Changes

I was eager to read certain authors, such as [[:Category:Mike Carey|Mike Carey]], Joe R Lansdale and [[:Category:Clive Barker|Clive Barker’s]] take on the character as I have enjoyed other books by them, and in particular I thought Lansdale would create an interesting story. The Carey and Barker submissions were well written detective stories in a similar (but more accessible) vein to the original stories and they both had strong plots that were exciting to read. The Lansdale offering takes a completely different route and is a bit of a Poe and [[:Category:H P Lovecraft|Lovecraft]] crossover which is enjoyable to read but does not feel at all right for the character; Dupin the epitome of logic, sense and reason, now easily accepting magic and the supernatural is just too large a leap for me. Within this collection there are others that contain occult, supernatural and even steam-punk elements that work to varying degrees; some of these star a distant relative of Poe’s detective and this certainly helps the fantastical fit the character better.

Without going into too much detail about each actual case, I can say that there are meetings of style and characters that are fresh and a perfect match and those that don’t sit right. The Poe and Lovecraft story didn’t feel quite right and one following Dupin’s grandson who is an Indiana Jones -style character really didn’t work for me, but a Dupin and Holmes meeting of minds was brilliant. This story by Stephen Volk was narrated by a young Sherlock Holmes with an aging ageing Dupin as his mentor, the concept really works with the characters' historical influences being incorporated into a story. There are plenty of nods to aspects of Holmes that exist within [[:Category:Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s]] work and the story as a whole feels as though it could easily fit into the timeline of both characters perfectly.