May 11, 2025 • 56 mins
Acclaimed author, editor, and podcast host Paul Bishop joins Eric for a lively conversation about his latest book, 52 Weeks 52 Sherlock Holmes Novels. In this engaging discussion, Paul offers a thoughtful introduction to Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective, sharing tips on where newcomers should start, exploring why Sherlock Holmes remains timeless, and delving into the wide world of adaptations—from classic stories and novels to films, TV series, comics, and anime—that have kept the great sleuth alive for nearly 140 years. Watch the video on YT HERE.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, Hello, this is Eric with the Paperback Warrior blog,
podcast and YouTube channel. As you can see on your
screen here, I've got a guest.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
With me today. I've got Paul Bishop.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
He's a thirty five year old he wants to be
thirty five years old.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Again, okay. He's a thirty five year veteran of the
Los Angeles Police Department. He's authored fifteen novels, numerous scripts
for television and future films. Viewers and listeners to the
show probably have experienced Paul's voice on the excellent, award
winning six Gun Justice podcast that he co hosted with
fellow scribe Richard Prash. Paul, Welcome to Paperback Warrior.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Great. I've been looking forward to this. I've been following
Paperback Warriors since the start, and in fact, honestly it
was the inspiration for six Gun Justice podcasts. So kudos
to you leading.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The one awesome. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
You and I had a pleasure of working together previously
on your own podcast. I think I guessed there at
least maybe once for some brief commentary on paperbacks, and
I chatted on the phone a couple of times. But
this is our actual first face to face discussion has
long overdue, so again, thanks for being on.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
The on the show today.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Great Paul.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I've read some of your books, not all of them,
but some, and I'm gonna highlight.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Just just a few.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Series titles in case someone out there has been living
off the uh. I don't know the literary grid, so
to speak. And you can correct me if I'm wrong
on any of these titles. My wife does it all
the time. She's always telling me I'm wrong. Perhaps you
can also, you know, kind of provide a brief synopsis
of these series titles, if that's cool with you.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Sure, all right.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
So you have the.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Fake Croker series of detective novels, and I think there
were five of those novels, and they're in paperback in
digital and there's also a short story collection too, correct.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, the the Fake Croker series was like starting. I
think my fourth or fifth book was the first Fake
Croker book. And and I'll to that point, I had
real trouble establishing a serious character because I put my
characters through so much. At the beginning of the book,
they're one character. By the end of the book, they've
(02:09):
you know, changed. And so even before I sold the
Fake Croker first Fay Croker book, I had actually written
out of four book story arc, so it progression for
the character. The plots are all standalone, but she would
be in various places along the way and that worked
for me, and that and eventually ended up being a
(02:31):
five book series, and so you know, that was the
start really of when I began to have publishing success,
serious success.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Those Croker novels, they were also they were optioned for
screenwrit suit.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Right, they have been. My most option book is called
Citadel Run. It's now called Hot Pursuit title Change when
we went to Kendall, and that has been option forty
eight times with a diminishing amount of option money each time.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Forty eight times. Yeah, it's gonna that's unbelievable. Yeah, that's Calico,
Jack Walker and Tina Tamaco, Tomko Yeah, okay, And and
they were in Citadel Run. And then also another paperback
as well.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, they were released this sequel to that, which was
Sand against the Tide, gotcha, And I have to agree
to a little bit of pumping up there. It was
actually twenty four times that spin options. So even that's
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
The uh, the other books that are a part of
a series anyway that we'll talk about is the fight
card books, which he wrote at least three of those.
I think Felony Fist, Swamp Wallaper, and the Chicago Punch.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, so those those that was something that fellowscribe mel
Odom and I started out doing. We we we'd been
having a conversation about the the sports stories and the
boxing stories from back in the day of the pulps
and how much we liked them and inviired them, and
we went, well, let's, you know, let's write a couple. So,
you know, he did the first two, you know, he did,
(04:11):
I did one, he did two, three, four, And so
we were, you know, at that point, experimenting with the
wide world of kindle, and we were releasing them ourselves,
and a bunch of our buddies went, hey, can we
write one of these? And by the time we were done,
we have fifty titles out there in the Fight Cards series,
paperback and ebook. So and you would think that that
(04:34):
would be a very limiting genre, but what fascinated me
about it was each story was completely different, everybody's different
take on a character. Even though the boxing Miliu we said,
you know, the boxing Milliu couldn't just be the background.
It had to be part of the book. It couldn't
(04:54):
just be an xboxer who does a mystery. It had
to be you know, the b a and end all
reason for the book to be around. And with that
in mind, that worked really really well.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Great.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, I had the pleasure of reading Felony Fist and
Swamp Wallaper and I've got a review coming up, and
I've got some of your commentary as well, just regarding
race relations and things like that, so I'm looking forward
to posting that.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Great.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You know. The interesting thing about that series was we
established it as an author co op, which is really
kind of unusual. So even though the books were published
all under the same house name, each author launched his
own books and handed his handled his own sales on Amazon.
But along the way, whoever wrote the book, somebody else
(05:40):
at another one of the editor, one of the authors
from the series edited it, somebody did the cover art,
somebody did the formatting, and not all kind of trade
it off. So we mitigated the cost of that through
this cooperation of the authors involved. And I thought that
was really kind of unusual, especially for its time.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, that's really interesting. That's almost like a village effort altogether.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It takes a village to write a book.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I guess, right, Well, you also have the fifty two
week series, which is sort of our main event of
today's episode. What we're going to be discussing is your
brand new fifty two weeks book. Momentarily, but thus far,
the fifty two Weeks books include fifty two Western novels,
fifty two Western movies, and fifty two Western TV shows,
(06:27):
all these co written with Scott Harris.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah. Scott was a good buddy of mine, very much
into westerns, and good friend of the six Gun Justice podcast,
and he had done something just for himself fifty two
weeks fifty two novels, which he'd put together fifty two
books that he'd read over the course of a year.
Any published it for friends and family, I guess, and
(06:52):
we began talking about it, and I could see real
potential for it, and so we designed fifty two weeks
fifty two Western novels, and that was a big enough
success that we went on to movies and Western TV shows.
But the basic behind it was these would be fifty
two essays on fifty two different Western novels, written by
(07:14):
guys who chose the novel themselves, be it obscure or
well known, and write about not a plot, synopsis or
a review, but what the book actually meant to them.
What time of their life did they read this book,
what was the you know, the import of this book
to them? And so we got these really personal essays
(07:35):
that made that series stand out from you know, other
similar type of reference works. And you know when when
I kind of put aside my Western enthusiasms after three
or four or five years and got back into Sherlock Holmes,
I went, hey, and I can apply the same format
(07:56):
to Sherlock Holmes in a way that that hasn't been
done before.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And that brings this full circle to your new book,
which is fifty two weeks fifty two Sherlock Holmes Novels,
and the book set for release on May sixteenth on
Genius Book Publishing. It's going to be offered as an ebook,
but also in a deluxe hardcover edition with bonus content,
which we'll talk about in a moment. But the blurb
create paperback, Okay, the blurb promises traditional favorites and exciting
(08:25):
new discoveries. Paul, tell me about your journey from the
dusty Western Planes all the way to twenty one B
Baker Street in Victoria, London.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
How did this happen?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You know, My first encounter with SHEHERYLA. Holmes came when
I was quite young. I came to America when I
was eight years old, only child, very very English parents
who dressed me funny and sent me to school with
a funny accent, and so you know, became you know,
obviously when you stand out like that. I lost my
(08:57):
accent very quickly because it was the most obvious thing.
But there was you know, all the kids were into
Superman and Spider Man and all of those other characters
of the time, and Sherlock Holmes became to me my
version of that. It helped me to stand out and
be different if I, you know, if I was going
to be treated differently than I was going to be different.
(09:17):
It's kind of a thing that's carried through my life,
and so Sherlock Holmes really kind of tied into that
for me. My grandmother had given me a copy of
the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to read on the ship
coming over, and so I was really caught up in that.
Over the years I've I've kind of gone in and
out of Sherlockian fandom. I was a member of the
(09:38):
non canonical Calabashes, which was at that time the LA
based chapter of the Sherlock Holmes Society. So did some
things with them, and then you know, other enthusiasms takeover
as they do. But you know, when when I finally
put a you know, kind of a stop gap on
(09:59):
the Western and was casting around for something, and I
so enjoyed Johnny Lee Miller's portrayal and elementary of Sherlock
Holmes and looked around at so many of the updates
and other things that were still going on and going
why is this character still around? What is it? And
I very rapidly found at as I got into reading
(10:21):
the past issues. Now we know there's only four original novels,
so fifty two weeks, fifty two Sherlock Holmes novels. We're
talking about pastiche novels here that have been written by
somebody else other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But using
those characters and that Mill.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
You, yeah, what is it about Paul? What's it about
Sherlock Holmes as the character that consistently makes that a
hobby of yours. What specific do you like about Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Well, I think, you know, there's kind of two things,
and it works for me, and I think it works
for the wider audience. Is Sherlock Holmes is very much
about bringing order to chaos, right, we can rely on
him to have the answers. But also, Sherlock Holmes is
an odd character and in many ways he's a cipher
(11:15):
that each one of us can put our characteristics onto.
He can be whoever we need him to be, and
I think that's kind of what makes him very versatile
within the wider world. We each come to this character
differently and have different needs met by this, you know,
kind of lightning in a bottle character that Arthur, Cohen
(11:36):
and Doyle came up with and tried to get rid
of and then had to come back to him. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, he had a love hate relationship with the character's
no doubt, right.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
But I mean the character is so important that when
he killed him off, sent him over the rockenback falls,
men in London were worrying black armbands for the death
of Sherlock Holmes, right, I mean, this was it was
like a mass hysterious sort of thing for really the
first time for a fictional character that so many people
(12:06):
wanted him to be real and needed him in their lives.
And this is why there was this this morning.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And you touched on that you've read the books and
and obviously enjoy the books. For me personally, you know,
I like, I like X Men comic books, and I've
been reading them most of my entire life, But I
don't watch the movies and I don't watch the animated shows.
When it comes to show like Holmes, are you open
minded to embrace it all? Do you like comics, movies, TV?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Do you watch it?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Watch it all?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I am? You know, there there are the uber traditionalists
who don't like anything outside of the four novels and
fifty six short stories, and then there are traditionalists who will,
you know, give you some leeway. And then there's folks
like me who go, well, I'll give everything a try.
If I don't like it, I won't read it or
watch it. But it's fine that it's there. I think
(12:59):
any think that, you know, keeps the character at the
forefront of public consciousness is a good thing. You know,
the current show Watson that's come out you know, kind
of a modern day Watson after Holmes is dead. I've
watched two or three episodes of that, and I'm not
sure how much more I'm gonna watch of it. It
(13:20):
just isn't hitting with me yet. I don't know if
he's found his feet yet. But the fact of the
matter is, I'm delighted that it's out there. I'm delighted
that it's been renewed for a new season because there
are people who are going to come to Sherlock Holmes
through that TV show, you know. And then the other
recent thing is, you know, Sherlock and Daughter. Well, that's
got everybody in the Sherlockian community into a tizzy fit
(13:41):
because Sherlock Holmes can't have a daughter, et cetera, et cetera.
But you know what you get, David Fuele's in the
lead role, and he's fantastic, and the storyline is not
exactly what you're thinking it's going to be, and I
actually like that show better.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Okay, well, when did you start to strategize about amassing
a book about Sherlock Holmes's literature?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
You know, there are over According to Autopenzler, who owns
a mysterious bookshop and kind of a mystery Maven. He
claims that there were over twenty five thousand Shrilock Hoomb's pastiches,
and I have no reason to doubt him, and so
I'm going, Wow, that's that's a ton. How do people
who come to Cherlock holmbs today find their way into this?
(14:28):
With so much out there? You know, some of it's
going to be really really good and some of it's
going to be really really bad. It's just law of averages.
So I figured that if I could apply that same
reasoning that we used on the fifty two Western books,
that whoever wrote the essay about the book had a
personal connection to it and could explain that, then I thought,
(14:53):
you know, we might have something we you know, and
it's not going to be just all of the regular
books that you look at, the most successful, the best selling,
Churlock Holmes's pastiches. They're going to be all different kinds
of things. In fact, one of the books that we
do is Peter Ackerman, who's been a friend of mine
(15:15):
for years. He his father, Harriet Ackerman, was the producer
of so many of the sixties and seventies situation comedies,
be Witchhed and all of this kind of stuff. So
I asked him, because I knew he was a Sherlock
Holmes fan, if he would write, you know, one of
these essays, go ahead and choose the book. So he
(15:35):
chooses something called Sherlock Holmes in New York. It's a
very very mediocre, very you know, paperback novelization of a
very very mediocre TV movie starring Robert excuse me, starring
Roger Moore as Sherlock Holmes. Okay, so why is this
book even being considered? Because Peter was able to lose
(15:58):
to date exactly why this book was important to him,
where it came along in his life, and how it
turned him into a lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan. And I went,
this is exactly why I'm putting this book together. It's
for this kind of of information. I had another contributor,
(16:18):
Amy Thomas. She's one of the Baker Street Babes, which
is a Sherlock Holmes chapter of the you know, Sherlock
Holms Society. Obviously very feminine minded, you know, it's kind
of like sisters and crime men can join, but the
focus is more female. And she had written an article
or blog post about the Imperfect detective. I believe it
(16:40):
was my disease and me and and she's had a
long term illness, you know, debilitating illness over the years,
just goes on and on. But the constant through that
was Sherlock Holmes. And she tied into this character because
of his otherness. She felt other because of her debilitation,
(17:01):
and she found solace in homes. And she wrote so
eloquently about this. I went, God, this needs a wider audience.
And so and that's when I determined that, you know,
she actually wrote about a book, she wrote about The
Beekeeper's Apprentice by Lourie King. But I got her to
expand on this essay and put it in is what
(17:22):
I call intermission pieces in the book. So we have,
you know, ten pastiche essays and then an intermission piece
like Amy's. I went to some other people who had
different areas of Sherlock Holmes expertise, publishing Sherlock Holmes, drawing
(17:44):
for Sherlock Holmes, and collecting Sherlock Holmes, manufacturing Sherlock Holmes items.
And so I wanted each one of them to elucidate
them why that made them, you know, Sherlock Holmes important
to them and I think it really added to the
depth of the book.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Did you ever get to a point where, maybe early
on that, you know, we were just talking about twenty
five thousand pastiaches across all these different media platforms. Did
you ever ever just go, hey, you know this is
too big for me, this is way too complex to tackle.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
You know, I really didn't. I've kind of since I
got back into this over the last year, I probably
amassed three hundred and fifty four hundred Shirlock Holmes books.
But I was driven by what attracted me, and that
can be a cover, it can be a series, concept,
anything along those lines. And I've gone into anime for
(18:38):
Sherlock Holmes, anime and various other areas trying to look
and expand what this is, you know, not just books,
but all kinds of things. And from that perspective, I
found it fairly easy to maneuver my way through just
by if I didn't like something, if it didn't appeal
to be, then I moved on.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Okay, well, this book it's roughly three hundred and forty
pages as it is your release, I believe, and four
hundred and sixty two pages in trade paperback.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, okay, and it's.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
It's presented in five parts. Each part looks at ten
to twelve pastichas individually, beginning with Baring Gould's Sherlock Holmes
of Baker Street. And I had the pleasure of flipping
through your book this morning before before we went on air.
Did you have like a particular order in mind when
you organize these books? Is this your favorite sort of
(19:35):
ranked from the best to the good or what's the order?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Meaning?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I made an editorial decision early on that they were
going to be put in the book, and the order
that they came in.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Okay, all right?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That said, there was a little bit of massaging because
a couple of the authors wrote two, you know, and
so I needed to split those up. But in general,
it's just the way that they came in because I
didn't really have any other ranking for them.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Okay, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I was really curious about that with your uh, with
your format of these of the prior fifty two weeks books,
you know, the same thing here. Each each one of
these past each books has about a five to seven
page essay written by a Holmes historian, fan writer, slash creator.
(20:23):
How did you go about contacting all these people to
get them involved in your project, and were they mostly
enthusiastic about the concept.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
You know, all the ones that obviously contributed were very
enthusiastic about it, and and for the most part, I didn't.
I had a couple of people say who I contacted
and had contact with who came back and said, project
sounds great, but I am just swamped with other work.
I just can't do this. And you know, fair enough,
(20:53):
there were others who were eminent Sherilokians who had no
idea who this guy Paul Bishop was that was bugging
him and wouldn't even respond, so they lost out. But
others were you know, writer friends of mine who I
know enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, so that those formed the basis
of this. And then I began to you know, look
at who we're writing the big pastiche serieses that were
(21:16):
popular today and reach out to them, and most of
them were very excited to be able to contribute to
something that would also push their own work. So yeah,
from that perspective, not that this was used commercially for that,
but they get to mention their name guts out there,
and I think their love of Sherlock Holmes made them
want to do this, so I made a lot of
(21:37):
new friends along the way.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I noticed that each essays presented with sort of uniformly
with book facts, author facts, beyond the facts and fun facts.
Did you make up those parameters when you asked the
writers to consumers of the book that they needed to
conform to this.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, that was something that we established early on in
the fifty two book series. That's the way we wanted
to to lay it out. You know, you give some
background on the book, you give a little bit of
background on the author, and then the beyond the fact
section is where they go into what's special about this book?
And then fun facts is again just something oddball about
the book or about the situation that they find interesting,
(22:16):
and you know, some people are going to find other
things interesting. The book is designed not to be really
read from cover to cover. The book is designed to
be dipped into and out of as whatever strikes your fancy,
because obviously there's gonna be essays about books that you're
not going to care about in there, So pass it
by and go on to the next one, because you'll
(22:37):
find something that will We'll intrigue you.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
All embarrassing say that. In the past when I've had
I used to collect Martin Popoff's music books.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
He was a Canadian journalist.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
He wrote books, but they were in the same way
where you'd get like a five or six h essay
on an album, and.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Paul I used to always keep him in the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Absolutely, it's bathroom reading at its best.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, five to six minutes. I'm good.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That's for the guys among us. Doesn't really work the way.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You talked briefly about the intermissions, and in between each
part there is an intermission. What can you tell me
about those intermissions?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What are they? Why are they included?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
I really included them to kind of break up this
run of pastiches essays. I wanted something kind of like
a palate cleanser in between, and so I was looking
for things that maybe hadn't been written about or addressed
in Shrilockan culture. So I went to raw Ron Fortier
(23:44):
of Airship twenty seven Publishing, and his company has published
twenty volumes of Sherlock Holms short stories, pastiches and so
I you know, okay, obviously Ron's got a love for
Sherlock Holms. It's some of their best selling books. So, Ron,
tell me about publishing Sherlock Holms stories. Why is that important?
(24:05):
How do you do it? Where do these stories come from?
You know? And why is Sherlock holmbs important to you?
Rob Davies, who's he's partner, illustrates all twenty of those volumes. Now,
Sherlock Holms illustrations are kind of a subgenre within the
Sherlock Holmes community. So Rob, how did you get inspired
for these, you know, drawings of Sherlock Holmes? Who were
(24:28):
your models? What inspiration did you draw from? And has
that increased your love of Sherlock Holms. So there's two
things right there that were different that hadn't been written about,
and that's really what I was looking for. Dana Mancini
is a well known Sherlockian and he does a lot
(24:48):
of key chains and gigas and coasters and things all
with Sherlock Holmes on them, related which he takes to
conventions and things like that. Okay, so tell me about
man manufacturing Sherlock Holmes. Where does this come from? How'd
you get those ideas? While I was an engineer in
my other life and I applied this to I'm going, wow,
this is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, okay, Well, you know, you've been talking about the
book quite a bit over the last year or so
on you on your Facebook posts and things. And to
be honest, when I heard about the book and kind
of going into it, I was thinking, well, this.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Is going to be a book about old books, and I.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Was expecting a lot of nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies paperback reviews.
But honestly, it was a pleasant surprise to find that
a lot of these past issues that you're writing about
have been written in the past twenty five years. In fact,
I think I counted before it came on this port
or before it came on today, I counted twenty eight
of them that are featured have all been written in
(25:47):
the twenty first century. Did that surprise you?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah? And I think part of it has to do
with our modern reading habits, right, and so not all
of us like you and I are digging into, you know,
the the historical paperback world that we're so familiar with.
And I think people pick things up as they come
out and as they're growing up. These are the books
(26:09):
that they have access to, and I think that's how
they get drawn in so yeah, it was a little
bit of a surprise, but looking back, I can see
it makes sense through this.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Whole process of compiling all these essays and just overall,
what did you learn about Sherlock Holmes the character when
you were writing and constructing this.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I realized how versatile he is. And now, no matter
if it's science fiction, time travel, romance, whatever your genre is, mystery, anything,
Sherlock Holmes can be applied to it. If you love anime,
you can find Sherlock Holmes stuff that you're really really
gonna dig. If you like short stories, there's a ton
(26:52):
of them out there. If you like the novels, there's
a ton of them out there. TV series, right, whatever
it may be, the movies. You know. It was very
interesting to me that when I started my journey back
into Sherlock Holmes, one of the first past issues that
I read was a study in Crimson by Robert Harris,
(27:15):
and basically it updates Sherlock Holmes in nineteen forty two,
and I found that fascinating. Well, talk to him and
I come to find out that the original three films
with Basil Rathbom were done by one movie studio and
they were set in Victorian London, and they really didn't
do very well. Another studio took over the franchise and
(27:37):
they updated it to nineteen forty two, and those are
the twelve Sherlock Holmes films that we all know and love.
I went, wow, I so associate Sherlock Holmes with Victorian London,
but he really fits in nineteen forty two as well,
So he also fits in the twenty first century. To me,
it's a fascinating conundrum. And then to see what people
(28:00):
do with the concept of Sherlock Holmes without even mentioning
Sherlock Holmes. The biggest example for me is the show
House House is Sherlock Holmes in a hospital, you know,
with a you know, brilliant, grouchy character who is explained
and seen through the eyes of his companion buddy who
(28:24):
you know. And for me, you know, you see this
over and over again on television and other areas that
this character can be by any other name, still Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
The book comes in two different versions, as we just
mentioned earlier, But what are the differences? What are the
extra hundred and twenty pages get you?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
So? I mean, we're obviously going to do an ebook,
and that's going to be the same content as the
trade paperback, which is solid. We decided to do a
limited edition hardcover just because I got a wire hair
up me and decided I wanted to do that, and
so they'll be signed and numbered, and they will include
bonus information. There's essays on the four original novels, kind
(29:12):
of re examinations of those four original Sherlock Holmes novels
in there, and and then other bonus content essays about
Sherlock holmbs around the world, the Russian Sherlock Holmes, the
Indian Sherlock Holmes, all of these different iterations of homes,
the future of Sherlock Holmes, and those types of essays
(29:32):
that that add into this lower Sarah Faan did the
cover that you can see there behind you for the
trade paperbag. Tony Macero, who's another cover artist trend of mine,
did the cover for the trade paperback excuse me, for
the limited edition hardcover, so again it will offer another bonuses.
It's it's different cover.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, it's it's it's it's great. Like I said, I
had a chances to browse through it this morning and
I was just flabbergasted by the amount of material in there.
What would you say to someone who's just saying, you
know what, I don't want another book about books, and
I don't want to book about a bunch of you know,
it has a bunch of reviews, and I can just
read reviews any old place. What do you say to
that potential buyer that's kind of on that on the
(30:18):
edge of whether they want to spend money on this.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Honestly, I say, don't read the book if you're enthusiastic
about it. If you don't, if that's your attitude, then
you know you're missing out. But that's fine, right, I mean,
come to this book if you love Cherlock Holmes and
just want to have another reason to go into that world.
If you're on the edge about it, you know, got
to ask yourself, do I like Charlock Holmes or do
(30:42):
I think is an anachronism, and you know, make your
decision that way. Fortunately, you know, like the fifty two
Western books, which were pretty much self published by Scott
and I, that's what I was planning to do with this.
But I hooked up with Stephen Booth, who's the publisher
at Genius Publishing. At a conference in Las Vegas. We
(31:05):
were both talking on a panel there and got talking
to him about this project and basically he said, I
want to do that. You know, I said, I've already
got one Sherlock Holmes books in my inventory. I want
to do this and I want to establish a Sherlock
Holmes brand at Genius Books. And so between this and
(31:27):
another book that I brought in from a buddy of mine,
David Foster, called Baker Street, which is amazing compendium of
all kinds of stuff, that's what's really starting off Genius
Books on this Sherlock Holmes imprint. And it's been a
joy to work for them. With them, they really caught
onto the idea of what I was trying to do,
gave me a free hand editorially, and it's been a dream.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I know, as a newbie to Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And you are going to talk a little bit about
the new kind of for someone who's brand new to
this kind of thing, but for me being a newbie,
an wear this book out because I'm going to use
it as a roadmap. It'll it'll lead me to you know,
what to read, and it's it's a guide and I
appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Well. I think you and I talked a while back
and you were saying to me, you know, I haven't
read share Lock Hoolms before. I want to read a
Sholock Holm's novel. What would you suggest? So I suggested
The Hounds of Hound of the Baskerville's And then you
went and read something else.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, I actually did. I did I read first?
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Maybe I don't know. I think you picked up something
else by the time I got back to you with.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
With the yeah I have with the think I yeah,
I think I read Scarlet Study in Scarlet, Study in
Scarlet first and then I read Hound.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Uh. You gave it a big rave on on the
Paperback Warrior blog. You really really seem to get into
it and enjoy it. And oh wow, there's this whole
other world out here with all these stories, and I
really really enjoyed this. I can see why people are
fanatical about this.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, and you guys, we've discussed doing a video on
Sherlock Holmes for a while now. The character of the
book stories, the intricacies of you know, the Sherlockian culture,
I guess, and I wanted to go with you for
just a little bit and sort of provide a primer
for new readers that may be intimidated buy something this big,
(33:18):
where to start, what to read in terms of the
original Arthur Conandoyle works as that go with you if
we kind of go down that path for a little bit.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, I mean, if you've never read Sherlock Holmes before,
I don't know that you necessarily want to start with
this book. You'll enjoy it, and it'll give you a
lot of suggestions, but fully understand that, you know, I
would suggest at least reading The Hound of the Baskervilles
and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which is the first
book with the short stories, and I think that will
give you the flavor. And quite frankly, you're either going
(33:50):
to put it back on the shelf if it's not
for you, or you're all over going a sudden want
to go through all fifty six of the original short
stories and get caught up in it and then you
know when and those pastor you're gonna go, where's more
Sherlock Holmes and this is the book for you?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I think for me years ago, I would I was
kind of looking at Sherlock Holmes and thinking, well, you
know what, that's just that's just old stuff from like
the eighteen hundreds, and it doesn't appeal to me, and
I'm just gonna ignore it as challenges that that sounds
a lot of people just get intimidated by it, the
same way that I talked to kids today that are
intimidated by Batman.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Or Star Wars or Doctor Who.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
They just they don't want to take on that and to.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Start in the fully established culture. Yeah, you know, it's
hard to dip into Star Wars. It's hard to you know,
to dip into even Indiana Jones, right, I mean, you've
got to start somewhere. But there's so much else that
come out of this, and it's interesting to me that
there's this kind of a human need to bond over
this stuff and to enlarge the universe of something that
(34:54):
you love, you know, and that certainly has happened in
the Sherilockian world. I mean, you can go to any
country in the world say Sherlock Holmes and people know
exactly what you're talking about. It doesn't matter, you know,
if there's a language barrier. What you say Sherlock Holmes
and people's ears perk up and they want to talk
to you about it, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Well, when we talked, we talked about where to start,
and you and I had a brief conversation through a
Facebook messenger about it.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
You you had kind of surprised me.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
You said you like the four books, the four novels,
but you said to start with the short stories first.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
So why is that?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I think they're more accessible and and I actually for me,
for me, they're better written. The structure of the novels,
which often includes a long backstory in which Sherlock Holmes
isn't involved. I struggle through those parts of the novels.
(35:50):
Right the short stories, Sherlock Holmes is on every page
and you're right there with them. The best selling series
by Laurie camp of the Mary Russell series, where fifteen
year old Mary Russell hooks up with a retired Sherlock Holmes,
they are incredibly well written. When Sherlock Holmes isn't on
(36:11):
the page, I'm bored. And that's just me. I'm not
a judgment on those books, which are beloved, but for me,
they work best when Sherlock Holmes is on the page. There,
and that's why I say the short stories, if you
really want to get to know Sherlock Holmes. That's where
to start.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Are there any prerequisites required to read a particular Holmes work?
Is there like intricate sees through stories that are addressed
over the court of the novels.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You know, Victorian England is really kind of in the
cultural zeygeeest zegeist. We all know what that kind of
looks like and what that is. And if even if
you don't, I think very quickly you'll get into it
in the books because the atmosphere is so well done
and you're drawn into this. You want to be out
(37:00):
in two twenty one b Baker Street, you want to
be out on the cobblestone streets of Victorian London and
the mist in a handsome cab, and you know, all
of that stuff adds excitement to the stories and brings
this real vermissilitude to it.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
When I read about Sherlock Holmes and I get down
the rabbit hole, so to speak, the thing that gets
thrown around a lot that I don't understand is what
in the heck is the great game?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Okay, so the great game is something that's established by
excuse me, established by the Sherlock Holms societies, which are
really really intense relationship with Sherlock Holmes, and they will
treat Sherlock Holmes as if he is a real person.
(37:46):
And sometimes it's tongue in cheek, and sometimes they're deadly
serious about this. And so they will explore the chronology
of Sherlock Holmes and argue over, you know, what is
Watson in the After game Wars? Was he shot the
leg or shot in the arm? Because Arthur co is
both ways. And so they really get into the minutia
(38:08):
of this, and really it's their love of the character
that make playing the game fun and and they don't
want their world shaken by having to admit that Sherlock
Holmes is not real. To them. He is and I
think that's great. You know, it's a little little too
much for me, but it's great.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
How much influence did Edgar Allan Poe have on Arthur
Conan Doyle. Did Did Poe create the Sherlock Holmes prototype?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I don't really think so. You know, Poe created a detective,
but he wasn't really Holmes yet. He did really start
the detective genre in many ways. But it really is
Arthur Conan Doyle who gave us a detective story as
(38:58):
we know it. And I think that's another reason why
I caught on so well and Strand magazine is is
that that this was a really a newly born genre.
It's been around for a little while. There have been
various iterations. You can argue the history of the detective story,
but in reality, this is when detective genre became popular
(39:22):
and it's all down to Sherlock Holmes and probably one
of the reasons why the genre is still so strong
today because this was such a brilliant entry into that.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
As you talked about earlier in the in our interview.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Here, creators have placed Sherlock Holmes in all sorts of
time periods and situations. We've seen Holmes battle Dracula, try
tout down Jack the Ripper, investigate mister Hyde, stock global disaster.
I've even seen I've seen, you know, at Tarzan team up.
I've seen a team of with Batman, Tom and Jerry, Ghostbusters,
(39:54):
you name it. Is there a team up that you
fantasize about that has haven't come to fruition yet?
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You know? That's that's an interesting question and one I
really haven't thought about because I think that that Sherlock
Holmes for me, really works best on his own as
an individual, right, I mean, he he is, he's you know,
difficult to understand, and I think he would be difficult
to work with because he's got his way of doing things,
(40:26):
and he's got his ego and he's got, you know this,
this brilliance about him. And I don't necessarily think that
Mesh is real well with other characters from other ips
for lack of a better term. So I'm happy with
Holmes being Holmes. And and you know what I like
(40:49):
to see is an intelligent Watson. You know, I don't
like the Nigel Bruce of the Basil Rathbone films, who's
kind of this bumbling fool, because really that's not the
way that Watson has written. Watson is just the everyman. No.
Is he as smart as Sherlock Holmes. No, but he
is a very brave individual, intelligent individual. He's a doctor.
(41:09):
I mean, the man is not an incompetent and so
I like the way he was portrayed by Jude Law
in The Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films. That kind of
a man of action. So that's kind of what I
look like for a team up is Sherlock Holmes with
a competent Watson.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Before I get into some deeper stuff with psychological meaning
and things like that, I want to fastball with you
for a moment.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Sure, all right, do you have a favorite Sherlock movie?
Speaker 3 (41:38):
My favorite Sherlock Holmes movie would be the first Sherlock
Holmes with Guy Richie film.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Okay, with Robert Downey Juniors as Sherlock. Okay, how about.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
TV show definitely elementary elementary Okay, with Johnny Lee Miller
and Lucy lou and quite frankly, now, Johnny Lee Miller
has portrayed Holmes on the big screen small screen more
than any other actor because they were doing so many
shows and you know, over two hundred episodes that in
many ways he has become endemic with the character.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
For me, and you may have already answered this question,
what actor really really gets the character?
Speaker 3 (42:19):
You know? I do think that Basil Rathbone is a
traditional Sherlock Holmes. Okay, I mean he really really kind
of laid that out. He kind of emphasizes the deer
stalker hat and the Meerstrom pipe, which really aren't Sherlock Holmes,
but they've become Sherlock Holmes. I think there's one drawing
of Sherlock Holmes from the original stories where he's wearing
(42:40):
a deer stalker cap and an Invernesque cape. That's because
he's going to the countryside, and that's what you wore
at the countryside. It's not something that he would wear
running around London. Yeah, so, and that's why, you know,
you look at the cover of fifty two weeks fifty
two Sherlock Holmes novels is not wearing a deer stalker
and you know, I wanted to have a young die
ynamic Sherlock Holmes on the cover, and the deer stalker
(43:03):
is the fuddy duddy Sherlock Holmes to me. Although you
see that and you immediately think Sherlock Holmes, right, So yeah,
Basil Rathbone and and I I liked Benedict Cumberbatch in
the first couple of seasons. After that the whole show
got a little squishy for me, and so Johnny Lee
Miller really after the first season where they finally zeroed
(43:27):
in on what they wanted to do with the character
and stop having him go off of prostitutes and all
this kind of stuff that they did in the first season,
I think he really made that character his own.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
The best this could be on paper, r on on film,
the best Sherlock Holmes character that's not named Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Okay, so I mean we talked about House, but I
think Professor T from the PBS series and that started
out as a Belgium series and became a franchise to
many different countries. How did it become a successful franchise
because Professor T is really Sherlock Holmes, and the character
(44:11):
just translates. So I like those different portrayals. I've watched
most of the different series from different countries and have
really enjoyed that character.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
So we'll go off speed here with some deeper stuff.
Why do you think why do you think a character
that's so emotionally detached is so beloved and compelling after
all these years?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
In today's society especially, we are not emotionless and detached.
We all hook onto those things. Proocon whatever side you're
on that we're vociferous about. Sherlock Holmes cuts right through
all of that stuff. And it doesn't matter where your
political or social you know, sympathies, lie Garlock Holmes doesn't
(45:00):
offend any of them or he offends all of them
one way or the other, and so it is a
constant and can be relied upon to be that constant.
And for me, I think Sherlock Holmes is kind of
a resting place from the noise of the world. Right, Okay,
we can all take a breath. We don't have to
(45:21):
get in an argument with Sherlock Holmes about politics or
money situations or more. We can just sit down and
watch Sherlock Holmes do his thing whoever we are. And
I really think that's why he's taken such a hold
on us as a as a society.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Do you have a favorite minor character besides Holmes and Watson.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
You know, and I do like Missus Hudson because I'd
love to have a Missus Hudson, right, I mean, she's
such a she is Holmes is anchor in these stories, right,
She's she's there all the time. So, you know, I
appreciate Missus Hudson. But you know, I like the character
(46:04):
of Inspector Gregson because he's not really the bully that
Lestrade is. He's not a pushover for Holmes, but he
also kind of gives him credit where credit's due, and
so that's the character. Uh. If I was to write
about a minor character, as many people do, but there's
a whole series with Missus Hudson, there's a whole series
with Inspector Lestrade. There's a whole series with the Wiggins,
(46:27):
who was the head of the Baker Street Irregulars. That's
all growing up now. But if I was to write
something about a minor character, it would be about Inspector Gregson.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
M I understand you. You belong to a Sherlock Holmes society,
which I've gathered there's numerous gatherings across the world.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
He is what is the one in La the Curious
Collectors of Baker Street is that, you know, the noncanonical Calabashes,
which I was part of. They've they've gone the way
of the West and this is the new. So they
have outings on a regular basis. Santa Anita Racetrack each
year holds a Silver Blaze race, Silver Blaze being a
(47:07):
story from the Sherlock Holmes canon featuring a stolen race horse,
and so there's always an outing to sant Anita to
have a big picnic and hang out and be social
and if you so desire, couseplay Sherlock Holmes, which I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Right, Well, what is I guess what?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
What is what experience at these at these meetings or
society meetings?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
What do you do there? Reach together?
Speaker 3 (47:33):
It's a social gathering, I mean more intense ones get
together to read monographs and debate Sherlock Holm's minutia. But
I think for the most part, the most successful ones
are we love Sherlock Holmes. Let's all get together and
have a drink and have a good time. Yeah, okay,
you may have a mutual interest in the character.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Okay, And you may have answered this one earlier, because
I think you touched on this. If we're to say that,
like Holmes represents order and structure over chaos and disorganization,
do you think his popularity relates to how a rational
particular society is during uh, during certain times.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
I think you're You're probably right. I think he does. Again.
You know, we talked about him being that constant that
that you know, he is, he is our our stake
in the ground and that we can hang on to
the iron rod that we need to keep ourselves centered
in many ways, and without him, you know, I think
(48:34):
you know, so many people fly off in so many
different directions and get so over the top, and and
you know, that's just the way we are currently at
the moment. We're very polarized, and I think it takes
a character like Sherlock Holmes to you know, say to everybody,
all right, shut up, sit down and watch this episode
of Elementary or whatever it might be, and then we
(48:55):
all enjoy it. Right. You know, That's where I think
that's where the TV show Sherlock fell down, is it
got away from the character being the character and began
to service an agenda that wasn't appealing to many people,
and that got away from what the character really is.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
How do you how do you take the parody stuff?
Does that affect you? Do you feel like it diminishes
the character anything?
Speaker 3 (49:22):
It's out there. There's some good parody stuff, but most
of it. I'm not big on parody in general, right,
So to me, that's something that I don't really follow.
But people, you know, enjoy that stuff, and some of
it's very well done, so you can't condemn it out
of hand.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
I'm a big fan of horror movies and I love
the seventies and eighties stuff in them and the slashers.
I always love the slasher movies, and it pains me
when my daughter showed me the dance routine of Michael
Myers or Jason Vore.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
He's doing a fortnight dance and just drives me crazy.
Like you just ruin everything. I get it.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
I mean, I think you know films like you know
Sherlock Holmes is Smarter brother and things like that. You
know there's a place for that. And and there was
a movie with Will Murray that that was just not
Will Will Ferrell. I bet Will Murray, our buddy, would
have liked to have started that Will Ferrell and and
(50:24):
you know it doesn't work for me, but that's just
not my kind of humor. So like you, I prefer
to play it home straight.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Have you have you visited any Sherlock Holmes places, like
any trade marked places?
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Absolutely? We we were back in England last year and
so I made an absolute pilgrimage to the Sherlock Holmes
pub down there and had dinner there with my wife
and and you know, looked at their little museum room
and and uh, okay, it was very kitchy. I enjoyed
the heck out of it. So for me, it was
it was well worth doing.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Well wrapping up here, I wanted to turn back to
your book for just a second again, fifty two weeks
to Sherlock Holmes Stories. The book examines the Sherlock Holmes
pastiches and and you and others have a lot to
say about them, and I wanted to ask you about
just the idea of pastiches. One of the most devout,
unoriginal authors of the twentieth century could have been Lynn Carter.
(51:21):
I'm a writer with he's He had a tremendous amount
of enthusiasm but arguably very little talent. And I bring
him up in the conversation because he was a pastich
writer that used characters in worlds created by the likes
of you know, Roberty Howard Eggerriis Bros.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
To Pin mini series titles.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
But a lot of people in science fiction and fantasy
despised his efforts and your appending in your opinion, what's
the what's the measuring tape on whether an author is
a hack or is truly providing a fallful enterprise by
honoring an author's ip's what's the difference there?
Speaker 3 (51:55):
I think there are those who are too exacting. They're
trying to copy for Arthur conan Doyle's writing style and
the Watsonian voice to the nth degree, and I think
that takes away from storytelling. And then there are the
others that play at so lucy goosey that the character
virtually becomes unrecognized. That that doesn't work. So I think
(52:19):
what I've found works for me with Srilokian pastiches is Yeah,
I like a good Watsonian voice. By that, the flavor
and the sound of the dialogue and the narrative sounds
like how Arthur conan Doyle wrote it. There's a very
interesting rhythm to it and a style to it, and
if somebody can capture that, that really draws me into
(52:40):
the story. But I find that that writers have really
done some research into the Victorian times or wherever they're
setting it, and and they're looking at historical events and
a way to involve Sherlock Holmes in them. What was
(53:00):
his background in it, how did he handle it, or
something along those lines. For me, they're really doing their
research to create a story in which Holmes can apply
his brilliant logic and observation points. Some people overdo that
observation to taking it to the degree of how he
(53:21):
figures stuff out. I mean, yes, he is an observational genius,
but some of this stuff come on, you're pushing the
edge of the envelope and when that happens, I lose
my suspension of disbelief. So you've got to keep it
within the parameters. And then I think that's what works best,
at least for me.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Is there any well, I guess the question B twofold.
Is there any Sherlockian fan fiction that you enjoy? And
is there a fine line between fan.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Fiction and pastiche writing?
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yeah? I think fan fiction is usually agenda fiction in
many ways, and you're turning the character into something that
you want him to be as opposed to what he is.
And I think that's what separates fan fiction from a
good pastiche that doesn't say there isn't room for fan fiction.
(54:15):
There certainly is a lot out there. The show Sherlock,
you know, kind of blew up fan fiction in the
Shechrilockian world like crazy, taking it down many different paths
that in some ways introduced a new audience to Sherlock Holms,
a younger audience. Those that would write pam fiction and
repam fiction which is a good thing, but most of
(54:37):
it is not very well written in pretty turgent.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Well, after you wrote fifty two Weeks fifty two Western Novels,
you followed that up by delving into the movies and
TV shows. Do you plan on replicating that sequence again
with the follow ups to this book?
Speaker 3 (54:55):
You know that There's been a couple of ideas that
I've thrown about, but I'm not sure that I would
accomplish anything more with with Sherlock Holmes. If I did that,
it would have to be something that would advance actually
the genre around Sherlock Holmes to make it worthwhile doing.
I mean, I spent a year putting together this book,
(55:18):
and it was a tremendous amount of fun. I really
had a great time, had interaction with some great people.
But I only want to do it if, if, if
it adds some value, and I'm not sure doing fifty
two weeks fifty two Sherlock Holmes short story collections or
movies television shows would work that well. So this, for me,
(55:38):
I think is kind of where I want to be
right now with this project, and we'll see what the
future holds.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
What's your next enthusiasm?
Speaker 3 (55:47):
I haven't got there yet.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
Maybe I should ask your wife that maybe maybe your wife
could answer.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
That she allows me to have my enthusiasm, which is
which is a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Awesome, Well Paul again, congratulations on the book. It's gonna
be amazing. It comes out next month again fifty two
weeks fifty two Sherlock Holmes Stories, and the pre orders
already on Amazon. I believe I encourage everyone to check
it out. Thanks so much for coming on here. This
was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Hey, great man, I really appreciate you as always. Thanks
a lot, and it's it's good to have you as
a friend.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Thanks Paul. Likewise, bye bye,
Hello, Hello, this is Eric with the Paperback Warrior blog,
podcast and YouTube channel. As you can see on your
screen here, I've got a guest.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
With me today. I've got Paul Bishop.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
He's a thirty five year old he wants to be
thirty five years old.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Again, okay. He's a thirty five year veteran of the
Los Angeles Police Department. He's authored fifteen novels, numerous scripts
for television and future films. Viewers and listeners to the
show probably have experienced Paul's voice on the excellent, award
winning six Gun Justice podcast that he co hosted with
fellow scribe Richard Prash. Paul, Welcome to Paperback Warrior.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Great. I've been looking forward to this. I've been following
Paperback Warriors since the start, and in fact, honestly it
was the inspiration for six Gun Justice podcasts. So kudos
to you leading.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
The one awesome. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
You and I had a pleasure of working together previously
on your own podcast. I think I guessed there at
least maybe once for some brief commentary on paperbacks, and
I chatted on the phone a couple of times. But
this is our actual first face to face discussion has
long overdue, so again, thanks for being on.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
The on the show today.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Great Paul.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I've read some of your books, not all of them,
but some, and I'm gonna highlight.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Just just a few.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Series titles in case someone out there has been living
off the uh. I don't know the literary grid, so
to speak. And you can correct me if I'm wrong
on any of these titles. My wife does it all
the time. She's always telling me I'm wrong. Perhaps you
can also, you know, kind of provide a brief synopsis
of these series titles, if that's cool with you.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Sure, all right.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
So you have the.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
Fake Croker series of detective novels, and I think there
were five of those novels, and they're in paperback in
digital and there's also a short story collection too, correct.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah, the the Fake Croker series was like starting. I
think my fourth or fifth book was the first Fake
Croker book. And and I'll to that point, I had
real trouble establishing a serious character because I put my
characters through so much. At the beginning of the book,
they're one character. By the end of the book, they've
(02:09):
you know, changed. And so even before I sold the
Fake Croker first Fay Croker book, I had actually written
out of four book story arc, so it progression for
the character. The plots are all standalone, but she would
be in various places along the way and that worked
for me, and that and eventually ended up being a
(02:31):
five book series, and so you know, that was the
start really of when I began to have publishing success,
serious success.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Those Croker novels, they were also they were optioned for
screenwrit suit.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Right, they have been. My most option book is called
Citadel Run. It's now called Hot Pursuit title Change when
we went to Kendall, and that has been option forty
eight times with a diminishing amount of option money each time.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Forty eight times. Yeah, it's gonna that's unbelievable. Yeah, that's Calico,
Jack Walker and Tina Tamaco, Tomko Yeah, okay, And and
they were in Citadel Run. And then also another paperback
as well.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, they were released this sequel to that, which was
Sand against the Tide, gotcha, And I have to agree
to a little bit of pumping up there. It was
actually twenty four times that spin options. So even that's
a lot.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
The uh, the other books that are a part of
a series anyway that we'll talk about is the fight
card books, which he wrote at least three of those.
I think Felony Fist, Swamp Wallaper, and the Chicago Punch.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, so those those that was something that fellowscribe mel
Odom and I started out doing. We we we'd been
having a conversation about the the sports stories and the
boxing stories from back in the day of the pulps
and how much we liked them and inviired them, and
we went, well, let's, you know, let's write a couple. So,
you know, he did the first two, you know, he did,
(04:11):
I did one, he did two, three, four, And so
we were, you know, at that point, experimenting with the
wide world of kindle, and we were releasing them ourselves,
and a bunch of our buddies went, hey, can we
write one of these? And by the time we were done,
we have fifty titles out there in the Fight Cards series,
paperback and ebook. So and you would think that that
(04:34):
would be a very limiting genre, but what fascinated me
about it was each story was completely different, everybody's different
take on a character. Even though the boxing Miliu we said,
you know, the boxing Milliu couldn't just be the background.
It had to be part of the book. It couldn't
(04:54):
just be an xboxer who does a mystery. It had
to be you know, the b a and end all
reason for the book to be around. And with that
in mind, that worked really really well.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Great.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, I had the pleasure of reading Felony Fist and
Swamp Wallaper and I've got a review coming up, and
I've got some of your commentary as well, just regarding
race relations and things like that, so I'm looking forward
to posting that.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
Great.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You know. The interesting thing about that series was we
established it as an author co op, which is really
kind of unusual. So even though the books were published
all under the same house name, each author launched his
own books and handed his handled his own sales on Amazon.
But along the way, whoever wrote the book, somebody else
(05:40):
at another one of the editor, one of the authors
from the series edited it, somebody did the cover art,
somebody did the formatting, and not all kind of trade
it off. So we mitigated the cost of that through
this cooperation of the authors involved. And I thought that
was really kind of unusual, especially for its time.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, that's really interesting. That's almost like a village effort altogether.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
It takes a village to write a book.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
I guess, right, Well, you also have the fifty two
week series, which is sort of our main event of
today's episode. What we're going to be discussing is your
brand new fifty two weeks book. Momentarily, but thus far,
the fifty two Weeks books include fifty two Western novels,
fifty two Western movies, and fifty two Western TV shows,
(06:27):
all these co written with Scott Harris.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah. Scott was a good buddy of mine, very much
into westerns, and good friend of the six Gun Justice podcast,
and he had done something just for himself fifty two
weeks fifty two novels, which he'd put together fifty two
books that he'd read over the course of a year.
Any published it for friends and family, I guess, and
(06:52):
we began talking about it, and I could see real
potential for it, and so we designed fifty two weeks
fifty two Western novels, and that was a big enough
success that we went on to movies and Western TV shows.
But the basic behind it was these would be fifty
two essays on fifty two different Western novels, written by
(07:14):
guys who chose the novel themselves, be it obscure or
well known, and write about not a plot, synopsis or
a review, but what the book actually meant to them.
What time of their life did they read this book,
what was the you know, the import of this book
to them? And so we got these really personal essays
(07:35):
that made that series stand out from you know, other
similar type of reference works. And you know when when
I kind of put aside my Western enthusiasms after three
or four or five years and got back into Sherlock Holmes,
I went, hey, and I can apply the same format
(07:56):
to Sherlock Holmes in a way that that hasn't been
done before.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And that brings this full circle to your new book,
which is fifty two weeks fifty two Sherlock Holmes Novels,
and the book set for release on May sixteenth on
Genius Book Publishing. It's going to be offered as an ebook,
but also in a deluxe hardcover edition with bonus content,
which we'll talk about in a moment. But the blurb
create paperback, Okay, the blurb promises traditional favorites and exciting
(08:25):
new discoveries. Paul, tell me about your journey from the
dusty Western Planes all the way to twenty one B
Baker Street in Victoria, London.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
How did this happen?
Speaker 3 (08:37):
You know, My first encounter with SHEHERYLA. Holmes came when
I was quite young. I came to America when I
was eight years old, only child, very very English parents
who dressed me funny and sent me to school with
a funny accent, and so you know, became you know,
obviously when you stand out like that. I lost my
(08:57):
accent very quickly because it was the most obvious thing.
But there was you know, all the kids were into
Superman and Spider Man and all of those other characters
of the time, and Sherlock Holmes became to me my
version of that. It helped me to stand out and
be different if I, you know, if I was going
to be treated differently than I was going to be different.
(09:17):
It's kind of a thing that's carried through my life,
and so Sherlock Holmes really kind of tied into that
for me. My grandmother had given me a copy of
the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes to read on the ship
coming over, and so I was really caught up in that.
Over the years I've I've kind of gone in and
out of Sherlockian fandom. I was a member of the
(09:38):
non canonical Calabashes, which was at that time the LA
based chapter of the Sherlock Holmes Society. So did some
things with them, and then you know, other enthusiasms takeover
as they do. But you know, when when I finally
put a you know, kind of a stop gap on
(09:59):
the Western and was casting around for something, and I
so enjoyed Johnny Lee Miller's portrayal and elementary of Sherlock
Holmes and looked around at so many of the updates
and other things that were still going on and going
why is this character still around? What is it? And
I very rapidly found at as I got into reading
(10:21):
the past issues. Now we know there's only four original novels,
so fifty two weeks, fifty two Sherlock Holmes novels. We're
talking about pastiche novels here that have been written by
somebody else other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But using
those characters and that Mill.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
You, yeah, what is it about Paul? What's it about
Sherlock Holmes as the character that consistently makes that a
hobby of yours. What specific do you like about Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Well, I think, you know, there's kind of two things,
and it works for me, and I think it works
for the wider audience. Is Sherlock Holmes is very much
about bringing order to chaos, right, we can rely on
him to have the answers. But also, Sherlock Holmes is
an odd character and in many ways he's a cipher
(11:15):
that each one of us can put our characteristics onto.
He can be whoever we need him to be, and
I think that's kind of what makes him very versatile
within the wider world. We each come to this character
differently and have different needs met by this, you know,
kind of lightning in a bottle character that Arthur, Cohen
(11:36):
and Doyle came up with and tried to get rid
of and then had to come back to him. Right.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, he had a love hate relationship with the character's
no doubt, right.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
But I mean the character is so important that when
he killed him off, sent him over the rockenback falls,
men in London were worrying black armbands for the death
of Sherlock Holmes, right, I mean, this was it was
like a mass hysterious sort of thing for really the
first time for a fictional character that so many people
(12:06):
wanted him to be real and needed him in their lives.
And this is why there was this this morning.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And you touched on that you've read the books and
and obviously enjoy the books. For me personally, you know,
I like, I like X Men comic books, and I've
been reading them most of my entire life, But I
don't watch the movies and I don't watch the animated shows.
When it comes to show like Holmes, are you open
minded to embrace it all? Do you like comics, movies, TV?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Do you watch it?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
Watch it all?
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I am? You know, there there are the uber traditionalists
who don't like anything outside of the four novels and
fifty six short stories, and then there are traditionalists who will,
you know, give you some leeway. And then there's folks
like me who go, well, I'll give everything a try.
If I don't like it, I won't read it or
watch it. But it's fine that it's there. I think
(12:59):
any think that, you know, keeps the character at the
forefront of public consciousness is a good thing. You know,
the current show Watson that's come out you know, kind
of a modern day Watson after Holmes is dead. I've
watched two or three episodes of that, and I'm not
sure how much more I'm gonna watch of it. It
(13:20):
just isn't hitting with me yet. I don't know if
he's found his feet yet. But the fact of the
matter is, I'm delighted that it's out there. I'm delighted
that it's been renewed for a new season because there
are people who are going to come to Sherlock Holmes
through that TV show, you know. And then the other
recent thing is, you know, Sherlock and Daughter. Well, that's
got everybody in the Sherlockian community into a tizzy fit
(13:41):
because Sherlock Holmes can't have a daughter, et cetera, et cetera.
But you know what you get, David Fuele's in the
lead role, and he's fantastic, and the storyline is not
exactly what you're thinking it's going to be, and I
actually like that show better.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Okay, well, when did you start to strategize about amassing
a book about Sherlock Holmes's literature?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
You know, there are over According to Autopenzler, who owns
a mysterious bookshop and kind of a mystery Maven. He
claims that there were over twenty five thousand Shrilock Hoomb's pastiches,
and I have no reason to doubt him, and so
I'm going, Wow, that's that's a ton. How do people
who come to Cherlock holmbs today find their way into this?
(14:28):
With so much out there? You know, some of it's
going to be really really good and some of it's
going to be really really bad. It's just law of averages.
So I figured that if I could apply that same
reasoning that we used on the fifty two Western books,
that whoever wrote the essay about the book had a
personal connection to it and could explain that, then I thought,
(14:53):
you know, we might have something we you know, and
it's not going to be just all of the regular
books that you look at, the most successful, the best selling,
Churlock Holmes's pastiches. They're going to be all different kinds
of things. In fact, one of the books that we
do is Peter Ackerman, who's been a friend of mine
(15:15):
for years. He his father, Harriet Ackerman, was the producer
of so many of the sixties and seventies situation comedies,
be Witchhed and all of this kind of stuff. So
I asked him, because I knew he was a Sherlock
Holmes fan, if he would write, you know, one of
these essays, go ahead and choose the book. So he
(15:35):
chooses something called Sherlock Holmes in New York. It's a
very very mediocre, very you know, paperback novelization of a
very very mediocre TV movie starring Robert excuse me, starring
Roger Moore as Sherlock Holmes. Okay, so why is this
book even being considered? Because Peter was able to lose
(15:58):
to date exactly why this book was important to him,
where it came along in his life, and how it
turned him into a lifelong Sherlock Holmes fan. And I went,
this is exactly why I'm putting this book together. It's
for this kind of of information. I had another contributor,
(16:18):
Amy Thomas. She's one of the Baker Street Babes, which
is a Sherlock Holmes chapter of the you know, Sherlock
Holms Society. Obviously very feminine minded, you know, it's kind
of like sisters and crime men can join, but the
focus is more female. And she had written an article
or blog post about the Imperfect detective. I believe it
(16:40):
was my disease and me and and she's had a
long term illness, you know, debilitating illness over the years,
just goes on and on. But the constant through that
was Sherlock Holmes. And she tied into this character because
of his otherness. She felt other because of her debilitation,
(17:01):
and she found solace in homes. And she wrote so
eloquently about this. I went, God, this needs a wider audience.
And so and that's when I determined that, you know,
she actually wrote about a book, she wrote about The
Beekeeper's Apprentice by Lourie King. But I got her to
expand on this essay and put it in is what
(17:22):
I call intermission pieces in the book. So we have,
you know, ten pastiche essays and then an intermission piece
like Amy's. I went to some other people who had
different areas of Sherlock Holmes expertise, publishing Sherlock Holmes, drawing
(17:44):
for Sherlock Holmes, and collecting Sherlock Holmes, manufacturing Sherlock Holmes items.
And so I wanted each one of them to elucidate
them why that made them, you know, Sherlock Holmes important
to them and I think it really added to the
depth of the book.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Did you ever get to a point where, maybe early
on that, you know, we were just talking about twenty
five thousand pastiaches across all these different media platforms. Did
you ever ever just go, hey, you know this is
too big for me, this is way too complex to tackle.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
You know, I really didn't. I've kind of since I
got back into this over the last year, I probably
amassed three hundred and fifty four hundred Shirlock Holmes books.
But I was driven by what attracted me, and that
can be a cover, it can be a series, concept,
anything along those lines. And I've gone into anime for
(18:38):
Sherlock Holmes, anime and various other areas trying to look
and expand what this is, you know, not just books,
but all kinds of things. And from that perspective, I
found it fairly easy to maneuver my way through just
by if I didn't like something, if it didn't appeal
to be, then I moved on.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Okay, well, this book it's roughly three hundred and forty
pages as it is your release, I believe, and four
hundred and sixty two pages in trade paperback.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, okay, and it's.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
It's presented in five parts. Each part looks at ten
to twelve pastichas individually, beginning with Baring Gould's Sherlock Holmes
of Baker Street. And I had the pleasure of flipping
through your book this morning before before we went on air.
Did you have like a particular order in mind when
you organize these books? Is this your favorite sort of
(19:35):
ranked from the best to the good or what's the order?
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Meaning?
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I made an editorial decision early on that they were
going to be put in the book, and the order
that they came in.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Okay, all right?
Speaker 3 (19:48):
That said, there was a little bit of massaging because
a couple of the authors wrote two, you know, and
so I needed to split those up. But in general,
it's just the way that they came in because I
didn't really have any other ranking for them.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Okay, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I was really curious about that with your uh, with
your format of these of the prior fifty two weeks books,
you know, the same thing here. Each each one of
these past each books has about a five to seven
page essay written by a Holmes historian, fan writer, slash creator.
(20:23):
How did you go about contacting all these people to
get them involved in your project, and were they mostly
enthusiastic about the concept.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
You know, all the ones that obviously contributed were very
enthusiastic about it, and and for the most part, I didn't.
I had a couple of people say who I contacted
and had contact with who came back and said, project
sounds great, but I am just swamped with other work.
I just can't do this. And you know, fair enough,
(20:53):
there were others who were eminent Sherilokians who had no
idea who this guy Paul Bishop was that was bugging
him and wouldn't even respond, so they lost out. But
others were you know, writer friends of mine who I
know enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, so that those formed the basis
of this. And then I began to you know, look
at who we're writing the big pastiche serieses that were
(21:16):
popular today and reach out to them, and most of
them were very excited to be able to contribute to
something that would also push their own work. So yeah,
from that perspective, not that this was used commercially for that,
but they get to mention their name guts out there,
and I think their love of Sherlock Holmes made them
want to do this, so I made a lot of
(21:37):
new friends along the way.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I noticed that each essays presented with sort of uniformly
with book facts, author facts, beyond the facts and fun facts.
Did you make up those parameters when you asked the
writers to consumers of the book that they needed to
conform to this.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Yeah, that was something that we established early on in
the fifty two book series. That's the way we wanted
to to lay it out. You know, you give some
background on the book, you give a little bit of
background on the author, and then the beyond the fact
section is where they go into what's special about this book?
And then fun facts is again just something oddball about
the book or about the situation that they find interesting,
(22:16):
and you know, some people are going to find other
things interesting. The book is designed not to be really
read from cover to cover. The book is designed to
be dipped into and out of as whatever strikes your fancy,
because obviously there's gonna be essays about books that you're
not going to care about in there, So pass it
by and go on to the next one, because you'll
(22:37):
find something that will We'll intrigue you.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
All embarrassing say that. In the past when I've had
I used to collect Martin Popoff's music books.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
He was a Canadian journalist.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
He wrote books, but they were in the same way
where you'd get like a five or six h essay
on an album, and.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Paul I used to always keep him in the bathroom.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Absolutely, it's bathroom reading at its best.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Yeah, five to six minutes. I'm good.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That's for the guys among us. Doesn't really work the way.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You talked briefly about the intermissions, and in between each
part there is an intermission. What can you tell me
about those intermissions?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What are they? Why are they included?
Speaker 3 (23:23):
I really included them to kind of break up this
run of pastiches essays. I wanted something kind of like
a palate cleanser in between, and so I was looking
for things that maybe hadn't been written about or addressed
in Shrilockan culture. So I went to raw Ron Fortier
(23:44):
of Airship twenty seven Publishing, and his company has published
twenty volumes of Sherlock Holms short stories, pastiches and so
I you know, okay, obviously Ron's got a love for
Sherlock Holms. It's some of their best selling books. So, Ron,
tell me about publishing Sherlock Holms stories. Why is that important?
(24:05):
How do you do it? Where do these stories come from?
You know? And why is Sherlock holmbs important to you?
Rob Davies, who's he's partner, illustrates all twenty of those volumes. Now,
Sherlock Holms illustrations are kind of a subgenre within the
Sherlock Holmes community. So Rob, how did you get inspired
for these, you know, drawings of Sherlock Holmes? Who were
(24:28):
your models? What inspiration did you draw from? And has
that increased your love of Sherlock Holms. So there's two
things right there that were different that hadn't been written about,
and that's really what I was looking for. Dana Mancini
is a well known Sherlockian and he does a lot
(24:48):
of key chains and gigas and coasters and things all
with Sherlock Holmes on them, related which he takes to
conventions and things like that. Okay, so tell me about
man manufacturing Sherlock Holmes. Where does this come from? How'd
you get those ideas? While I was an engineer in
my other life and I applied this to I'm going, wow,
this is kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Yeah, okay, Well, you know, you've been talking about the
book quite a bit over the last year or so
on you on your Facebook posts and things. And to
be honest, when I heard about the book and kind
of going into it, I was thinking, well, this.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Is going to be a book about old books, and I.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Was expecting a lot of nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies paperback reviews.
But honestly, it was a pleasant surprise to find that
a lot of these past issues that you're writing about
have been written in the past twenty five years. In fact,
I think I counted before it came on this port
or before it came on today, I counted twenty eight
of them that are featured have all been written in
(25:47):
the twenty first century. Did that surprise you?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Yeah? And I think part of it has to do
with our modern reading habits, right, and so not all
of us like you and I are digging into, you know,
the the historical paperback world that we're so familiar with.
And I think people pick things up as they come
out and as they're growing up. These are the books
(26:09):
that they have access to, and I think that's how
they get drawn in so yeah, it was a little
bit of a surprise, but looking back, I can see
it makes sense through this.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Whole process of compiling all these essays and just overall,
what did you learn about Sherlock Holmes the character when
you were writing and constructing this.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
I realized how versatile he is. And now, no matter
if it's science fiction, time travel, romance, whatever your genre is, mystery, anything,
Sherlock Holmes can be applied to it. If you love anime,
you can find Sherlock Holmes stuff that you're really really
gonna dig. If you like short stories, there's a ton
(26:52):
of them out there. If you like the novels, there's
a ton of them out there. TV series, right, whatever
it may be, the movies. You know. It was very
interesting to me that when I started my journey back
into Sherlock Holmes, one of the first past issues that
I read was a study in Crimson by Robert Harris,
(27:15):
and basically it updates Sherlock Holmes in nineteen forty two,
and I found that fascinating. Well, talk to him and
I come to find out that the original three films
with Basil Rathbom were done by one movie studio and
they were set in Victorian London, and they really didn't
do very well. Another studio took over the franchise and
(27:37):
they updated it to nineteen forty two, and those are
the twelve Sherlock Holmes films that we all know and love.
I went, wow, I so associate Sherlock Holmes with Victorian London,
but he really fits in nineteen forty two as well,
So he also fits in the twenty first century. To me,
it's a fascinating conundrum. And then to see what people
(28:00):
do with the concept of Sherlock Holmes without even mentioning
Sherlock Holmes. The biggest example for me is the show
House House is Sherlock Holmes in a hospital, you know,
with a you know, brilliant, grouchy character who is explained
and seen through the eyes of his companion buddy who
(28:24):
you know. And for me, you know, you see this
over and over again on television and other areas that
this character can be by any other name, still Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
The book comes in two different versions, as we just
mentioned earlier, But what are the differences? What are the
extra hundred and twenty pages get you?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
So? I mean, we're obviously going to do an ebook,
and that's going to be the same content as the
trade paperback, which is solid. We decided to do a
limited edition hardcover just because I got a wire hair
up me and decided I wanted to do that, and
so they'll be signed and numbered, and they will include
bonus information. There's essays on the four original novels, kind
(29:12):
of re examinations of those four original Sherlock Holmes novels
in there, and and then other bonus content essays about
Sherlock holmbs around the world, the Russian Sherlock Holmes, the
Indian Sherlock Holmes, all of these different iterations of homes,
the future of Sherlock Holmes, and those types of essays
(29:32):
that that add into this lower Sarah Faan did the
cover that you can see there behind you for the
trade paperbag. Tony Macero, who's another cover artist trend of mine,
did the cover for the trade paperback excuse me, for
the limited edition hardcover, so again it will offer another bonuses.
It's it's different cover.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Yeah, it's it's it's it's great. Like I said, I
had a chances to browse through it this morning and
I was just flabbergasted by the amount of material in there.
What would you say to someone who's just saying, you
know what, I don't want another book about books, and
I don't want to book about a bunch of you know,
it has a bunch of reviews, and I can just
read reviews any old place. What do you say to
that potential buyer that's kind of on that on the
(30:18):
edge of whether they want to spend money on this.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Honestly, I say, don't read the book if you're enthusiastic
about it. If you don't, if that's your attitude, then
you know you're missing out. But that's fine, right, I mean,
come to this book if you love Cherlock Holmes and
just want to have another reason to go into that world.
If you're on the edge about it, you know, got
to ask yourself, do I like Charlock Holmes or do
(30:42):
I think is an anachronism, and you know, make your
decision that way. Fortunately, you know, like the fifty two
Western books, which were pretty much self published by Scott
and I, that's what I was planning to do with this.
But I hooked up with Stephen Booth, who's the publisher
at Genius Publishing. At a conference in Las Vegas. We
(31:05):
were both talking on a panel there and got talking
to him about this project and basically he said, I
want to do that. You know, I said, I've already
got one Sherlock Holmes books in my inventory. I want
to do this and I want to establish a Sherlock
Holmes brand at Genius Books. And so between this and
(31:27):
another book that I brought in from a buddy of mine,
David Foster, called Baker Street, which is amazing compendium of
all kinds of stuff, that's what's really starting off Genius
Books on this Sherlock Holmes imprint. And it's been a
joy to work for them. With them, they really caught
onto the idea of what I was trying to do,
gave me a free hand editorially, and it's been a dream.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
I know, as a newbie to Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
And you are going to talk a little bit about
the new kind of for someone who's brand new to
this kind of thing, but for me being a newbie,
an wear this book out because I'm going to use
it as a roadmap. It'll it'll lead me to you know,
what to read, and it's it's a guide and I
appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Well. I think you and I talked a while back
and you were saying to me, you know, I haven't
read share Lock Hoolms before. I want to read a
Sholock Holm's novel. What would you suggest? So I suggested
The Hounds of Hound of the Baskerville's And then you
went and read something else.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Yeah, I actually did. I did I read first?
Speaker 3 (32:28):
Maybe I don't know. I think you picked up something
else by the time I got back to you with.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
With the yeah I have with the think I yeah,
I think I read Scarlet Study in Scarlet, Study in
Scarlet first and then I read Hound.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Uh. You gave it a big rave on on the
Paperback Warrior blog. You really really seem to get into
it and enjoy it. And oh wow, there's this whole
other world out here with all these stories, and I
really really enjoyed this. I can see why people are
fanatical about this.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, and you guys, we've discussed doing a video on
Sherlock Holmes for a while now. The character of the
book stories, the intricacies of you know, the Sherlockian culture,
I guess, and I wanted to go with you for
just a little bit and sort of provide a primer
for new readers that may be intimidated buy something this big,
(33:18):
where to start, what to read in terms of the
original Arthur Conandoyle works as that go with you if
we kind of go down that path for a little bit.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
Yeah, I mean, if you've never read Sherlock Holmes before,
I don't know that you necessarily want to start with
this book. You'll enjoy it, and it'll give you a
lot of suggestions, but fully understand that, you know, I
would suggest at least reading The Hound of the Baskervilles
and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which is the first
book with the short stories, and I think that will
give you the flavor. And quite frankly, you're either going
(33:50):
to put it back on the shelf if it's not
for you, or you're all over going a sudden want
to go through all fifty six of the original short
stories and get caught up in it and then you
know when and those pastor you're gonna go, where's more
Sherlock Holmes and this is the book for you?
Speaker 2 (34:04):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
I think for me years ago, I would I was
kind of looking at Sherlock Holmes and thinking, well, you
know what, that's just that's just old stuff from like
the eighteen hundreds, and it doesn't appeal to me, and
I'm just gonna ignore it as challenges that that sounds
a lot of people just get intimidated by it, the
same way that I talked to kids today that are
intimidated by Batman.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Or Star Wars or Doctor Who.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
They just they don't want to take on that and to.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Start in the fully established culture. Yeah, you know, it's
hard to dip into Star Wars. It's hard to you know,
to dip into even Indiana Jones, right, I mean, you've
got to start somewhere. But there's so much else that
come out of this, and it's interesting to me that
there's this kind of a human need to bond over
this stuff and to enlarge the universe of something that
(34:54):
you love, you know, and that certainly has happened in
the Sherilockian world. I mean, you can go to any
country in the world say Sherlock Holmes and people know
exactly what you're talking about. It doesn't matter, you know,
if there's a language barrier. What you say Sherlock Holmes
and people's ears perk up and they want to talk
to you about it, which is amazing.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
Well, when we talked, we talked about where to start,
and you and I had a brief conversation through a
Facebook messenger about it.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
You you had kind of surprised me.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
You said you like the four books, the four novels,
but you said to start with the short stories first.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
So why is that?
Speaker 3 (35:29):
I think they're more accessible and and I actually for me,
for me, they're better written. The structure of the novels,
which often includes a long backstory in which Sherlock Holmes
isn't involved. I struggle through those parts of the novels.
(35:50):
Right the short stories, Sherlock Holmes is on every page
and you're right there with them. The best selling series
by Laurie camp of the Mary Russell series, where fifteen
year old Mary Russell hooks up with a retired Sherlock Holmes,
they are incredibly well written. When Sherlock Holmes isn't on
(36:11):
the page, I'm bored. And that's just me. I'm not
a judgment on those books, which are beloved, but for me,
they work best when Sherlock Holmes is on the page. There,
and that's why I say the short stories, if you
really want to get to know Sherlock Holmes. That's where
to start.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Are there any prerequisites required to read a particular Holmes work?
Is there like intricate sees through stories that are addressed
over the court of the novels.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
You know, Victorian England is really kind of in the
cultural zeygeeest zegeist. We all know what that kind of
looks like and what that is. And if even if
you don't, I think very quickly you'll get into it
in the books because the atmosphere is so well done
and you're drawn into this. You want to be out
(37:00):
in two twenty one b Baker Street, you want to
be out on the cobblestone streets of Victorian London and
the mist in a handsome cab, and you know, all
of that stuff adds excitement to the stories and brings
this real vermissilitude to it.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
When I read about Sherlock Holmes and I get down
the rabbit hole, so to speak, the thing that gets
thrown around a lot that I don't understand is what
in the heck is the great game?
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Okay, so the great game is something that's established by
excuse me, established by the Sherlock Holms societies, which are
really really intense relationship with Sherlock Holmes, and they will
treat Sherlock Holmes as if he is a real person.
(37:46):
And sometimes it's tongue in cheek, and sometimes they're deadly
serious about this. And so they will explore the chronology
of Sherlock Holmes and argue over, you know, what is
Watson in the After game Wars? Was he shot the
leg or shot in the arm? Because Arthur co is
both ways. And so they really get into the minutia
(38:08):
of this, and really it's their love of the character
that make playing the game fun and and they don't
want their world shaken by having to admit that Sherlock
Holmes is not real. To them. He is and I
think that's great. You know, it's a little little too
much for me, but it's great.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
How much influence did Edgar Allan Poe have on Arthur
Conan Doyle. Did Did Poe create the Sherlock Holmes prototype?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I don't really think so. You know, Poe created a detective,
but he wasn't really Holmes yet. He did really start
the detective genre in many ways. But it really is
Arthur Conan Doyle who gave us a detective story as
(38:58):
we know it. And I think that's another reason why
I caught on so well and Strand magazine is is
that that this was a really a newly born genre.
It's been around for a little while. There have been
various iterations. You can argue the history of the detective story,
but in reality, this is when detective genre became popular
(39:22):
and it's all down to Sherlock Holmes and probably one
of the reasons why the genre is still so strong
today because this was such a brilliant entry into that.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
As you talked about earlier in the in our interview.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
Here, creators have placed Sherlock Holmes in all sorts of
time periods and situations. We've seen Holmes battle Dracula, try
tout down Jack the Ripper, investigate mister Hyde, stock global disaster.
I've even seen I've seen, you know, at Tarzan team up.
I've seen a team of with Batman, Tom and Jerry, Ghostbusters,
(39:54):
you name it. Is there a team up that you
fantasize about that has haven't come to fruition yet?
Speaker 3 (40:03):
You know? That's that's an interesting question and one I
really haven't thought about because I think that that Sherlock
Holmes for me, really works best on his own as
an individual, right, I mean, he he is, he's you know,
difficult to understand, and I think he would be difficult
to work with because he's got his way of doing things,
(40:26):
and he's got his ego and he's got, you know this,
this brilliance about him. And I don't necessarily think that
Mesh is real well with other characters from other ips
for lack of a better term. So I'm happy with
Holmes being Holmes. And and you know what I like
(40:49):
to see is an intelligent Watson. You know, I don't
like the Nigel Bruce of the Basil Rathbone films, who's
kind of this bumbling fool, because really that's not the
way that Watson has written. Watson is just the everyman. No.
Is he as smart as Sherlock Holmes. No, but he
is a very brave individual, intelligent individual. He's a doctor.
(41:09):
I mean, the man is not an incompetent and so
I like the way he was portrayed by Jude Law
in The Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes films. That kind of
a man of action. So that's kind of what I
look like for a team up is Sherlock Holmes with
a competent Watson.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
Before I get into some deeper stuff with psychological meaning
and things like that, I want to fastball with you
for a moment.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Sure, all right, do you have a favorite Sherlock movie?
Speaker 3 (41:38):
My favorite Sherlock Holmes movie would be the first Sherlock
Holmes with Guy Richie film.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Okay, with Robert Downey Juniors as Sherlock. Okay, how about.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
TV show definitely elementary elementary Okay, with Johnny Lee Miller
and Lucy lou and quite frankly, now, Johnny Lee Miller
has portrayed Holmes on the big screen small screen more
than any other actor because they were doing so many
shows and you know, over two hundred episodes that in
many ways he has become endemic with the character.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
For me, and you may have already answered this question,
what actor really really gets the character?
Speaker 3 (42:19):
You know? I do think that Basil Rathbone is a
traditional Sherlock Holmes. Okay, I mean he really really kind
of laid that out. He kind of emphasizes the deer
stalker hat and the Meerstrom pipe, which really aren't Sherlock Holmes,
but they've become Sherlock Holmes. I think there's one drawing
of Sherlock Holmes from the original stories where he's wearing
(42:40):
a deer stalker cap and an Invernesque cape. That's because
he's going to the countryside, and that's what you wore
at the countryside. It's not something that he would wear
running around London. Yeah, so, and that's why, you know,
you look at the cover of fifty two weeks fifty
two Sherlock Holmes novels is not wearing a deer stalker
and you know, I wanted to have a young die
ynamic Sherlock Holmes on the cover, and the deer stalker
(43:03):
is the fuddy duddy Sherlock Holmes to me. Although you
see that and you immediately think Sherlock Holmes, right, So yeah,
Basil Rathbone and and I I liked Benedict Cumberbatch in
the first couple of seasons. After that the whole show
got a little squishy for me, and so Johnny Lee
Miller really after the first season where they finally zeroed
(43:27):
in on what they wanted to do with the character
and stop having him go off of prostitutes and all
this kind of stuff that they did in the first season,
I think he really made that character his own.
Speaker 1 (43:39):
The best this could be on paper, r on on film,
the best Sherlock Holmes character that's not named Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Okay, so I mean we talked about House, but I
think Professor T from the PBS series and that started
out as a Belgium series and became a franchise to
many different countries. How did it become a successful franchise
because Professor T is really Sherlock Holmes, and the character
(44:11):
just translates. So I like those different portrayals. I've watched
most of the different series from different countries and have
really enjoyed that character.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
So we'll go off speed here with some deeper stuff.
Why do you think why do you think a character
that's so emotionally detached is so beloved and compelling after
all these years?
Speaker 3 (44:38):
In today's society especially, we are not emotionless and detached.
We all hook onto those things. Proocon whatever side you're
on that we're vociferous about. Sherlock Holmes cuts right through
all of that stuff. And it doesn't matter where your
political or social you know, sympathies, lie Garlock Holmes doesn't
(45:00):
offend any of them or he offends all of them
one way or the other, and so it is a
constant and can be relied upon to be that constant.
And for me, I think Sherlock Holmes is kind of
a resting place from the noise of the world. Right, Okay,
we can all take a breath. We don't have to
(45:21):
get in an argument with Sherlock Holmes about politics or
money situations or more. We can just sit down and
watch Sherlock Holmes do his thing whoever we are. And
I really think that's why he's taken such a hold
on us as a as a society.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Do you have a favorite minor character besides Holmes and Watson.
Speaker 3 (45:43):
You know, and I do like Missus Hudson because I'd
love to have a Missus Hudson, right, I mean, she's
such a she is Holmes is anchor in these stories, right,
She's she's there all the time. So, you know, I
appreciate Missus Hudson. But you know, I like the character
(46:04):
of Inspector Gregson because he's not really the bully that
Lestrade is. He's not a pushover for Holmes, but he
also kind of gives him credit where credit's due, and
so that's the character. Uh. If I was to write
about a minor character, as many people do, but there's
a whole series with Missus Hudson, there's a whole series
with Inspector Lestrade. There's a whole series with the Wiggins,
(46:27):
who was the head of the Baker Street Irregulars. That's
all growing up now. But if I was to write
something about a minor character, it would be about Inspector Gregson.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
M I understand you. You belong to a Sherlock Holmes society,
which I've gathered there's numerous gatherings across the world.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
He is what is the one in La the Curious
Collectors of Baker Street is that, you know, the noncanonical Calabashes,
which I was part of. They've they've gone the way
of the West and this is the new. So they
have outings on a regular basis. Santa Anita Racetrack each
year holds a Silver Blaze race, Silver Blaze being a
(47:07):
story from the Sherlock Holmes canon featuring a stolen race horse,
and so there's always an outing to sant Anita to
have a big picnic and hang out and be social
and if you so desire, couseplay Sherlock Holmes, which I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Right, Well, what is I guess what?
Speaker 1 (47:26):
What is what experience at these at these meetings or
society meetings?
Speaker 2 (47:30):
What do you do there? Reach together?
Speaker 3 (47:33):
It's a social gathering, I mean more intense ones get
together to read monographs and debate Sherlock Holm's minutia. But
I think for the most part, the most successful ones
are we love Sherlock Holmes. Let's all get together and
have a drink and have a good time. Yeah, okay,
you may have a mutual interest in the character.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Okay, And you may have answered this one earlier, because
I think you touched on this. If we're to say that,
like Holmes represents order and structure over chaos and disorganization,
do you think his popularity relates to how a rational
particular society is during uh, during certain times.
Speaker 3 (48:12):
I think you're You're probably right. I think he does. Again.
You know, we talked about him being that constant that
that you know, he is, he is our our stake
in the ground and that we can hang on to
the iron rod that we need to keep ourselves centered
in many ways, and without him, you know, I think
(48:34):
you know, so many people fly off in so many
different directions and get so over the top, and and
you know, that's just the way we are currently at
the moment. We're very polarized, and I think it takes
a character like Sherlock Holmes to you know, say to everybody,
all right, shut up, sit down and watch this episode
of Elementary or whatever it might be, and then we
(48:55):
all enjoy it. Right. You know, That's where I think
that's where the TV show Sherlock fell down, is it
got away from the character being the character and began
to service an agenda that wasn't appealing to many people,
and that got away from what the character really is.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
How do you how do you take the parody stuff?
Does that affect you? Do you feel like it diminishes
the character anything?
Speaker 3 (49:22):
It's out there. There's some good parody stuff, but most
of it. I'm not big on parody in general, right,
So to me, that's something that I don't really follow.
But people, you know, enjoy that stuff, and some of
it's very well done, so you can't condemn it out
of hand.
Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, yeah, Okay.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
I'm a big fan of horror movies and I love
the seventies and eighties stuff in them and the slashers.
I always love the slasher movies, and it pains me
when my daughter showed me the dance routine of Michael
Myers or Jason Vore.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
He's doing a fortnight dance and just drives me crazy.
Like you just ruin everything. I get it.
Speaker 3 (50:01):
I mean, I think you know films like you know
Sherlock Holmes is Smarter brother and things like that. You
know there's a place for that. And and there was
a movie with Will Murray that that was just not
Will Will Ferrell. I bet Will Murray, our buddy, would
have liked to have started that Will Ferrell and and
(50:24):
you know it doesn't work for me, but that's just
not my kind of humor. So like you, I prefer
to play it home straight.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
Have you have you visited any Sherlock Holmes places, like
any trade marked places?
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Absolutely? We we were back in England last year and
so I made an absolute pilgrimage to the Sherlock Holmes
pub down there and had dinner there with my wife
and and you know, looked at their little museum room
and and uh, okay, it was very kitchy. I enjoyed
the heck out of it. So for me, it was
it was well worth doing.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
Well wrapping up here, I wanted to turn back to
your book for just a second again, fifty two weeks
to Sherlock Holmes Stories. The book examines the Sherlock Holmes
pastiches and and you and others have a lot to
say about them, and I wanted to ask you about
just the idea of pastiches. One of the most devout,
unoriginal authors of the twentieth century could have been Lynn Carter.
(51:21):
I'm a writer with he's He had a tremendous amount
of enthusiasm but arguably very little talent. And I bring
him up in the conversation because he was a pastich
writer that used characters in worlds created by the likes
of you know, Roberty Howard Eggerriis Bros.
Speaker 2 (51:35):
To Pin mini series titles.
Speaker 1 (51:37):
But a lot of people in science fiction and fantasy
despised his efforts and your appending in your opinion, what's
the what's the measuring tape on whether an author is
a hack or is truly providing a fallful enterprise by
honoring an author's ip's what's the difference there?
Speaker 3 (51:55):
I think there are those who are too exacting. They're
trying to copy for Arthur conan Doyle's writing style and
the Watsonian voice to the nth degree, and I think
that takes away from storytelling. And then there are the
others that play at so lucy goosey that the character
virtually becomes unrecognized. That that doesn't work. So I think
(52:19):
what I've found works for me with Srilokian pastiches is Yeah,
I like a good Watsonian voice. By that, the flavor
and the sound of the dialogue and the narrative sounds
like how Arthur conan Doyle wrote it. There's a very
interesting rhythm to it and a style to it, and
if somebody can capture that, that really draws me into
(52:40):
the story. But I find that that writers have really
done some research into the Victorian times or wherever they're
setting it, and and they're looking at historical events and
a way to involve Sherlock Holmes in them. What was
(53:00):
his background in it, how did he handle it, or
something along those lines. For me, they're really doing their
research to create a story in which Holmes can apply
his brilliant logic and observation points. Some people overdo that
observation to taking it to the degree of how he
(53:21):
figures stuff out. I mean, yes, he is an observational genius,
but some of this stuff come on, you're pushing the
edge of the envelope and when that happens, I lose
my suspension of disbelief. So you've got to keep it
within the parameters. And then I think that's what works best,
at least for me.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
Is there any well, I guess the question B twofold.
Is there any Sherlockian fan fiction that you enjoy? And
is there a fine line between fan.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Fiction and pastiche writing?
Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yeah? I think fan fiction is usually agenda fiction in
many ways, and you're turning the character into something that
you want him to be as opposed to what he is.
And I think that's what separates fan fiction from a
good pastiche that doesn't say there isn't room for fan fiction.
(54:15):
There certainly is a lot out there. The show Sherlock,
you know, kind of blew up fan fiction in the
Shechrilockian world like crazy, taking it down many different paths
that in some ways introduced a new audience to Sherlock Holms,
a younger audience. Those that would write pam fiction and
repam fiction which is a good thing, but most of
(54:37):
it is not very well written in pretty turgent.
Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Well, after you wrote fifty two Weeks fifty two Western Novels,
you followed that up by delving into the movies and
TV shows. Do you plan on replicating that sequence again
with the follow ups to this book?
Speaker 3 (54:55):
You know that There's been a couple of ideas that
I've thrown about, but I'm not sure that I would
accomplish anything more with with Sherlock Holmes. If I did that,
it would have to be something that would advance actually
the genre around Sherlock Holmes to make it worthwhile doing.
I mean, I spent a year putting together this book,
(55:18):
and it was a tremendous amount of fun. I really
had a great time, had interaction with some great people.
But I only want to do it if, if, if
it adds some value, and I'm not sure doing fifty
two weeks fifty two Sherlock Holmes short story collections or
movies television shows would work that well. So this, for me,
(55:38):
I think is kind of where I want to be
right now with this project, and we'll see what the
future holds.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
What's your next enthusiasm?
Speaker 3 (55:47):
I haven't got there yet.
Speaker 1 (55:48):
Maybe I should ask your wife that maybe maybe your wife
could answer.
Speaker 3 (55:51):
That she allows me to have my enthusiasm, which is
which is a wonderful thing.
Speaker 1 (55:57):
Awesome, Well Paul again, congratulations on the book. It's gonna
be amazing. It comes out next month again fifty two
weeks fifty two Sherlock Holmes Stories, and the pre orders
already on Amazon. I believe I encourage everyone to check
it out. Thanks so much for coming on here. This
was a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (56:13):
Hey, great man, I really appreciate you as always. Thanks
a lot, and it's it's good to have you as
a friend.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
Thanks Paul. Likewise, bye bye,
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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