The Fifth Heart
Jun. 23rd, 2017 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I wanted to like this so much. Dan Simmons is one of my favorite authors. Ilium and Olympos are among my favorite books ever. Hyperion is delightful. Drood is wonderful.
The Fifth Heart is okay.
I think maybe the problem is that I'm not a Sherlock Holmes nut and so much of the intricacy of the story is probably lost on me. I also don't know much about James or the other historical/literary figures in the text.
I was also a little disappointed that at no point was anything the characters in the novel think is funny actually funny to me. Mark Twain is funny. His writing makes me laugh. Mark Twain in this novel is not funny. I would think that's the point, that the funny man is not actually funny, except that the other characters all seem genuinely amused by his stories.
IDK
This one was not for me.
I did enjoy the ending, especially the epilogue, with James standing arm in arm with Holmes on the deck of the ship the way he's always wanted to stand with someone else.
View all my reviews
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Date: 2017-06-23 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-23 09:17 pm (UTC)And Holmes is very interested in the question of whether he's a real person or a fictional construct.
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Date: 2017-06-23 09:45 pm (UTC)....although urrgh, Henry James I want to drown in a bucket. Although at least Henry James filtered through someone else's consciousness is less horrible than actual Henry James. (sorry if you are a Henry James fan)
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Date: 2017-06-24 12:49 pm (UTC)I don't think I've actually read any James, so not a fan.
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Date: 2017-06-23 09:49 pm (UTC)Oh, goodreads, how I loathe thee. HENRY JAMES, THE OBSCURE WRITER.
(sorry if you like goodreads, I was on the site for years and then basically got bullied off it by guy reviewers)
There's no Watson? There's no Watson. Hmmmm. Watson is my boo, as the kids used to say. //eyes Simmons suspiciously
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Date: 2017-06-23 10:54 pm (UTC)Maybe the goodreads review meant "obscure" writer as in "WTF?" and not as in "nobody ever heard of this guy?"
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Date: 2017-06-24 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-24 12:50 pm (UTC)I like using Goodreads to keep track of my own reading, but I don't read other people's reviews outside my friends.
I think the way the book treats Watson is very interesting. He never actually appears in the book, though. The Watson part was the one thing I know enough about Sherlock to appreciate.
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Date: 2017-06-24 04:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-06-24 04:55 pm (UTC)I'd never seen that before.
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Date: 2017-06-24 05:12 pm (UTC)