Fiction

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
1 The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

I've been reading the Sherlock Holmes short stories in order of publication recently — that was because I'd read a good chunk of each of the first two collected volumes (Adventures and Memoirs) but not finished either, and getting those polished off meant I could count them towards my GoodReads challenge tally. I could just keep going and do the same with the remaining three volumes, but I've barely started any of those so it's less about "finishing them off" as it is simply reading them.

So, instead, I've decided to go back to my previous methodology for a bit: using a ranking to see which stories are great/good/poor and choosing accordingly. My main guide is The Pocket Essential Sherlock Holmes, from which I have unread stories at evey rating level (i.e. 1–5 out of 5); but whereas in the past I used this to read the best of the best, now I'm going to focus on the lower-rated ones, the idea being that I'll eventually end my first-time reads with better-regarded stories.

Mazarin Stone is one of only two 1-star stories, according to Pocket Essentials. It ranks low on fan polls, too. And it is pretty bad: much of it is a pathetic circular argument between Holmes and the villain; as well as being argumentatively repetitive, the quality of the dialogue isn't very good; there's not really any mystery to be solved; a central conceit is recycled from an older story; and the twist denouement is insultingly implausible. It's based on a stage play, and apparently on stage the lights went out to facilitate the switcheroo, but in this adaptation, Holmes just... pulls it off without anyone noticing. It doesn't hold up.

Well, at least that's that out of the way. My plan is working. Next up: a story that seems to be pretty roundly regarded as the worst of the worst...

Bit of a footnote: the Wikipedia page for Case-Book lists this as story 3 in the book, because it cites the order they were presented in the first British collected edition. My copy uses the order the stories were original published in magazines, as does Pocket Essentials, so I've decided to number based on that.

Games

Dungeons of Hinterberg

Another hour or so today. Did another dungeon, but I kinda enjoy the town stuff more. Maybe this speaks to the kind of games I'd like to play in the future (though having the puzzle-y action-y dungeon stuff does also make for variety, so...)