DISCLAIMER: This review is based on first impressions from the first few chapters, only a small part of what exists so far.
It's clear that the author here is very skilled, but what is being attempted — to map the roles of Holmes and Watson onto Nick and Judy — is quite a hard sell.
It's amazing it works as well as it does. The imitation-Victorian prose is fairly spot-on, and it does a good job transposing the setting of Zootopia, complete with its racial issues, into the late 1800s. It even comes pretty near to convincingly setting up Judy as a Watson-analog retired Army surgeon, as far-fetched as that may sound.
But what does seem too far stretch to me is the casting of Nick as Holmes.
Yes, on the one hand, the canon version of Nick's acting skills bring to mind how Holmes was always the Master of Disguise, and he did also have good observational skills and successfully performed a Sherlock Scan on Judy at their first meeting. There is certainly some similarity, in nature if not in extent, between the skills of the con-mammal and those of the detective.
But while canon-Nick is smart, he isn't over-the-top Sherlock Holmes smart. The role of Sherlock Holmes, in his stories, was to be almost like an intellectual superhero who was always dramatically more clever than everyone else around him. While this worked well enough for the original dynamic between Holmes and Watson, it throws off the dynamic between Nick and Judy, who in canon was always showcasing herself to be equally clever even if not as experienced. Judy doesn't fit well in the role of a sidekick.
Another problem is that this synthesis of Holmes and Wilde has all the unbridled genius of Holmes, but seems to lack many of Holmes' compensating weaknesses such as his bipolar-like symptoms. The overwhelming superiority in the absence of any apparent weaknesses or flaws makes him seem a bit too perfect, and when a bit of Nick's smugness is added to the equation he becomes downright unlikeable. To be fair, he may later on be shown to have Hidden Depths rooted in Nick's side of the equation that may or may not be able to allay this, but this is the first impression I get from him.
Another thing that bears mention is that while it seems to branch out later into an altogether different mystery (which is outside the scope of this first-impressions review), the first few chapters map fairly directly onto those of A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel, where Watson first met Holmes. While in many places this is actually quite clever and well done, in a few places it seems a bit forced.
A Study In Gold
DISCLAIMER: This review is based on first impressions from the first few chapters, only a small part of what exists so far.
It's clear that the author here is very skilled, but what is being attempted — to map the roles of Holmes and Watson onto Nick and Judy — is quite a hard sell.
It's amazing it works as well as it does. The imitation-Victorian prose is fairly spot-on, and it does a good job transposing the setting of Zootopia, complete with its racial issues, into the late 1800s. It even comes pretty near to convincingly setting up Judy as a Watson-analog retired Army surgeon, as far-fetched as that may sound.
But what does seem too far stretch to me is the casting of Nick as Holmes.
Yes, on the one hand, the canon version of Nick's acting skills bring to mind how Holmes was always the Master of Disguise, and he did also have good observational skills and successfully performed a Sherlock Scan on Judy at their first meeting. There is certainly some similarity, in nature if not in extent, between the skills of the con-mammal and those of the detective.
But while canon-Nick is smart, he isn't over-the-top Sherlock Holmes smart. The role of Sherlock Holmes, in his stories, was to be almost like an intellectual superhero who was always dramatically more clever than everyone else around him. While this worked well enough for the original dynamic between Holmes and Watson, it throws off the dynamic between Nick and Judy, who in canon was always showcasing herself to be equally clever even if not as experienced. Judy doesn't fit well in the role of a sidekick.
Another problem is that this synthesis of Holmes and Wilde has all the unbridled genius of Holmes, but seems to lack many of Holmes' compensating weaknesses such as his bipolar-like symptoms. The overwhelming superiority in the absence of any apparent weaknesses or flaws makes him seem a bit too perfect, and when a bit of Nick's smugness is added to the equation he becomes downright unlikeable. To be fair, he may later on be shown to have Hidden Depths rooted in Nick's side of the equation that may or may not be able to allay this, but this is the first impression I get from him.
Another thing that bears mention is that while it seems to branch out later into an altogether different mystery (which is outside the scope of this first-impressions review), the first few chapters map fairly directly onto those of A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel, where Watson first met Holmes. While in many places this is actually quite clever and well done, in a few places it seems a bit forced.