The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Ah, Sherlock Holmes.

The very name conjures up the image of a dude, who may or may not be followed by a dumpy guy with a mustache, decked out in houndstooth, magnifying glass in hand and looking for clues.  Lately, however, the general public is just as likely to think about Downey Jr.'s grungey, druggy, semi-gay Holmes as they are to think of Rathbone's deerstarker-capped Holmes.

Me, I'm partial to Jeremy Brent, but I'm always open to suggestions.

Contemplating on his inherent awesomeness.

When I was younger, I knew next to nothing about the great detective, other than 'No shit, Sherlock' is quite the put-down. (The combination of a swear and a weird name? Blew my 10-year-old mind!) I wasn't fond of mystery stories back then, so Hound of the Baskervilles was probably the only story in my fourth-grade reading textbook that I didn't read. In fact, the first Sherlock story I read was the fan-novella 'Reichenbach: A Love Story', way back in 2007. After that, reading the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (both Vol. 1 and Vol. II) was inevitable.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

It's been a while, so you would think I've read all sorts of fun stuff, which is true. However, I don't want to get into all the crap when I can gush over great literature.

Pride and Prejudice is one of those books that everyone has read at one point in their academic careers, I think. Austen is a great writer, and Pride is probably her best known work. I know I had to read it once in high school, and while I liked it, it didn't leave that much of an impression on me.

That's not true for other people, judging from the mountain of profession fanfiction in the market today. You could read the entire thing from Darcy's perspective. (the cleverly titled Darcy's Story) You could read what happens if the book's timeline was changed. (Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World is just one example.) You could even see Elizabeth fight against the zombie hordes. (the nerd-ification masterpiece Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) There are literally dozens of books that try to continue, alter, and play with Austen's original story, at least according to Wikipedia, and we should always trust Wikipedia.

Collision Course by K.A. Mitchell

There's a few things I want to get off my chest before I really get into it, and it is this:

FUCK THIS FUCKING FUCK OF A FUCKING BOOK.

... I feel a little better.

When it comes to gay erotica, I tend to read those set in olden times (i.e. historical romances) and those set in never-really-happened times (i.e. fantasy). I don't usually read anything set in modern times, and this book proved to me why.

Collision Course is about two guys in Jacksonville, Florida. Aaron is a paramedic with a hatred of social workers. Joey is a social worker who falls in love at the drop of a hat. They meet at the scene of an accident where Joey was doing the Good Samaritan shtick, and it's not long after that the two leads are having sex in the back of the ambulance.

Of course, my first reaction was, whoa, not fucking around, are we Mitchell? The gay erotica I usually read tends to save the sex scenes for after the guys get to know each other, angst over each other, or at least had a couple of drinks first. No, Mitchell knows why we're here and the writer does not want to disappoint.

Bukatsu no Kouhai ni Semarareteimasu by Koshino

Let's talk about Bukatsu no Kouhai ni Semarareteimasu.

You might know this or not, but a lot of professional manga-ka have cut their creative teeth in fandom. CLAMP, of course, is the most common example. They started up making Captain Tsubasa parody books (of the slash variety, of course), and look where they are now, entertaining millions of fans with their strange, confusing plots and constant ship-teasing. They made it.

Other artists continue making fancomics even after they debut. Murakami Maki, the creator of Gravitation, for example, has done doujinshi for her own comic. And she isn't the only one.

It's not something you come across back home, is it? You usually don't find a professional using his skills to make fan parodies...

It was a bit of a stretch, and I'm (not) sorry.

Which brings me to Koshino. She, too, has done (and continues to do) fanbooks, mostly Fullmetal Alchemist slash. She also has found success with Bukatsu no Kouhai ni Semarareteimasu (I'm going to start calling it BKS from now on), a comic series that you can find on Libre Mobile's web service. It's done so well that they've produced an audio version (which is can be bought via Libre Mobile.)

I don't deal with Libre Mobile (and I'm pretty sure you can't either), so when I came across BKS for the first time in Magazine Be-Boy, the May 2011 issue, I thought it was a one-shot. Little did I know...

Star Trek - Errand of Vengeance #1: The Edge of the Sword

(The hell? A non-numbered Star Trek book published within the last ten years? I must be losing my mind.)

Maybe it's because I'm not a Trek maniac (what are they called again? Trekkies? Trekkers?), but I'm not all that clear on the whole Klingon thing. In the Original Series, they were just these swarthy guys that kind of looked like Genghis Khan. By the time The Next Generation starts, they visually evolved into big, dark guys with a lot of ridges and a lot of hair. (The Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations" gave a reason as to why TOS Klingons look different, but I don't buy it. I'd much rather pretend that they looked that way all along, which is probably why I'm not a Trekkie.)

OMG U GUISE! I totally can't tell them apart!

That said, I wonder in just what sort of way I should see Kell, the protagonist of Errand of Vengeance. Did he look like a TOS Klingon before he was changed to appear human? Or did he look like a TNG Klingon? I guess it doesn't matter in the long run; he looks human at the start of the story and he's described as small for a Klingon from the start. But I still wonder.

Hadaka Necktie-chan by Fujio

Let's talk about Hadaka Necktie-chan.

Several years ago, the doujinshi circle green park published a series of strips about a cute, innocent boy that says nothing and wears only a black tie and matching socks. The art style is very cute, and the stories are funny. Now, these self-published comics are being reprinted in Magazine Be-Boy.

Because of the art style, it isn't as pervy as it could have been, what with a lead character nearly naked the entire time (and that magical tie is always working, making sure nothing is seen.) If this was done in a more realistic style...

An awkward moment for all one.
From episode 18, "Necktie Koukan", Be-Boy 8/2011

Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Murakami Haruki (Part 3)

There's a couple of things I want to say about Murakami Haruki.

First, Murakami has a thing for ears, and so I have a thing for Murakami's thing for ears. I only really noticed it while reading A Wild Sheep Chase, in which the narrator turns his girlfriend's ears into something erotic and mysterious. I thought it was weird at the time, and I still sort of do. But, people become attracted to all sorts of things, so why can't perfectly shaped earlobes be one of these things? And who am I to balk against author appeal?

Second, I often find myself wondering if Murakami's works are just varying degrees of semi-autobiographical stories. "Folklore" from part 2, for example, felt very much like the author really was the narrator.Yes, I know that he probably did not work at an elephant factory, or that he really isn't a walking computer, but there is a lot of himself in his writing, which is true for every writer. 'Write what you know' and all that jazz. (Also, you can't tell me that he doesn't have an acting friend whose real name is the same as a Yamonote Line stop, because I won't believe you.)