Spotlight on Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets – Guest Post by David Thomas Moore

So, hey. I’m David Thomas Moore, commissioning editor at that there Abaddon Books and editor of Abaddon’s first ever anthology, Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets. And your Marc has asked my smartypants PR Coordinator† Lydia to ask me to do some sort of guest blog thing about it. Which was nice.

As you can probably work out from the title and/or Sam Gretton’s lovely cover image, 221BS is a collection of Sherlock Holmes tales. What may not be obvious is that none of the stories exactly feature the Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings, in the world he wrote them in (which was basically just Victorian England). Fourteen authors were invited to revisit the famous detective, to resite, rehome, retime and reimagine him; to take him (her/them, etc., as the case may be) where they saw fit. Hence the title: Baker Streets, with an “s” at the end. Clever, huh? Sheesh.

To my shame, I’ve only really gotten into Holmes in the past few years; truth be told, I owe a lot to the film revisions and the new TV shows. And that – for my money – is because a lot of the time, the very stiff, British, Victorian way he’s presented can be a real barrier. The character of Holmes himself, in Doyle’s fiction, is this seriously fucked-up dude, a reckless, socially awkward, drug-taking, manic monster of a man, chasing mystery to feel alive; but the popular representation of him was, until recently, so pompous, fastidious and superior that, until you actually pick the books up and start to read them, you don’t see any of that at all. That’s what – its many flaws notwithstanding – was so great about the Downey/Law film, and the more recent TV shows. So let’s take him out of Victorian London! Let this wild, terrible bastard run through the streets of your home town, scaring the neighbours.

There were some things I definitely wanted to happen. I wanted authors who’ve not written for Abaddon before (I went on to contract Adrian Tchaikovsky for a novella, which has already come out, before the anthology hit the streets, but I’m still counting that). I wanted authors from other countries (six British, six American, one South African and one Australian, which is okay for a first effort). And I wanted mostly women authors. Gender in genre’s a hot topic at the moment, and something you hear a lot is that there just aren’t as many women writers as men out there, and that I can’t go out of my way to recruit women without in some way sacrificing quality. Well, sod that; I deliberately went out and got nine of my fourteen stories from women, and they’re all great.

I had rather less definite ideas about what sort of stories I wanted. Holmes is such an iconic character; what would have to be kept in, what could be played with? Where and when should he be migrated to? To be honest, I didn’t want to be the one to make those decisions. I wanted no preconceptions, no sacred cows; change what you want! Several times, as a commissioning editor, my authors have taken my own rambling, part-formed ideas – “So I want the Robin Hood story, but told from Guy of Gisburne’s point of view, and he’s the good guy, and and and…” – and then I’d read the manuscript, when it came back, and I’d be all “F**k me, this is the story I never knew I always wanted.” I wanted that for the collection. When one of my boys and girls emailed me asking if this or that concept would work, I would just reply “yup!” (once or twice I was asked which of two concepts I preferred, so then I’d answer).

So what did I get? Some things I expected; lots I didn’t, and that was a great feeling. SNF:‡ I was surprised when fully nine of the stories were first-person stories narrated by Dr. Watson. Not even Doyle used that device all the time. I got one female Holmes with a male Watson, one male Holmes with a female Watson, and one female Holmes with a female Watson. I got five stories set in Britain (one by an American author), five stories set in the US (one by a British author), one in South Africa and one in Australia (perhaps not surprisingly), one in a fantasy world of wizards, and one in a [SPOILER REDACTED]. By a bizarre coincidence, three of the five American stories feature a New-York-based Holmes travelling to the West Coast to solve a mystery. I wasn’t particularly surprised by the six modern-day stories; I was surprised not to get more historical stories (one decidedly mannerly seventeenth-century witch trial), astonished not to get more futuristic stories (two-ish: one very neat twenty-first century dystopia, and one far-future one you won’t realise is far-future until you’ve finished it), and stunned by the sheer volume of twentieth-century stories (three: one Depression-era, one late-sixties and one late-seventies).

Watson turned up every time, and one of the delightful things was the various ways people played with establishing his (her) history, especially military past and leg wounded in Afghanistan (lots of people took the trouble to place him/her in Afghanistan). Mrs. Hudson turned up a lot, which was perfectly lovely; one story’s told entirely from her point of view. Moriarty appears as the villain of two stories; Irene Adler – or sometimes just “the Woman” – actually beats him, with at least four appearances (poor Billy doesn’t make it). But for the most part, my contributors added their own new characters, villains and allies, creating rich new worlds for Sherlock to be obnoxious at.

We’re a genre imprint, but the anthology wasn’t ever conceived as a genre collection. I shouldn’t have been, given that almost everyone I spoke to was in genre, but I was slightly surprised at the number of speculative stories: four science fictional (one of them pseudo-scientific), and two fantasy (one urban, one original recipe). Another two of them are “Scooby-Doo” stories, in which all the characters (except Holmes, naturally) are convinced the supernatural is at work until Holmes explains it all for us.

But the biggest variable is Holmes him(her)self. You can always recognise him – that insufferable superiority, that impenetrable genius, that dangerous wildness – but the authors have enjoyed the licence to show him in different ways, like the facets of a gem held up to the light. Holmes as architect, as drugged out hippie, as British radio actor, as schoolgirl. Violent Holmes, regretful Holmes, sentimental Holmes, sinister Holmes, breezy and flippant Holmes, achingly sad, beautiful Holmes. These fourteen men and women were allowed to mould one of their most beloved characters, to show him to us through their own eyes, and that love and that artistry showed through in every depiction.

So, yeah. It was a labour of love, for all of us, and there’ll be stuff in there – both familiar and fresh – for every reader. I hope you like it.

– – –

†Our smartypants PR Coordinator, I suppose. I don’t have my own personal PR Coordinator. Hell, I’m probably her fiction editor, put it like that. Having your own personal PR Coordinator would be a bit good, though, yeah? They could check over your Facebook posts and call up the paper to tell them when you get a job interview or get married. Oh, hey, I guess that’s what rich people have already. Wow; wouldn’t it be cool to be rich/famous/interesting enough to need to have your own personal PR Coordinator? Is this getting a bit non sequitur? Sorry. I just found a cookie. It was delicious.

‡SNF = Some Numbers Follow. New acronym I’m hoping will take off; there’s clearly a need. You’re welcome.

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