My Guest Post on John C. Wright’s Blog Becomes A Series

My Guest Post on John C. Wright’s Blog Becomes A Series

 

Last week, I announced that an article of mine published on NerdHQ was reprinted on John C. Wright’s blog.  Covering issues of science fiction, critical disagreement, and fan activism, “No Award: Part One: What’s Happening With the Hugos?” was republished last week.  This week, the next two entries in the series, “No Award: Part Two: A Short History of the Sad Puppies at the Hugos” and “No Award: Part Three: Myths, Realities, and Controversies of the Sad Puppies and the Hugos” were released, with more hopefully to come in the future.  If you’re interested, please take a look!

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His Agatha-nominated book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

My Guest Post on John C. Wright’s Blog

My Guest Post on John C. Wright’s Blog

 

John C. Wright is the author of the award-winning science fiction of author of books like the Golden Age series, the Eschaton Sequence, and the Chronicles of Chaos series, as well as works of social and literary criticism, like From Barsoom to Malacandra: Musings on Things Past and Things to Come, and my personal favorite, The Last Straw: A Critical Autopsy of a Galaxy Far, Far Away. 

 

Mr. Wright’s blog, www.scifiwright.com, addresses many issues connected to literature, culture, and moral/spiritual/religious issues.  Many of the concerns Mr. Wright and some of his friends and colleagues had regarding contemporary science fiction and fantasy writing were covered in an eight-part series I wrote a few years ago on the Sad Puppies controversy.  Mr. Wright is now reprinting those essays on his blog.  The first in the series was published this week.  Please take a look at the link!

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His Agatha-nominated book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

 

 

The WWII Sherlock Holmes Movies of Basil Rathbone in Germany

The WWII Sherlock Holmes Movies of Basil Rathbone in Germany

 

Ever since my junior year of college, I’ve had an intense interest in how the 1940’s Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce-starring Sherlock Holmes movies reflect the times.  Transported from the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries to the then contemporary 1940’s, Holmes and Watson not only solved crimes, but they thwarted the evil plans of the Nazis as well.  

 

As I studied the era and films for a capstone project for my History major, I learned that these movies were part of a broader collaboration between Hollywood and FDR’s White House, where the government encouraged the film industry to incorporate approved messages and morals into its releases.  I turned my work into an essay titled “Sherlock Holmes vs. Hitler: A True Story.”  I presented an abridged version of it at a Film & History conference, and another revision was published in the Baker Street Journal.  

 

In all my years of studying this topic, however, I never thought about how those films went over in Germany.  Did the Germans even see these movies?  If so, when?  Today, the Basil Rathbone tribute blog “The Great Baz” has the answers.

 

marciajessen writes:

 

It’s no surprise, then, that Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes films were not released in German theaters during the war years. Even those films that did not feature Nazis as Sherlock Holmes’s foe would have been deemed unacceptable in Germany because Sherlock Holmes was a British hero, symbolic of England.

By the mid 1950s, however, West Germany had a friendly relationship with Great Britain, and German attitudes towards Sherlock Holmes had changed. But, instead of simply releasing the Sherlock Holmes films, Argus Filmverleih put together four composite movies, each of which is made using footage from two of the Universal Sherlock Holmes films.

Please read the whole blog post.  It’s very interesting.

 

 

I plan to study this topic more in future blog posts.

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His Agatha-nominated book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

Story Profile: “The Bitter Gravestones”

Story Profile: “The Bitter Gravestones”

 

In The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, Part XXX: More Christmas Adventures (1897-1928), edited by David Marcum (November 2021), the Sherlock Holmes pastiches are all Christmas-themed.  One of my stories, “The Bitter Gravestones” is included.

 

The story was inspired by a thought I had.  What would happen if someone was so angry at a deceased person that he would actually have an angry insult carved on the dead person’s tombstone?  What would lead someone to such virulent extremes?  What would happen if somebody else saw such venomous things etched into a gravestone?

 

In this story, a young boy comes to Holmes for help.  When this boy, the heir to a considerable country estate, discovers several gravestones with absolutely malicious things on them in the isolated family plot, and finds that one relative he never heard of before died every year at around the same time for the last several years, he’s concerned, and passes his suspicions on to Holmes.  

 

It’s a story of anger, revenge, and a Christmas miracle at the end.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His Agatha-nominated book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.