My Grave Ritual (Warlock Holmes #3) 4.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: My Grave Ritual
Series: Warlock Holmes #3
Author: Gabriel Denning
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy Parody
Pages: 268
Words: 98K

Once again, another fabulous read.

This time around, I was bowled over at just how Denning took a Sherlock Holmes short story, parodied it AND tied it into a bigger narrative that overarched the entire book. It was impressive, especially when you consider the original short stories about Sherlock Holmes weren’t really tied to each other. Denning did a great job of twisting the original stories and stringing them altogether to make a cohesive whole without making it feel clunky.

In that regards, Dennings really shows his writing chops. I really wish he had other books I could read but sadly, it appears that Warlock Holmes was his only literary endeavor.

I guess I shall have to just savor the final two Warlock Holmes’ books that I have left all the more. That’s not really a bad problem to have if you think about it...

★★★★✬

From the Publisher

As they blunder towards doom, Warlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson find themselves inconvenienced by a variety of eldritch beings. Christmas brings a goose that doesn't let being cooked slow it down; they meet an electricity demon, discover why being a redhead is even trickier than one might imagine, and Holmes attempts an Irish accent. And, naturally, Moriarty is hanging around... in some form or other. Just as Holmes and Watson are hitting their stride, a pair of ancient enemies return. James Moriarty reclaims his criminal empire and Irene Adler bests Watson with a kiss.

The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles (Warlock Holmes #2) 4.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles
Series: Warlock Holmes #2
Author: Gabriel Denning
Rating: 4.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy Parody
Pages: 251
Words: 91K

In the previous book, A Study in Brimstone, the book ends with Moriarty having possessed Holmes’ body and about to send a fireball at Watson to kill him. This book starts after that point.

Watson knew something was off with Holmes, so he poisoned his tea, shot him in the chest 4 or 6 times and then kicked the fireball back into his face, thus effectively killing Holmes’ body and hopefully displacing Moriarty. Now Watson, not sure that Holmes is actually dead, has to keep the corpse a secret while filling the place with fresh flowers every day to hide the smell of rotting corpse.

Thankfully, a case comes along that Watson can solve on his own AND has the side effect of bringing Holmes fully back to life, just not of restoring his body though. So for the whole book Holmes is in a state of corpsicle’ness that is very slowly healing. Great stuff!

Once again, familiarity with the Sherlock Holmes canon of stories will make for a fuller, richer and more enjoyable read, mainly because you’ll get just how the author is japing at the originals. Making fun of something is much more satisfying if you know WHAT is being made fun of after all.

The humor is once again right up my alley. In the second story, “Silver Blaze: Murder Horse”, Holmes is trying to get addicted to gambling so he’ll have another connection to the common man. Of course, the horse he bets on goes missing and he has to solve the case or else he can’t get addicted to gambling. In the process, he magically teraports in several dead horse corpses to the flat. I was laughing my head off and my stomach hurt. It was fantastic!

The first four stories were short stories and just like the real canon, The Hell-Hound of the Baskervilles is a novella, so it takes up the majority of the book. We find out a lot about Warlock Holmes’ origins and I must admit, the humor just wasn’t there. It was a very grim story and while Denning did try to lighten things up (Foofy the Hell-hound anyone?), there just wasn’t that bust a gut laughing experience I was hoping for. And the ending is yet another “Oh no, what have I done?” kind of thing as Watson realizes that maybe Moriarty isn’t actually gone.

I really enjoyed this and tore through it in two evenings. If rotting corpses and horse corpsicles don’t make you laugh though, you might want to avoid this series.

★★★★✬

From the Publisher & Table of Contents

• The adventure of the blackened beryls

• Silver Blaze: murder horse

• The reigateway to another world

• The adventure of the solitary tricyclist

• The hell-hound of the Baskervilles

The game’s afoot once more as Holmes and Watson face off against Moriarty’s gang, the Pinkertons, flesh-eating horses, a parliament of imps, boredom, Surrey, a disappointing butler demon, a succubus, a wicked lord, an overly-Canadian lord, a tricycle-fight to the death and the dreaded Pumpcrow. Oh, and a hell hound, one assumes.

A Study in Brimstone (Warlock Holmes #1) 5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: A Study in Brimstone
Series: Warlock Holmes #1
Author: Gabriel Denning
Rating: 5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy Parody
Pages: 229
Words: 83K

If you know your Holmes stories, most of these parodies won’t catch you totally by surprise. That’s a good thing though, because it is the similarities that keep this book grounded and from becoming stupid. The basic premise is that Warlock Holmes is a warlock of incredible power who fights the supernatural, but he’s not very bright and he’s not good with people in general. Enter Watson, a deductive genius with the ability to analyze things from a completely normal perspective. Who needs a cheap place to stay so he won’t get thrown out into the gutter. And voila, a partnership made in Hades. Throw in that Lestrade is a vampire and some other detective is a werewolf and you have yourself a recipe for fun.

I laughed my head off for the entire book. I was laughing out loud and sharing bits and pieces with Mrs B until she finally said “Yep, that’s your kind of humor” and I knew enough to let it be and just enjoy it for myself. But my goodness, this was dark humor and so delicious. It was like eating an icecream sunday. For example. The Crew (Watson, Holmes and the other two detectives) find some mysterious pills that Watson suspects are poison. Holmes kidnaps the neighbor’s puppy and uses it to test the poison. He tells Watson to relax, because the puppy’s lifeline is going to end that week no matter what. The puppy takes the non-poison pill and is romping joyfully around the room. All four of our characters leave and the last sentence is something like “and the werewolf accidentally trod on the puppy”. I went off into howls of laughter. There were several such incidents that just set me off and by the books end my sides were hurting from laughing so much. I don’t know if this humor would be to everyone’s taste but it was almost like I had decided to write a book and use all the things I would find funny.

I also am aware that the final book ends in a cliffhanger’y way and that it will probably never be resolved. I have made my peace with that and will simply enjoy this for what I can get out of it. Speaking of cliffhanger’y, the ending of this book definitely falls into that camp. Not terribly, not in a way that made me want to immediately read the next book, but basically Moriarty takes over Holmes’ body and that’s how it ends. If this had been a standalone book, I’d still be ok with that ending because the humor was absolutely pitch perfect.

I have also given this the coveted “Best Book of the Year” tag. Doesn’t mean that it IS the best book, as we still have half a year to go, but my goodness, I simply have not laughed out loud so often in a very long time and that by itself deserves a lot of praise.

★★★★★

From the Publisher

Sherlock Holmes is an unparalleled genius. Warlock Holmes is an idiot. A font of arcane power, certainly. But he’s brilliantly dim. Frankly, he couldn’t deduce his way out of a paper bag. The only thing he has really got going for him are the might of a thousand demons and his stalwart companion. Thankfully, Dr. Watson is always there to aid him through the treacherous shoals of Victorian propriety… and save him from a gruesome death every now and again.