Matthew Rasnake

It took me five years of intermittent attention to finish it, but I finally made it through. This is an incredibly dense book whose glacial pace matches the glacial pace of the plot itself. Slow, plodding, and choked with scientific minutia (both presumably real and clearly imagined), this is the hardest of hard sci-fi. If you're very interested in the prospects of establishing a human presence on Mars, or perhaps in the psychology of extreme life extension, you may well love this book. Just make sure you have time to focus and settle in for long passages about things like planting genetically engineered lychen.

It is bizarre reading this in 2020 in the context of the protests and Black Lives Matter, but it is illuminating, at least insofar as it regards from where this all has sprung. I don't know that I can recommend the read while all this is so raw.

I adore the Sherlock Holmes canon, and this has to be the preeminent audio edition. It is splendid from start to finish. I can't imagine a better narrator than Stephen Fry, whose mellifluous voice, and deft use of accent and characterization bring every nuance of these classic stories to vibrant life. Early in the set, I was mesmerized by Stephen Fry's adept voice acting, but in the later chapters I heard only Holmes, Watson, and their supporting characters.

My singular critique is that Fry's default “male American” voice appeared with little variation between the stories which called for it, which left a very minor blemish in the veil of believability in the separateness of the characters. There were variations for other “male American” characters, especially when several appeared in a single story, but this standard voice was uniquely identifiable enough to stand out.

This is a phenomenal achievement, and if you're a Holmes fan I would hold this up—along with the Jeremy Brett television series—as one of the definitive, canonical Holmes collections.

This book (the paperback version anyway), is 277 pages that feels like 150. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing, but it is a quick read.

The plot, such as it is, feels to me like an over simplified scaffolding from which the author was able to hang his depravity and infatuation with the absurd and perverse. The unfortunate thing is that the scenes and descriptions of deviant sexual behavior and bodily functions both human and inhuman pretty much always felt gratuitous. I say it's unfortunate because these elements are what constituted most of this short work. The smaller part of the novel was devoted to developing the two main characters, who were both, by the end of the novel fairly well defined.

Where the author had opportunities to explore the humanity of the sub-characters involved, he largely missed out. For the most part, his treatment of the perverse activities and their participants was superficial, despite being graphically descriptive. There were a few instances where he'd flesh out a sub-character and delve a bit, but for the most part, they were cardboard cutouts.

As for the main characters and their arc, he did much better. The main character, Mike, is a somewhat older, insecure but self-assured private dick, with poor luck and few friends. When the book opens, he's very much in a place where things happen to him. By the close, he has progressed to the point where he's exerting more control over his own life.
Trix, his companion, starts the book as a run-of-the-mill enlightened, semi-mystic, street-smart, liberated young woman. Her arc is smaller, leaving her at the end of the novel giving up some of her independence.

If you're a fan of Ellis, you'll undoubtedly enjoy this book, though you may end up wishing for a little less shock and a little more substance. If you're really a fan of Ellis, you may think I'm an idiot. If you're not a fan of Ellis, well... maybe you should pick up a few trades of Transmetropolitan first to get your toes wet.

Warren Ellis is a sick little monkey, and if you're not a fan of sick little monkeys, or of gratuitous (or even appropriate) filth, muck, and depravity, then you might want to think twice before picking this one up. The book is good, but not good enough that you need to subject yourself to it if you're somewhat easily offended.

I've read or listened to the stories in “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” countless times, and enjoy them every time. This is a reasonable audio version with a decent narrator.