Off Topic... ish: Holmes Pastiches

For your viewing enjoyment, I present to you:

The Top Ten Things in Holmes Pastiches that Bother Me the Most* :

In no particular order:

1. Anachronisms: These really are easily avoidable, so when Holmes pastiches use a word that would not have been in usage in Victorian England or make reference to a machine not yet invented, it is quite bothersome.

2. Americanisms: Also a mistake that is incredibly avoidable, and, one would think, hard to commit is using American English rather than British English. Even I, who have never even been to England, know better than to refer to braces as suspenders or call autumn fall.

3. Marrying Off Holmes** : Holmes just isn’t a marrying man. We all know it. He does not like women. It is therefore highly unlikely that he’s going to go get hitched to whoever you shove at him. No, not even to Irene Adler. Which brings me to my next pet peeve…

4. Godfrey Norton Bashing: Look, I know you all want Irene to be happily husband free so that she and Holmes can have lots of sleuthing babies, but nowhere in canon is it ever implied that Godfrey Norton is a cad or a sadist or anything but a man who loves his wife and whose wife loves him. Sorry to burst your bubbles.***

5. Crossovers/Guest Appearances: Yeah, I know that you’re thinking, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if Holmes met insert fictional character or historical figure here” No. No it wouldn’t. It would be stupid.****

6. Referring to Holmes’s Cocaine as “Seven Percent Solution": This seems a bit nitpicky, yes, but it is a massive pet peeve of mine. Watson refers to the cocaine as cocaine and only as cocaine. Holmes mentions once and only once that the cocaine that he happens to be using at the beginning of The Sign of Four is a seven percent solution. That does not mean that all of his cocaine is seven percent solution and that does not mean that is acceptable to think them interchangeable. Because it sounds stupid. Fact.

7. Messing up Dates: Yes, I know that Watson’s chronology is famously bad, so there can be some lee-way. Just try to refrain from saying that a case happened in, say, January of 1892, because at that point Holmes was “dead.” Speaking of which…

8. Hiatus Stories: We are all curious as to what Holmes did during those famous three years. But part of the joy of the Hiatus is that it is a variable, an unknown. I prefer to leave it as such. Also, it doesn’t feel like a real Holmes story if it takes place in Norway and Watson isn’t there. I don’t care how good your writing is, it doesn’t feel like Holmes.

9. Botching Major Canonical Happenings: Don’t just completely disregard canon. It’s annoying, and makes me want to hurl the book at a wall. And, last but in no way least…

10. Going Overboard with Crazy Speculations: This is something that Sherlockians are almost all guilty of. I have read the most outrageous theories (Moriarty was a woman? He married her after Riechenbech? Watson was a woman? After the Hiatus, "Holmes" was just Moriarty in disguise?) about the Holmes canon, or, more specifically what wasn’t told in Holmes canon. Give it a rest. Watson wasn’t completely full of crap.

*Ten biggest pet peeves, but by no means my only ones.

**Yes, Laurie R. King, I am talking to you.

***Yes, Baker Street Irregulars, I am most definitely talking to you.

****This isn’t entirely true. I’m talking about published Holmes pastiche here. Crossovers, in my opinion, are far better suited to online or fanzine fanfiction than they are to published pastiche.