New Mycroft story from the most unlikely author

[Stephen]

This should be very interesting. Who knew Kareem was a Sherlockian?

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/201...

[David]

That is an interesting twist.

[Margaret]

I shall have to keep an eye out for that. Mycroft is an incredibly underutilized character.

[Anna]

I'm intrigued. I've never heard of a Mycroft series. I'll check that out. Thanks for the post.
anna

[Paula]

Considering the fact that Sherlock even gives credit to Mycroft as being better at deduction, etc. than he is, we need to see something like this. I like the character as portrayed in the BBC series. Will be interesting to see how Kareem writes the character.

[Margaret]

I now have this on reservation at my library. Looking forward to reading it.

[M.R.]

Got my copy sitting on my shelf, waiting for my schedule to clear for a few hours.
I had known Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a Holmesian, but I didn't expect fanfiction from that direction! I have to say I'm excited to get started on it.

[Mitra]

In a recent interview in NY, while giving his opinion on politics, as a side subject,Kareem Abdul Jabbar talked about his book on Mycroft and also said that he was a fan of the CBS Elementary. He particularly appreciated Jonny Lee Miller's Sherlock. He seemed to enjoy Elementary more than the BBC Sherlock.

[Silvio111]

I keep meaning to watch an episode of Jonny Lee Miller's ELEMENTARY. I have not seen him in anything since that 1995 movie HACKERS (with Angelina Jolie, pre-Billy Bob and pre-Brad.)

[Patrizia]

I find some review about it. The opinions are divergent: some review are entusiastic and others speak about problem with the writing style. They say the style is more contemporaney american rather than victorian english.I think I'll read it for curiosity, but I think that in a book about Holmes the writing style is important.

[Sarah]

I was flipping through it at Barnes & Noble last night. It looks interesting. It's definitely his own voice, he's not trying to replicate Doyle (and I'm personally okay with that). I wasn't aware of the fact that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has written a number of books which have been critically well received.

[Ken B]

It looks like the majority of his books have a co-author. I wonder if he really wrote the books or if he is merely a marketing device.

[Silvio111]

Well, I don't know if he would be a marketing device. He seems like a pretty intelligent fellow, not "just an athlete." (Yes, I know that thought comes into good sports performance.)

The trend these days with co-authors seems to be - if you consider Keith Richards' memoir, LIFE, for instance - that the figure sits down with a writer and tells endless stories, as if being interviewed. Where there are holes in their memory, the writer researches what "really happened" (as a biographer might attempt to) by interviewing other people. Then the writer edits the whole business into a coherent book.

I suppose it is a collaborative process, no more so than most "real writers" have with their editors, right? Perhaps I am wrong about this, having never been a "real writer" or even a book editor.

[Paula]

Ken wrote: "It looks like the majority of his books have a co-author. I wonder if he really wrote the books or if he is merely a marketing device."

You might be surprised at how many authors use ghost writers or collaborate on a book. Ghost writers are well-paid. I would give you a couple of examples, but no sense in letting cats out of bags, eh?

[Anna]

I cannot fathom how ghostwriting is not deemed illegal. If Lucien Freud paid someone to paint pictures and then sold them under his own name it would be called fraud.

[Silvio111]

Well, didn't Rodin have a staff of students who actually built his sculptures (to his specifications)?

I suppose an artist could be like a director, visualizing the work and delegating tasks to others.

[Paula]

Silvio111 said: "I suppose an artist could be like a director, visualizing the work and delegating tasks to others."

Exactly.

Here's a link that gives some information about what a ghostwriter is and does. It's not only novels and non-fiction books that are ghostwritten. Even the president of the United States has speechwriters. It's quite common for prominent people to hire a speechwriter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostwr...

Another link here http://villagehiker.com/research-writ... from a blog in which the process is explained rather well and the ethics of ghostwriting is mentioned. I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on people who want to get a good product out there but haven't time to write everything themselves.

[Mark]

I last saw him trying to kick Bruce Lee's head in-that or in Airplane!... I had no idea he was into this... I should like to read his book to find out where he takes the character/s... so far, Moriarty has been resurrected by several authors-made even more interesting than Holmes in some cases-but Mycroft, to me, remains Christopher Lee or Charles Gray (Even Stephen Fry) on screen and a nebulous character at that...