Shaw and Touma

So today I wrote this.

As anyone who talks to me will know, I've recently discovered and read through Sherlock Holmes. The Holmes books are easily one of my favourite series ever. My only complaint about the series is that I didn't read it earlier and learn of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's methods earlier in my writing career. I saw a glimmer of them through Asimov, but everything only became clear once I found the source.

I'm not a fan of fan fiction or pastiches, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in the introduction to the Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: "Sherlock and his Watson may for a time find a place [in a literary Valhalla], while some more astute sleuth with some even less astute comrade may fill the stage they which they have vacated." This statement indicates to me that I have that good man's permission to attempt to emulate him. That's the primary objective of this simple little mystery I've drawn up. I call it Shaw and Touma and I can tell you off the bat that it's a story that tries to be pretty reverent towards the Holmes formula.

Mind you, however, that this mystery is set in the Grace universe and its deepest meanings will only be apparent to people that have read at least a portion of Grace. It has only a tenuous link to the actual story, but I am quite proud of the ending.

Though if anyone says this is better than Grace I will shoot them.