DEBORAH CROMBIE: It is always such a treat to have the multi-talented author Dana Cameron as one of
our guests on JRW. You know you can count on Dana for something fun and interesting, and when I saw the title of today's post I couldn't wait to read it! So without further ado here is Dana on:
Mycroft
Holmes, Spies, and My Fangborn World
Recently, our own Hank Phillippi Ryan
mentioned my fascination with all things Sherlockian.
Last week, at the Femmes Fatales
blog, I wrote about how I came to write my Sherlockian pastiche story, “The Curious Case of
Miss Amelia Vernet, ” and the challenges ofcombining Arthur Conan
Doyle's world with my Fangborn urban fantasy 'verse. Today, I write about
spies and Sherlock Holmes's (arguably) smarter brother and how they might fit
into my Fangborn universe of heroic werewolves, vampires, and oracles.
Everyone has a favorite
Sherlockian character or story, apart from Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, of
course. I personally am most intrigued by the characters that make the
biggest impact, but from the shadows. For me, that means Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's older brother
and a titan in both brains and body. Sherlock describes him to Watson at
first as having a position in the British government but later reveals that
“occasionally, [Mycroft] is the British government.” Mycroft is virtually
a human computer and and his specialty is “omniscience.” Recently, I was
honored to be a part of the inaugural meeting of the
Diogenes Club of Washington, D.C., a scion
society devoted to Sherlockian pursuits and named for the private club
that Mycroft founded (here I'm sporting my club badge).
My interest in Mycroft also stems
from my infatuation with spies and spying. It was the glamorized, mythologized
fictions that spoke to me first (most of my Barbie dolls were chemists or
spies), but it was a paper I did in high school that sealed the deal from the
non-fiction point of view when I wrote about the Special Operations Executive.
The SOE was formed at the request of Winston Churchill in 1940 to spy on and
sabotage the Axis powers in Europe; the SOE was the foundation of what would
eventually become MI6. Because of their irregular and “ungentlemanly”
tactics—commando skills, criminal techniques, and all-around dirty fighting
were their preferred methods—and their headquarters in Baker Street, the SOE
referred to themselves as the Baker Street Irregulars.
They took their name from the
original Baker Street Irregulars which, you probably know, were the creation of
Arthur Conan Doyle. Sherlock Holmes needed a covert network of spies to
aid his investigations through the mazes of 19th-century London. He paid
homeless children for their information and their ability to move about unseen;
they were, sadly, all but invisible in the streets of the capital.
Because of these connections—Mycroft's important role as a clearinghouse of
information in the government and the children's use of their criminal
skills—other fiction writers have suggested that Mycroft was actually the
founder of the British Secret Service and that the “M” of James Bond fame
refers to his name and was passed down as a title.
In my short story, “The Curious
Case of Miss Amelia Vernet,” I combine the world of Sherlock Holmes and my own Fangborn world of
superhero vampires, werewolves, and oracles. Their own covert
activities—secretly fighting evil and protecting humanity—made that a natural
avenue for me to explore while writing about Sherlock's Baker Street
Irregulars.
Mycroft's role in the British government made me wonder what
Britain's official stance on the Fangborn would be and his “omniscience” made
me wonder what he knew about the hidden history of the Fangborn and their
powers. Finding those connections offered me endless fun mashing up these
two worlds.
So, Reds and readers: who is
your favorite Sherlockian character? Favorite story or adaptation for the
screen?
Dana Cameron can't help mixing in a little history into her
fiction. Drawing from her expertise in archaeology, Dana's work
(including traditional mystery, noir, urban fantasy, thriller, and historical
tales) has won multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards and earned an
Edgar Award nomination. Her third Fangborn novel, Hellbender, will be published in April 2015 by 47North.
Her most recent Fangborn short story is a Sherlockian pastiche; "The
Curious Case of Miss Amelia Vernet" was published in October. Her
story, "The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars," featuring Pam Ravenscroft
from Charlaine Harris's acclaimed Sookie Stackhouse mysteries, appears in DEAD
BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: Stories from the World of Sookie Stackhouse.
Www. danacameron.com
DEBS: Dana, so jealous of the badge! But LOVE the idea of
Mycroft being the originator of M!! You can certainly imagine that Mycroft in
Mark Gatiss's portrayal in Sherlock. As
for favorite characters, I think mine would have to be Watson as he is written
in the original Conan Doyle stories, and as he's played--very true to form, I
think, by Martin Freeman in Sherlock.
REDS and readers, what about you?
