^{The Norbury}Chronicle

e-newsletter of the Holmesian Studies SIG of American Mensa

since ’88, Baker Street Irregulars scion since ‘95

"Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed." (Mark 4:22)

Issue XXXVIII                                                                        Winter '12-'13

Sig News

W e have moved on through two computers since last issue, and didn't find "Irene" in Arkansas, but we are still here. We're getting new members too, all Mensans: Keith W. Stump, Stacey Shaffer, John McGuire. We haven't been getting many contributions however, so this is it for now.

100 YearsAgo

H olmes was, of course, only semi-retired in 1913, helping Sebastian (who we believe was actually the son of Sherlock's twin Rutherford) to fill his father and uncles' large shoes. Watson's notes only made it into print relatively recently.

• Black Ned Silverman's bank robbery case ("How a Hermit was Disturbed in his Retirement" or "The Adventure of Hillerman Hall" included in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Richard Lancelyn Green and The Great Detectives by Julian Symons)

• Patrick Riley in St. Vincent School scandal case ("The Case of a Boy's Honour")

• Alfred North Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica and Ludwig Wittgenstein missing, and Srinivasna Ramanujan dead leads to Aleister Crowley's Abbey of Thelema (The Case of the Philosophers' Ring unearthed by Randall Collins)

• Sax Romer threatened by "Mr. King" ("The Riddle of the Golden Monkeys" included in Murder, My Dear Watson by Martin H. Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower)

• Sebastian Holmes returns from Heidelberg to infiltrate weapon smuggling (The Holmes Inheritance by Brian Freemantle)

• Sebastian works undercover in Russia (The Holmes Factor by Brian Freemantle)

The Sherlock Holmes Battle Guide

W e recently discovered the Sherlock Holmes social fan fiction game on facebook. I joined the Baker Street Irregulars, naturally. I quickly finished the quests "Rat Kill" (1 experience point) and "De Drunk the Club" (2 experience points) and "The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb" (1000 experience points) and then fought the Mafia Boys and Mafia Girls in New York (which seems to get too easy once one buys a bit of weaponry) and at 6500 points have reached level 9. It is not very interesting, unless presumably one downloads the full version, but when a player reaches level 100 they can become a case creator and add to the cases.

T he most interesting thing about the game, to me, are the quotes attributed to the Master Detective from a couple of his own otherwise unknown publications.

The Sherlock Holmes Book of Combat

"A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it."

"A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements."

"A lost battle is a battle one thinks one has lost."

"Battle is the most magnificent competition in which a human being can indulge. It brings out all that is best; it removes all that is base. All men are afraid in battle. The coward is the one who lets his fear overcome his sense of duty. Duty is the essence of manhood."

"In a battle all you need to make you fight is a little hot blood and the knowledge that it's more dangerous to lose than to win."

"Life is a battle between faith and reason in which each feeds upon the other, drawing sustenance from it and destroying it."

"This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live."

"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."

"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."

"War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle."

The Sherlock Holmes Travel Guide

" It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. "

" I travel light. But not at the same speed. "

" Not all those who wander are lost. "

" The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. "

" There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. "

" The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. "

" The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. "

" Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. "
" We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. "

Sherlock Holmes' Adventure on the Red Planet

A nother fascinating find was the fanfic at http://ourworlds.topcities.com/space1889/stories/holmes03.html based on Space 1889, which gives a whole new twist on what happen at another Reichenbach Falls. I liked it better than the semi-steampunk "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows", but then I generally like original books rather than films/screenplay rewrites. It lead me to the rather large body of tales in the Space 1889™ universe, and wishing that there were other crossovers. It also lead me to the other Martian/Holmes tales, from The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The War of the Worlds fka Sherlock Holmes War of the Worlds, "The Adventure of the Martian Client", "The Adventure of the Crystal Egg", and "The Case of the Missing Martian" by Manly Wade and Wade Wellman. In it Challenger and Holmes defeat the Martian (Wormhead) invaders and a secret relationship with Mrs. Hudson (Irene Adler?) is hinted at.

Elementary, My Dear Wah-tzun

I have to admit that I find the new series on the telly, "Elementary", far superior to "Sherlock". It has real mysteries with fast-paced observations and deductions (too fast for my densan housemates). One of my own deductions is that Dr. Joan Watson is related to the Wah-tzun in the Hiatus story, "Murder Beyond the Mountains".

T he stories are set in modern-day New York, so much violence and drug abuse was to be expected from the start, but the play between the Detective and the Doctor is growing more interesting as we learn more about them both. It does rather remind one of the Mulder and Scully's changing relationship.