The Valley of Fear: Argus

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Title: The Valley of Fear: Argus
Author: gardnerhill                       
Word Count: 60                    
Rating: G
Warning: None.
Summary: How did Hermes defeat Hera's guardsman?

***

When I was cornered in a vault by two of Moriarty's gunmen, I only smiled. "I have yet to write the case that involves the gangs in Pennsylvania's coal country. Snow lay in the Gilmerton mountains…"

By the time I'd related Birdy Edwards' gang induction, both gunmen were fast asleep and I simply walked around them to effect my escape.

Comments

[debriswoman]

Well...this brought a smile to start the day with:-)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

I once did a LOTR-themed cartoon called "Plan B": Sam Gamgee confronting Shelob by reading the Silmarillion aloud till the giant spider fell asleep.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

A completely understandable reaction on the part of the gunmen.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Yes. VALL commits the absolute mortal sin in fiction of being boring.

[okapi1895.livejournal.com]

Ha, ha, ha! This made me laugh out loud. Throw in the Mormons zzzzz!

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Right - cut "Land of the Saints" down to 2 sentences and return to Jefferson Hope saying "And now you know the story."

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

^________^

It's funny because it's true ^_____^ (Oh, poor VALL - I feel so sorry for it but...)

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Poor "Valley of Fear" - the "Cousin Oliver" of Canon. (Cousin Oliver was a poorly-thought-out new addition to the long-standing cast of The Brady Bunch nearly at the end of its run.)

[mafief.livejournal.com]

Lol, yes and yes. Like with STUD, I haven't bothered reading the exposition story and probably never will!

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

With both STUD and VALL, what comes through is Doyle the all-around fiction writer trying his hand at a couple of American milieus - and in the case of VALL desperately trying to remind people that he can write about OTHER things than That Man.

As period fiction pieces, they are reminiscent of the kind of stories that ran in magazines in those days (Jack London, Bret Harte, Rudyard Kipling & others did the same and rose above the pulp medium). There's nothing particularly noteworthy about them now, except that they're part of the Sherlock Holmes Canon due to their framing story.