What fictional series would you like to be in?--Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), May 27, 2000

Answers

There are quite a few. I have all sorts of fanfic written in my head (but yet to be committed to paper in full) about a beautiful, brilliant young lady private detective who unwittingly goes time tripping and ends up, at various times, in Sherlock Holmes' England, on the Starship Enterprise (both NCC 1701 and 1701-D), M*A*S*H 4077 (and much later shows up in Boston and meets up with Dr. Charles Emerson Winbchester III), the New York of Nero Wolfe. While staying in her own time, she meets up Mulder and Scully, Matt Praeger (from a little known syndcated series Psi Factor), Dr. Sam Beckett and his friend Al, and Edison Carter and his computer generated double, Max Headroom.

While she's not exactly me, she does have many of what I consider to be my better traits.

So, Al, where do you think that jezail bullet really struck Watson? How often was that man married? And why didn't Mary know his name was John and not James?

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), May 27, 2000.

I must admit to being a Baring-Gould supporter, for the most part. He was married three times...the first time to the woman identified in that unpublished play Conan Doyle wrote, from San Francisco. I have often wondered who his third wife was, even going so far to suggest it was a daughter of Sebastian Moran, which would explain her antipathy to his joining with Sherlock's later adventures, and Sherlock calling his third marriage a "selfish action". His middle name was "Hamish", the Scottish for "James", and she used James as a pet name. He seems to have been hit by a jezial bullet in Afghanistan, and later, in one of the adventures with Sherlock, hit a second time with an eccentric with a jezial bullet.

One might also note that the wife of Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider- Man, was the beautiful Mary Jane...Watson? A descendent of John H., or perhaps his brother? Who knows?---Al

-- Al Schroeder (aschroeder@comdata.com), May 27, 2000.

Well, I could tell you which series I would NOT like to be in...David Gerrold's War Against the Chtorr series. Not only would I be trying to escape from giant pink worms from outer space, but it's taken him so long to finish Book 5 that I'd run the risk of being trapped in that terrible world for the rest of my life.

Nah--give me Kay Scarpetta and let me follow her around and take notes....or perhaps be her medical transcriptionist.

-- Bev Sykes (basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us), May 27, 2000.

Geez, the dying soldier in the the first Great War being transported fantasticly to Mars. I lived that when I was a kid. Buck Rogers. The boy in Captains Courageous. And the woman in Stranger in a Strange Land of Heinlein's.

What else---doug---Stranger in a Stranger Land !

-- Denver doug (Ionoi@webtv.net), May 27, 2000.

Al - I think Watson's first wife was named Constance, if I remember my Baring-Gould correctly. Where do you stand on the theory of Nero Wolfe's parentage being Holmes and Irene Adler?

As for the jezail bullet, I think that Michael Hardwick posited that Watson was first struck in the shoulder, then, soon after his orderly slung him over his horse to get him to safety, he was struck in the right heel.

I find your theory that Watson married the daughter of Moran fascinating. I've never given it much thought, to be honest, but now you've got the wheels my head turning (always a dangerous thing, as friends and family will testify).

Bev - I recently read a Kay Scarpetti novel (CAUSE OF DEATH) for the first time, and enjoyed it a great deal. I definitely want to pick up more of that series. I'm already hooked on the Kinsey Milhone series.

-- Carol (webgal@ordinarygoddess.com), May 28, 2000.

WebGal -- I've read some of Sue Grafton, but I find a little of Kinsey Mulhone goes a long way and I have to take a break. I haven't found the same thing with Kay Scarpetta...but they're both good, I agree.

-- Bev Sykes (basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us), May 28, 2000.

Well, actually, I favor the Irene Adler/Sherlock being Nero's parents theory...although I don't necessarily agree with Baring-Gould that Marko Vulckic and Archie Goodwin are related also.

In fact, I fall in with the Farmerian amendment of the Baring-Gould theory. Have you ever read TARZAN ALIVE by Philip Jose Farmer, or the follow-up, DOC SAVAGE: HIS APOCALYPTIC LIFE? In it he composes an immense family tree for both Tarzan and Doc Savage. Doc Savage is the son of the James Wilder, son of the Duke of Holderness in the Priory School adventure. Tarzan's grandfather, an eccentric socialist Duke and taxicab driver, appeared in HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. (His brother was the Duke of Holderness.) Tarzan was related to Holmes on his mother's side (Farmer makes some amendments to Baring-Gould's deductions, and says that Sherlock's mother was Violet Rutherford, not Sherrinford.) He speculates Fu Manchu's nemesis, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, who is an exact duplicate of Sherlock in all save brillance (even down to having a medical man for a biographer) might be a nephew, although I think it's more likely that he's an illegitimate son of the eldest brother, "Sherrinford", than of a sister where there is no real evidence for...

Inspired, lunatic, reading. In it he relates Tarzan to Lord Peter Wimsey (!), Sir Percy Blakeney (the Scarlet Pimperpernal, also an ancestor of Sherlock, where he inherited disguise abilities), Dupin, The Shadow, the Spider, Prof. Challenger is shown to be the uncle of Monk Mayfair, Doc Savage's brillant but apelike aid, and also related to Ludwig Horace Holly of Haggard's SHE. In the Doc Savage bio, Fu Manchu, Prof. Moriarty, Capt. Nemo, James Bond, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe are all added to various points of the family tree.

Strongly recommended literary fun, rather like the Baring-Gould books.---Al

-- Al Schroeder (aschroeder@nashville.com), May 28, 2000.

What to choose? There are so many ... I think I'd opt for being a character in Stephen Donaldson's "Chronicles of Thomas Covenant", preferably the first book in the series. That world is so spacious ... so well outlined and still with room for so many untold stories. I'd like particularly to be a Stonedownor with a talent for Rhadhamaerl, the innate magic of stone. There is something very appealing in that, for me. And the whole Land so filled with beauty and magic, even as it slowly emerges from the shadow of Desecration ... Yes. Sounds good. :)

-- Magnus Itland (itlandm@netcom.no), May 28, 2000.

Well, I have one book I definately DO NOT want to be in - Su Tong's Rice. Women are treated like trash there, and I don't think I'll be a happy camper. But the book I want to belong in? Any of the Trek novels. Preferably on Star Trek Voyager. I don't know, I don't read many happy books. :)

-- Scribe (liztai@hotmail.com), May 29, 2000.

I would like to be one of the characters in one of Marion Zimmer Bradley's avolon books, maybe one of the girls fostered in avalon to be a preistess or herbalist. Or I would like to be one of the dragonriders in Anne McCaffrey's Pern books. I would love to be psychically linked to a dragon. A great "soulmate" concept.

-- AJ (joijoijoi@hotmail.com), May 29, 2000.