.FLYINGHEAD COMPUTING UNPLUGGED BOOK OF THE MONTH
.TITLE The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY Senior Editor James Booth hates print books. He has no use for them, unless it’s a software manual. James took his pleasure reading digital over three years ago. This month, he gives us a brief overview of the e-book scene, and review of The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes e-book.
.OTHER
I hate print books. I have no use for them whatsoever, unless it’s a software manual. I still like to have a printed software manual. But for pleasure reading I went digital over three years ago. More and more, publishing companies are making digital versions of their print mainstays available for handheld reading, including this month’s Computing Unplugged Book of the Month.
.H1 The death of the paperback
Rising from the ashes of Bradbury’s latest paperback bonfire is the e-book. Of course, to read these digital page-turners you’ll need the appropriate software. For Pocket PCs that primarily means Microsoft Reader, eReader, or Adobe Acrobat Reader. If like me, your virtual pages are turned in the Palm OS, you’ll find files primarily in the Adobe Acrobat Reader format, or Palm Reader format.
Yes, there are a dozen other formats for Palm e-books, but the Acrobat and Palm Reader are the most widely used. These are the formats carried by the majority of the e-book retailers that I’m acquainted with. And where will you find these electronic books? In this article, I’ll introduce you to several of the digital retailers, giving you just as many, if not more, virtual bookstores than what you’d find in your local shopping mall.
One of my favorite sites is Memoware.com. They have an extremely wide selection of FREE e-books, both original contributions, and works that are in the public domain and no longer bound by copyright. In addition to the free section, Memoware has a retail counterpart where you can find digital versions of the latest best-sellers.
I’ve bought several digital books from Memoware and for the most part have been pretty satisfied. As a matter of fact, the book I’ll be covering in this article was purchased from Memoware. They also have a reward program, as do most e-book retailers, wherein some books have cash back rewards. These rewards are generally maintained in your customer account and can be redeemed as discounts on future purchases.
Another site I’ve made purchases from is Diesel-eBooks. Diesel is a relatively new player in the e-book market, just having launched in November 2004. Like Memoware, Diesel-eBooks has a discount program, rewarding you for joining (which is free), and for each purchase you make.
For the most part, you’ll find the same books at each virtual bookstore, just differences in price. Happily, I found Diesel-eBooks to be the exception to the rule. Not only did they have most of the titles I’ve found at other sites, they had a nice selection I hadn’t seen anywhere else, in particular, the complete collection of original Sherlock Holmes novels all in one compendium, and in Palm Reader format, just how I like.
One of the sites that’s been around the longest is eReader.com. This site has changed hands several times, and been through just as many incarnations. If I recall correctly, it was originally Peanut Press, and more recently Palm Digital Media, I think. In addition to selling e-books, eReader is the only site I’ve seen that also has the software required to create your own e-books in both Palm and Pocket PC format.
As I recall, I haven’t actually made a purchase from eReader, but I should have. I just noticed while writing this piece that the book I’m covering in this article, and purchased from Memoware, is five dollars cheaper at eReader. The moral? If you know what title you’re looking for, shop around the different sites to find the best price. Duh!
.BREAK_EMAIL There are more e-books in Heaven and Earth, Dear Reader, and you must tap here for the rest of this story.
PerfectBound is the digital incarnation of Harper Collins Publishing. Here, you’ll find virtually all of their material in digital form, both fiction and non-fiction. Some of their e-books even contain features and extras that aren’t available in the print version.
Rounding out the sites I’ll be touching on are Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com. Both of these sites offer e-books primarily in Microsoft Reader and Adobe format. When you take into account the considerable print offerings of these two companies, their e-book repertoire is rather thin.
Now that I’ve briefed you on the most prevalent types of e-books and where to find them, let’s get on with this month’s Computing Unplugged Book of the Month.
.H1 Elementary, Watson!
This month’s Book of the Month is The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, shown in Figure A, from various authors, edited by Marvin Kaye, and published by St. Martin’s Press. For those of you that are Holmes fans, you may remember Marvin Kaye as the editor of The Resurrected Holmes: New Cases from the Notes of John H. Watson, M.D.
.FIGPAIR A Holmes is on the case.
This compendium of what I like to call "after-market" Sherlock Holmes tales brings the Victorian/Edwardian-era sleuth and his faithful companion Dr. Watson back to life. Or at least it attempts to. Now, I’m a die-hard Holmes fan, having read all of the original "canon" tales penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and quite a few of the after-market offerings as well.
You could probably find just as many after-market Holmes books as you could Star Trek or Star Wars. And, as is often the case, few measure up to the original. The one exception I found was a collection of Holmes tales written by the master’s son, Adrian Conan Doyle. These cases were compiled from referenced cases in the original tales and notes left by his father, penned at the same desk in the family study where his father used to write.
I guess the most interesting thing about The Confidential Casebook is the premise under which it’s written. The idea is that some wealthy Philadelphia scholar has purchased Dr. Watson’s tin dispatch box containing Watson’s complete collection of Holmes cases, which at one time resided in the bank vaults of the now defunct Cox & Company.
After further investigation, a secret compartment is discovered in the dispatch box, revealing the transcripts of dozens of previously unknown cases. Holmes embargoed all of these tales for one reason or another, either as a result of his own perceived incompetence, or due to the sensitive nature of their contents.
Although Watson recorded most of the tales, either Holmes himself, or the self-promoting Inspector Lestrade contributed several. Resurrected in these previously untold tales are two of Holmes’ most well known arch-enemies, Irene Adler, referred to by Holmes as the woman, and the ever-popular Professor Moriarty, both of whom actually recruit Holmes’ assistance.
None of these after-market collections seem to be shy about introducing both fictional and real-life historical figures into the Holmes universe. The Confidential Casebook is no different in this respect, tying Holmes to Ida Tarbell, Consuelo Vanderbilt, James Whistler, and even as a passenger on the Titanic.
Expanding on the original sixty tales written by Sir Doyle, The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes brings us nineteen new tales of my favorite super-sleuth. Although a somewhat entertaining diversion, I found most of these tales to be rather trite and contrived.
I thought the first few cases ended rather abruptly, leaving me with a feeling of, "Um, oh." And I generally don’t care for the habit third-party authors have of tying the character to real-life people and events, or dredging up long-gone characters to capitalize on their popularity. Although I must admit, I did enjoy seeing Ms. Adler get the better of Holmes yet again, and Moriarty coming to him, hat in hand.
I don’t quite know what it is about the after-market Holmes stories, but something about them is just different from the original Doyle tales. Maybe it’s that I know the original author didn’t pen them. Maybe these authors don’t write in quite the same style as Doyle. I don’t quite know what it is, but something is missing. And I’ve found this to be true of almost all the after-market Holmes books I’ve read, not just this one.
I found The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes to be a somewhat entertaining alternate view of the world of Sherlock Holmes and give it 3 out of 5. If, like me, you regret that Doyle only wrote sixty original tales and hunger for more, I’d recommend giving The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes a read, but shop around to make sure you get the best price because I really don’t feel it was worth the $15 I paid for it. In comparison, that’s how much I paid for the complete, sixty-tale, Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes collection at Diesel-eBooks.
.RATING 3
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
For more information on The Confidential Casebook of Sherlock Holmes e-book, visit http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/cgi-bin/item/0312207131.
And at http://www.ereader.com/product/detail/206.
For more information on Microsoft Reader, visit http://www.microsoft.com/reader/.
For more information on Adobe Acrobat Reader, visit http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readermain.html.
For more information on eReader, visit http://www.ereader.com/product/browse/software.
For more information on Memoware, visit http://www.memoware.com/.
For more information on Diesel-eBooks, visit http://www.diesel-ebooks.com/.
For more information on PerfectBound, visit http://us.perfectbound.com/73B7EB51-0DAC-4AE7-B5EF-8004E929DBCD/10/1/en/Default.htm.
For more information on Barnes & Noble, visit http://www.barnesandnoble.com/.
For more information on Amazon.com, visit http://www.amazon.com.
.END_SIDEBAR
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.BIO
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