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For what may be obvious reasons, I recently read every story in the original Sherlock Holmes canon — all four novels and 56 short stories.
(This is not bragging. 56 is not that many. Harlan Ellison, one of my favourite writers, is said to have written over 1 000 short stories in his lifetime. You’re welcome to try and verify that claim, but you’ll probably get distracted by the “Controversies and disputes” section of his Wikipedia page.)
The Holmes stories were written before we as a culture fell from god’s grace and invented sequel hooks. As a result, I was struck by the fact that some of the canon’s most famous characters appear quite suddenly and don’t stick around for very long.
An example: if you asked the average person to name three Sherlock Holmes characters, they’d probably say “Holmes, Watson, and Moriarty.” But Professor Moriarty only factors into two stories, and personally appears in just one: "The Final Problem," in which he pops up out of nowhere to kill Holmes. The second story, The Valley of Fear, takes place before "The Final Problem" but was published 21 years later, establishing Moriarty as a recurring threat well after the fact.
Another example: if you asked the average person to name three Sherlock Holmes characters, but stipulated at least one of them had to be a woman, they might say "Holmes, Watson, and Irene Adler." Because Adler is the Woman — the woman who bested Sherlock Holmes.
( spoilers for basically any Sherlock Holmes adaptation that has Irene Adler in it )Enough of my work is now listed on Goodreads that I decided to claim my author page--mostly to keep anyone else from claiming it, and also to try and clear out a few works from an entirely different Kit Walker. At no point in the 90s was I recording meditation tapes, as I was busy attending elementary school instead.
I don't intend to use Goodreads to track my personal reading, since I use the Storygraph for that. But I've hooked up my blog feed and opened the Ask the Author section, on the off chance the Goodreads userbase wants to ask me things. This should also speed up the process of any new work appearing on the site.
So if you're at all interested in following me on Goodreads, you can find me here. I'm told those meditation tapes will be removed shortly. We'll see.
So, you know how Sherlock Holmes is now fully in the public domain?
My new novelette, "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act," is a modern-day interpretation of Holmes' most famous adversary that tells the story of how he met Sebastian Moran, his loyal partner in crime.
When ex-SAS security consultant Sebastian Moran runs afoul of a rich and powerful corporate client, he's thrown into the path of a brilliant hacker named Jay Moriarty. To survive, both of them must work together to unravel the secrets of Bruce-Partington Aerospace and take down its corrupt CEO, Sir James Walter.
You can find "Jay Moriarty Violates the Official Secrets Act" most places ebooks are sold, or by clicking here.
The Devil Who Loves Me is out today! It's the second anthology by startup indie publisher GrendelPress and features my story "Move Fast and Break Things."
This collection of fourteen stories explores love in the darkest of places. From an executioner drawn in by a handsome witch, a knight set on avenging the loss of his friend, to a mercenary touched by the abyss on a rescue mission gone awry, these stories will capture your heart and imagination.
That last bit, about the mercenary touched by the abyss? That one's mine.
You can get a paperback copy of the anthology directly from GrendelPress. You can also get either the paperback or the ebook on Amazon. If you're outside the U.S., getting the paperback from Amazon looks to be the less spendy option when it comes to shipping. If you're in the U.S., though, I highly recommend buying direct from GrendelPress.
I'm very proud of "Move Fast and Break Things," and I'm excited for people to finally read it. If you're into dark romance, monsters in love, or stories about hallucinating so much you meet and/or become God, this is the anthology for you.
