backwards and forwards between Benny's and Watson's narratives (without much need) and with large sections devoted to discussion of India that are rather colonialists. This is explained by the frame as Conan-Doyle's excesses but a lot of it feels pointless
Part Three: Travel to Ry'leh and meet up with Ace, all is revealed
This is where it really starts to fall apart. This should be a great conclusion and monumentally weird but yet it is actually really boring and straightforward. In the end it turns out to be an ancient evil (who actually looks like a giant slug) wants to use an alien army to conquer earth and someone we knew was one of this agents. All the mystery turned out to be covering their tracks. The Doctor stops them by relocating their exit point on Earth.
Also, overall there is very little that actually happens and what is there is largely redoing elements from Birthright and White Darkness.
And yet...what is good is so thoroughly enjoyable. A strange piece overall.
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