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The Fifth Heart
In 1893, Sherlock Holmes and Henry James come to America together to solve the mystery of the 1885 death of Clover Adams, wife of the esteemed historian Henry Adams--member of the Adams family that has given the United States two Presidents. Clover's suicide appears to be more than it at first seemed; the suspected foul play may involve matters of national importance.
Holmes is currently on his Great Hiatus--his three-year absence after Reichenbach Falls during which time the people of London believe him to be deceased. Holmes has faked his own death because, through his powers of ratiocination, the great detective has come to the conclusion that he is a fictional character.
This leads to serious complications for James--for if his esteemed fellow investigator is merely a work of fiction, what does that make him? And what can the master storyteller do to fight against the sinister power -- possibly named Moriarty -- that may or may not be controlling them from the shadows?
Holmes is currently on his Great Hiatus--his three-year absence after Reichenbach Falls during which time the people of London believe him to be deceased. Holmes has faked his own death because, through his powers of ratiocination, the great detective has come to the conclusion that he is a fictional character.
This leads to serious complications for James--for if his esteemed fellow investigator is merely a work of fiction, what does that make him? And what can the master storyteller do to fight against the sinister power -- possibly named Moriarty -- that may or may not be controlling them from the shadows?
618 pages, Hardcover
First published March 24, 2015
About the author
Dan Simmons
316 books12.4k followersDan Simmons grew up in various cities and small towns in the Midwest, including Brimfield, Illinois, which was the source of his fictional "Elm Haven" in 1991's SUMMER OF NIGHT and 2002's A WINTER HAUNTING. Dan received a B.A. in English from Wabash College in 1970, winning a national Phi Beta Kappa Award during his senior year for excellence in fiction, journalism and art.
Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years—2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York—one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher—and 14 years in Colorado.
ABOUT DAN
Biographic Sketch
His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.
Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."
Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado—in the same town where he taught for 14 years—with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker—their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike—a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels—was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.
Dan received his Masters in Education from Washington University in St. Louis in 1971. He then worked in elementary education for 18 years—2 years in Missouri, 2 years in Buffalo, New York—one year as a specially trained BOCES "resource teacher" and another as a sixth-grade teacher—and 14 years in Colorado.
ABOUT DAN
Biographic Sketch
His last four years in teaching were spent creating, coordinating, and teaching in APEX, an extensive gifted/talented program serving 19 elementary schools and some 15,000 potential students. During his years of teaching, he won awards from the Colorado Education Association and was a finalist for the Colorado Teacher of the Year. He also worked as a national language-arts consultant, sharing his own "Writing Well" curriculum which he had created for his own classroom. Eleven and twelve-year-old students in Simmons' regular 6th-grade class averaged junior-year in high school writing ability according to annual standardized and holistic writing assessments. Whenever someone says "writing can't be taught," Dan begs to differ and has the track record to prove it. Since becoming a full-time writer, Dan likes to visit college writing classes, has taught in New Hampshire's Odyssey writing program for adults, and is considering hosting his own Windwalker Writers' Workshop.
Dan's first published story appeared on Feb. 15, 1982, the day his daughter, Jane Kathryn, was born. He's always attributed that coincidence to "helping in keeping things in perspective when it comes to the relative importance of writing and life."
Dan has been a full-time writer since 1987 and lives along the Front Range of Colorado—in the same town where he taught for 14 years—with his wife, Karen, his daughter, Jane, (when she's home from Hamilton College) and their Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Fergie. He does much of his writing at Windwalker—their mountain property and cabin at 8,400 feet of altitude at the base of the Continental Divide, just south of Rocky Mountain National Park. An 8-ft.-tall sculpture of the Shrike—a thorned and frightening character from the four Hyperion/Endymion novels—was sculpted by an ex-student and friend, Clee Richeson, and the sculpture now stands guard near the isolated cabin.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 709 reviews
April 27, 2021
Sherlock Holmes teams up with Henry James in this meticulously researched imagining of America's 'Gilded Age' which brings the post American Civil War boom era to life. There are three cases/mysteries that the pair get to be involved in; and the most puzzling case of all --> is concern that Holmes could be a fictional person, and that they might be characters in a novel!
The Five Hearts were a real group of five friends centred round Henry Adams. They were a privileged elite group that personally knew every president from Lincoln to T. Roosevelt and befriended Henry James, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Rudyard Kipling and a host of other distinguished persons. One of the cases in this book investigates the (real) suicide of John’s wife Clover Adams!
Although the story isn't that great, the visualising of the American gentleman and the divisions within a newly united United States is absorbing. And Dan Simmonsdoesn't hold back with references and discussions on topics such as The Haymarket Massacre (The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America: From Its Incipient Stage to the First Bomb Thrown in Chicago: A Comprehensive Account of the Great Conspiracy Culminating in the Haymarket Massacre, May 4th, 1886: A Minute Account of the Apprehension, Trial, Co), the New York Draft riots (The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War) and the views and actions of American anarchism.
At the heart (pun intended!) of this book, is a quite daring version of an arrogant, drug abusing, people manipulating; yet brave, physically strong, inclusive and decisive Holmes, which is probably one of the most engaging and entertaining depictions of him ever; working alongside one of the most staid and formal writers in Henry James, whom Simmons also draws so well, portraying how James' life, and even inner thoughts, are turned upside down by Holmes. A most engaging historical fiction! 7.5 out of 12.
The Five Hearts were a real group of five friends centred round Henry Adams. They were a privileged elite group that personally knew every president from Lincoln to T. Roosevelt and befriended Henry James, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Rudyard Kipling and a host of other distinguished persons. One of the cases in this book investigates the (real) suicide of John’s wife Clover Adams!
Although the story isn't that great, the visualising of the American gentleman and the divisions within a newly united United States is absorbing. And Dan Simmonsdoesn't hold back with references and discussions on topics such as The Haymarket Massacre (The Rise and Fall of Anarchy in America: From Its Incipient Stage to the First Bomb Thrown in Chicago: A Comprehensive Account of the Great Conspiracy Culminating in the Haymarket Massacre, May 4th, 1886: A Minute Account of the Apprehension, Trial, Co), the New York Draft riots (The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War) and the views and actions of American anarchism.
At the heart (pun intended!) of this book, is a quite daring version of an arrogant, drug abusing, people manipulating; yet brave, physically strong, inclusive and decisive Holmes, which is probably one of the most engaging and entertaining depictions of him ever; working alongside one of the most staid and formal writers in Henry James, whom Simmons also draws so well, portraying how James' life, and even inner thoughts, are turned upside down by Holmes. A most engaging historical fiction! 7.5 out of 12.
May 13, 2015
3 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.com/2015/05/13/b...
A Dan Simmons book is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get. And like a box of chocolates, you know they’re all good but some are going to be better than others. Simmons is a versatile author who seems to write a bit of everything, and I’ve come to the conclusion that for me personally, his Historical Fiction is kind of like those sticky little peanut nougats – that is, they’re not my favorite. I’d much rather prefer those with the milk chocolate filled with caramel or raspberry cream, which in the context of this yummy little example would be probably Simmons’ Horror or Science Fiction.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Dan Simmons. His book The Terror is one of my favorite novels of all time, and I’ll never look at time travel the same way again thanks to his Hyperion, which completely blew my mind. But then there are his books like Drood or 2013’s The Abominable that just didn’t resonate with me at all. Now that I’m finished reading it, I think my reaction to The Fifth Heart falls somewhere in between.
The book is described as a historical novel about the American author Henry James. Up until the events of the introduction, James has been leading a miserable life. His writing career is stagnating, and with fiftieth birthday is coming up, he feels like he’s got little to show for it. Things are so bad that he’s decided to commit suicide by traveling to Paris and throwing himself into the Seine.
But all that changed when he serendipitously meets a man named Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant London-based detective who sets the two of them on a literary puzzle to solve the mystery of Clover Adams’ death. But wait a minute now, I hear you asking, isn’t Sherlock Holmes a fictional character? Well, yes, and that’s actually where it starts to get interesting. Simmons is up to his old tricks again, because he can never seem to write a straight-up historical or fantasy or . That, and he seems to have a penchant for going a bit metafiction on us in recent years. Sure, you can look at this book as a historical mystery, with a bit of thriller and suspense thrown in, but really, when you boil it all down? The Fifth Heart is a Sherlock Holmes story. Dan Simmons style.
What does that mean? First of all, you’ll be exposed to a whole cast of historical figures including Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams (the historian who is the descendant of two American presidents and husband of Clover Adams, the woman whose death is at the center of this mystery). Then there are the fictional characters like Irene Adler, Professor Moriarty and a couple others from the Holmes tradition, and even one delightful little mention of Christie’s Hercule Poirot! Then there’s the humor. When fictional and historical worlds collide, you get some pretty bizarre situations. Henry James is essentially Holmes’ new sidekick in this story, becoming intrigued by the detective’s belief that he is a fictional character. He picks up the Sherlock Holmes books, and essentially begins making fun of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing by poking fun at everything in stories that don’t make sense. That’s before James descends into his own existential crisis, wondering if he himself is also a product of someone else’s imagination playing out his part in a fictional story. Which, in this case, he actually is! Didn’t I tell you things get meta?
See, all that stuff was great. The Fifth Heart works well as a mix of all the elements I just discussed, and I love that Simmons is always trying new things and writing very unique and creative stories. But there were also a lot of issues here that I just couldn’t ignore. When it comes down to it, I couldn’t fully embrace The Fifth Heart for the very same reasons I couldn’t get into the last book by Simmons that I read, which was The Abominable. The reason is that both books were just WAY too bogged down by what I felt were unnecessary info dumps, which Simmons goes into with exhaustive detail.
Simmons strikes me as an author who never scrimps on research, which is great. Unless he specifies to the contrary, I can always count on the facts I read in his books to be pretty accurate. What’s not so great is when all that research ends up in the book, descriptions going on sometimes for pages at a time. I get that sometimes you can come across a fascinating piece of information while researching and become very eager to share what you discovered with others. But really, a lot of the information such as historical or biographical details could have been pared way down. It’s just like in The Abominable, when I really could have done without the few dozen or so paragraphs on the many wonderful kinds of ice axes and 12-point crampons.
I would probably recommend The Fifth Heart only to the most loyal of Dan Simmons fans, or Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts. I can’t deny the concept was fun, but it could have been a better book if the lengthy expositions didn’t wreak so much havoc on the pacing. That said, I’ll still probably pick up the next Simmons book. He has such skill and imagination; I know not all of his books will be my cup of tea, but I can always count on him writing brilliant stories with brilliant ideas.
A Dan Simmons book is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get. And like a box of chocolates, you know they’re all good but some are going to be better than others. Simmons is a versatile author who seems to write a bit of everything, and I’ve come to the conclusion that for me personally, his Historical Fiction is kind of like those sticky little peanut nougats – that is, they’re not my favorite. I’d much rather prefer those with the milk chocolate filled with caramel or raspberry cream, which in the context of this yummy little example would be probably Simmons’ Horror or Science Fiction.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Dan Simmons. His book The Terror is one of my favorite novels of all time, and I’ll never look at time travel the same way again thanks to his Hyperion, which completely blew my mind. But then there are his books like Drood or 2013’s The Abominable that just didn’t resonate with me at all. Now that I’m finished reading it, I think my reaction to The Fifth Heart falls somewhere in between.
The book is described as a historical novel about the American author Henry James. Up until the events of the introduction, James has been leading a miserable life. His writing career is stagnating, and with fiftieth birthday is coming up, he feels like he’s got little to show for it. Things are so bad that he’s decided to commit suicide by traveling to Paris and throwing himself into the Seine.
But all that changed when he serendipitously meets a man named Sherlock Holmes, a brilliant London-based detective who sets the two of them on a literary puzzle to solve the mystery of Clover Adams’ death. But wait a minute now, I hear you asking, isn’t Sherlock Holmes a fictional character? Well, yes, and that’s actually where it starts to get interesting. Simmons is up to his old tricks again, because he can never seem to write a straight-up historical or fantasy or . That, and he seems to have a penchant for going a bit metafiction on us in recent years. Sure, you can look at this book as a historical mystery, with a bit of thriller and suspense thrown in, but really, when you boil it all down? The Fifth Heart is a Sherlock Holmes story. Dan Simmons style.
What does that mean? First of all, you’ll be exposed to a whole cast of historical figures including Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Adams (the historian who is the descendant of two American presidents and husband of Clover Adams, the woman whose death is at the center of this mystery). Then there are the fictional characters like Irene Adler, Professor Moriarty and a couple others from the Holmes tradition, and even one delightful little mention of Christie’s Hercule Poirot! Then there’s the humor. When fictional and historical worlds collide, you get some pretty bizarre situations. Henry James is essentially Holmes’ new sidekick in this story, becoming intrigued by the detective’s belief that he is a fictional character. He picks up the Sherlock Holmes books, and essentially begins making fun of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s writing by poking fun at everything in stories that don’t make sense. That’s before James descends into his own existential crisis, wondering if he himself is also a product of someone else’s imagination playing out his part in a fictional story. Which, in this case, he actually is! Didn’t I tell you things get meta?
See, all that stuff was great. The Fifth Heart works well as a mix of all the elements I just discussed, and I love that Simmons is always trying new things and writing very unique and creative stories. But there were also a lot of issues here that I just couldn’t ignore. When it comes down to it, I couldn’t fully embrace The Fifth Heart for the very same reasons I couldn’t get into the last book by Simmons that I read, which was The Abominable. The reason is that both books were just WAY too bogged down by what I felt were unnecessary info dumps, which Simmons goes into with exhaustive detail.
Simmons strikes me as an author who never scrimps on research, which is great. Unless he specifies to the contrary, I can always count on the facts I read in his books to be pretty accurate. What’s not so great is when all that research ends up in the book, descriptions going on sometimes for pages at a time. I get that sometimes you can come across a fascinating piece of information while researching and become very eager to share what you discovered with others. But really, a lot of the information such as historical or biographical details could have been pared way down. It’s just like in The Abominable, when I really could have done without the few dozen or so paragraphs on the many wonderful kinds of ice axes and 12-point crampons.
I would probably recommend The Fifth Heart only to the most loyal of Dan Simmons fans, or Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts. I can’t deny the concept was fun, but it could have been a better book if the lengthy expositions didn’t wreak so much havoc on the pacing. That said, I’ll still probably pick up the next Simmons book. He has such skill and imagination; I know not all of his books will be my cup of tea, but I can always count on him writing brilliant stories with brilliant ideas.
July 4, 2024
„Петата купа“ много ми хареса, въпреки че не е от най-великите романи на Дан Симънс! Авторът по страшно интересен начин е представил атмосферата от края на 19-ти век...
Главните герои в историята са двама - писателят Хенри Джеймс и детективът Шерлок Холмс. В началото Джеймс е отчаян, и решава да сложи край на живота си, като скочи в река Сена. Обаче, на същото място се оказва Шерлок и го спасява... След това, двамата отиват в САЩ, където детективът разследва случая с мистериозното самоубийство на Клоувър Адамс, която е била и приятелка на Джеймс. Това не е единствената причина Шерлок да предприеме пътуването към Америка - негова основна цел е да разкрие и осуети мащабната конспирация на анархистки групи, които планират покушения срещу американския президент Кливланд и други световни лидери. Шерлок също така е в мрачно настроение, тъй като през цялото време го измъчват съмнения, дали всъщност не е истинска личност, а обикновен литературен герой... По време на разследването, двамата се срещат с неповторимия Марк Твен... Епизодични появи в историята имат и други интересни личности, като Теодор Рузвелт и Ръдиард Киплинг.
Книгата ни запознава и с много любопитни събития, като създаването на Белия град за Световното изложение в Чикаго през 1893 г. Ако ви стана интересно и искате да се потопите в тези вълнуващи времена – „Петата купа“ определено си заслужава!
Главните герои в историята са двама - писателят Хенри Джеймс и детективът Шерлок Холмс. В началото Джеймс е отчаян, и решава да сложи край на живота си, като скочи в река Сена. Обаче, на същото място се оказва Шерлок и го спасява... След това, двамата отиват в САЩ, където детективът разследва случая с мистериозното самоубийство на Клоувър Адамс, която е била и приятелка на Джеймс. Това не е единствената причина Шерлок да предприеме пътуването към Америка - негова основна цел е да разкрие и осуети мащабната конспирация на анархистки групи, които планират покушения срещу американския президент Кливланд и други световни лидери. Шерлок също така е в мрачно настроение, тъй като през цялото време го измъчват съмнения, дали всъщност не е истинска личност, а обикновен литературен герой... По време на разследването, двамата се срещат с неповторимия Марк Твен... Епизодични появи в историята имат и други интересни личности, като Теодор Рузвелт и Ръдиард Киплинг.
Книгата ни запознава и с много любопитни събития, като създаването на Белия град за Световното изложение в Чикаго през 1893 г. Ако ви стана интересно и искате да се потопите в тези вълнуващи времена – „Петата купа“ определено си заслужава!
March 17, 2016
In the rainy March of 1893, for reasons that no one understands (primarily because no one besides us is aware of this story), the London-based American author Henry James decided to spend his April 15 birthday in Paris and there, on or before his birthday, commit suicide by throwing himself into the Seine at night.
So obviously we're in a Dan Simmons book because a semi-obscure (at least in 2015) late 19th-century author is one of the main characters. And also because we're in a Dan Simmons book, who does James meet on this rainy night under a bridge spanning the aforementioned Seine? Well, the cover/summary probably told you already but of course it's none other than London's only consulting detective Sherlock Fucking Holmes. So already this is a bit of a bizarre premise, what with the very real James encountering the very fictional Holmes. Meta concepts like the nature of fiction and being a "real" person as opposed to a "fictional" one, the fourth wall and that kind of thing are very present here and done tastefully and awesomely--they're never cheaply milked for plot or cheesy "special effects," if you will.
And also because Simmons is a masterful writer this bizarre premise turns into an utterly satisfying and often truly thrilling historical adventure/mystery. "But I've never read a Henry James book," your squeaky voice cries. That's cool! I haven't either! "I'm also not really a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes..." That's cool too! I like Doyle's stories, but I've never come close to the rabid fanboy/girlism of dedicated followers of Sherlockiana. (I know that my Goodreads friends list is wide and varied, and this generalizing will not apply to all of you intelligent, pretty people.) A big part of the magic of this guy's books is that he MAKES me interested in these subjects, and I go on to learn more and more about it after reading the book. That is truly invaluable to me. For instance, this book motivated me to purchase a complete edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories and finish them all, and also finally read The Turn of the Screw.
So, now that I've hopefully kicked the legs out from under any argument you may have already presented to yourself on why you shouldn't read this book I can stop being annoying and talking directly to the reader and whatever. It really is not as niche-y as it sounds. If you have ANY kind of interest in late 19th century American history, this will float your boat most buoyantly. 90% of the characters are historical figures, including but not limited to Mark Twain (in his regular Samuel Clemens persona), Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Henry and Clover Adams, and a fuckton others who I probably didn't even recognize as real people because the late-19th century is NOT my historical wheelhouse. And I still loved this shit! These historical people are all drawn as actual human beings first and historical figures second, though. They feel like living people, not just exposition-spouting puppets. It probably doesn't need to be said, but if you DO have an interest in James or Holmes you'll love this shit. James is painted in an extremely lifelike fashion and I found out a ton of shit about his life and career. On the Holmes side there are TONS of references to his previous escapades and the world he inhabits.
This is what I'm trying to make most clear. At this point in his career Simmons is clearly just trying to think of odd story ideas that please HIM the most, rather than catering to an audience, perceived or real. It's just coincidentally awesome that he's so good at what he does that it's pleasing for people who aren't Dan Simmons (such as myself) to read and have fun with. Of course, I'm aware of people that find these newer-style books of his interminably dull and long so as usual Results May Vary. There is a ton of detail about every conceivable bit of historical minutiae like the cheap, shitty compound they built the White City out of, small biographies on every historical character, a few pages on the first Ferris Wheel and stuff like that. I truly do understand and sympathize with people that find that kind of shit in a piece of fiction to be boring and dumb, but I love it. For me it's part and parcel of summoning the dead and buried world of 1893.
I loved James and Holmes' relationship. Obviously Sherlock fans are gonna be pissed as to the utter lack of John Watson in these pages but in some ways I found James to be a better foil to Holmes. For one, he gets pissed off by Holmes a lot, which I really think would probably be my reaction to having to hang out with someone as brilliant and yet almost sociopathic and obnoxious as Holmes. It's not that he particularly has an inability to get along well with other people socially, he just really doesn't care to. Is he a perennially awesome literary hero? Of course! But it makes him even cooler to have as a foil a prissy, struggling author who suffers from diarrhea and likes to take naps and stuff like that. The primary antagonist in this book was the shit, too! It only made it sweeter that he was a Simmons creation, albeit one made within the Sherlock world:
So yeah. I really love Dan Simmons books. The only reason I didn't bless this with the Coveted Fifth Star is because he can do even better than this, and that sometimes the historical minutiae became even just a little bit thick for my taste. Dude is really a full-fledged historical fiction writer that likes to come up with weird shit that doesn't play within the normal historical fiction ruleset--so in summation I can heartily recommend this both to my die-hard historical non/fiction friends on this site as well as to my friends that enjoy fantastical, weird stories. If you like both--GET THIS BOOK. But just be prepared for the aforementioned Simmons stuff like tidal waves of detail crushing you and his utter refusal to not take his time and let the story sprawl.
So obviously we're in a Dan Simmons book because a semi-obscure (at least in 2015) late 19th-century author is one of the main characters. And also because we're in a Dan Simmons book, who does James meet on this rainy night under a bridge spanning the aforementioned Seine? Well, the cover/summary probably told you already but of course it's none other than London's only consulting detective Sherlock Fucking Holmes. So already this is a bit of a bizarre premise, what with the very real James encountering the very fictional Holmes. Meta concepts like the nature of fiction and being a "real" person as opposed to a "fictional" one, the fourth wall and that kind of thing are very present here and done tastefully and awesomely--they're never cheaply milked for plot or cheesy "special effects," if you will.
And also because Simmons is a masterful writer this bizarre premise turns into an utterly satisfying and often truly thrilling historical adventure/mystery. "But I've never read a Henry James book," your squeaky voice cries. That's cool! I haven't either! "I'm also not really a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes..." That's cool too! I like Doyle's stories, but I've never come close to the rabid fanboy/girlism of dedicated followers of Sherlockiana. (I know that my Goodreads friends list is wide and varied, and this generalizing will not apply to all of you intelligent, pretty people.) A big part of the magic of this guy's books is that he MAKES me interested in these subjects, and I go on to learn more and more about it after reading the book. That is truly invaluable to me. For instance, this book motivated me to purchase a complete edition of the Sherlock Holmes stories and finish them all, and also finally read The Turn of the Screw.
So, now that I've hopefully kicked the legs out from under any argument you may have already presented to yourself on why you shouldn't read this book I can stop being annoying and talking directly to the reader and whatever. It really is not as niche-y as it sounds. If you have ANY kind of interest in late 19th century American history, this will float your boat most buoyantly. 90% of the characters are historical figures, including but not limited to Mark Twain (in his regular Samuel Clemens persona), Theodore Roosevelt, John Hay, Henry and Clover Adams, and a fuckton others who I probably didn't even recognize as real people because the late-19th century is NOT my historical wheelhouse. And I still loved this shit! These historical people are all drawn as actual human beings first and historical figures second, though. They feel like living people, not just exposition-spouting puppets. It probably doesn't need to be said, but if you DO have an interest in James or Holmes you'll love this shit. James is painted in an extremely lifelike fashion and I found out a ton of shit about his life and career. On the Holmes side there are TONS of references to his previous escapades and the world he inhabits.
This is what I'm trying to make most clear. At this point in his career Simmons is clearly just trying to think of odd story ideas that please HIM the most, rather than catering to an audience, perceived or real. It's just coincidentally awesome that he's so good at what he does that it's pleasing for people who aren't Dan Simmons (such as myself) to read and have fun with. Of course, I'm aware of people that find these newer-style books of his interminably dull and long so as usual Results May Vary. There is a ton of detail about every conceivable bit of historical minutiae like the cheap, shitty compound they built the White City out of, small biographies on every historical character, a few pages on the first Ferris Wheel and stuff like that. I truly do understand and sympathize with people that find that kind of shit in a piece of fiction to be boring and dumb, but I love it. For me it's part and parcel of summoning the dead and buried world of 1893.
I loved James and Holmes' relationship. Obviously Sherlock fans are gonna be pissed as to the utter lack of John Watson in these pages but in some ways I found James to be a better foil to Holmes. For one, he gets pissed off by Holmes a lot, which I really think would probably be my reaction to having to hang out with someone as brilliant and yet almost sociopathic and obnoxious as Holmes. It's not that he particularly has an inability to get along well with other people socially, he just really doesn't care to. Is he a perennially awesome literary hero? Of course! But it makes him even cooler to have as a foil a prissy, struggling author who suffers from diarrhea and likes to take naps and stuff like that. The primary antagonist in this book was the shit, too! It only made it sweeter that he was a Simmons creation, albeit one made within the Sherlock world:
So yeah. I really love Dan Simmons books. The only reason I didn't bless this with the Coveted Fifth Star is because he can do even better than this, and that sometimes the historical minutiae became even just a little bit thick for my taste. Dude is really a full-fledged historical fiction writer that likes to come up with weird shit that doesn't play within the normal historical fiction ruleset--so in summation I can heartily recommend this both to my die-hard historical non/fiction friends on this site as well as to my friends that enjoy fantastical, weird stories. If you like both--GET THIS BOOK. But just be prepared for the aforementioned Simmons stuff like tidal waves of detail crushing you and his utter refusal to not take his time and let the story sprawl.
Read
April 13, 2015I hate to admit defeat on any book, but especially one written by an author whose books I love. Here, though, is the exception that proves the rule. I think the fact that I am no fan at all of either Sherlock Holmes or Henry James isn't helping. At the rate I'm reading this, it'll take me another ten hours or so to finish, and I just don't think I can manage that and retain my sanity. My hardback copy is also falling to pieces - I take that as a sign. I do, though, look forward very much to the next Dan Simmons novel, hoping as I do that it has nothing at all to do with historical literary figures.
March 22, 2016
Първа среща с Дан Симънс, по време на която упорито си задавах въпроса: "Защо пътищата ни се пресичат чак сега?" Към книгата ме привлече не автора, а темата – Шерлок Холмс и то явно различна от класическата негова трактовка. Без да съм хардкор фен на Конан Дойл, винаги съм обичала класното криминале с добър и зверски умен детектив.
Началото беше много добро за изтерзаните ми от слаби четива нерви. Екшън сцената в изоставения хотел е може би едно от най-силните места в цялата книга. Докато я четях пред мен буквално беше Холмс на Гай Ричи и от двете му екранизации. Точно същият кинематографичен похват, описанието на действията, които първо се раждат в главата на Холмс и после той прилага в действителността с хирургическа прецизност. Изобщо чиста наслада. Не се наемам да гадая дали Симънс е бил повлиян от екранизацията, но неговият Шерлок Холмс определено има много общи черти с превъплъщението на чудесния Робърт Дауни Джуниър чак до наркотичната зависимост и експериментирането с най-новите субстанции на епохата.
След този момент темпото на книгата рязко спада и навлизаме в типичния дикенсов свят, където една вечеря може да продължи 30-40 страници, а менюто ни е предложено в детайли чак до последното френско ударено е. Фактът че обичам книги тип занимателна уикипедия ми помогна да не се отегча от безбройните подробности и неравномерното действие. Спокойно мога да заявя, че творчеството на непознатия за мен Хенри Джеймс ми остава все така безразлично, но образът на реален писател, представен като момчето за всичко на литературен герой безспорно е оригинално авторово хрумване, което ме забавляваше до самия край.
Не така стоят нещата обаче с любимия ми Марк Твен. В "Петата купа" той е представен като досаден самовлюбен дядка-милионер, който не престава да сипе изтъркани анекдоти. Това е и единственият образ в книгата, която е щедро поръсена с реални личности в нов прочит, който ме подразни. Обичам Марк Твен и отказвам да повярвам, че не е харесвал своя Том Сойер само, защото се е превърнал в детски герой.
С изключение на тези дребни забележки "Петата купа" ми хареса и поддържа интереса ми до самия край, което си е постижение за солиден том от 600+ страници. Това което най-много ми допадна безспорно е стилът на автора. Станала съм зверски придирчива към добрия изказ и Дан Симънс ме изненада много приятно в тази посока. Не знам дали скоро ще прочета друга негова книга, защото много рядко посягам към сериозна фантастика, но нищо чудно да се изкуша.
Трудно е човек да препоръча "Петата купа", но любителите на класната детективска история, подплатена с множество факти от различни области и разказана със стил и финес, които не се плашат от обемно четиво, ще бъдат възнаградени с добро литературно приключение.
Началото беше много добро за изтерзаните ми от слаби четива нерви. Екшън сцената в изоставения хотел е може би едно от най-силните места в цялата книга. Докато я четях пред мен буквално беше Холмс на Гай Ричи и от двете му екранизации. Точно същият кинематографичен похват, описанието на действията, които първо се раждат в главата на Холмс и после той прилага в действителността с хирургическа прецизност. Изобщо чиста наслада. Не се наемам да гадая дали Симънс е бил повлиян от екранизацията, но неговият Шерлок Холмс определено има много общи черти с превъплъщението на чудесния Робърт Дауни Джуниър чак до наркотичната зависимост и експериментирането с най-новите субстанции на епохата.
След този момент темпото на книгата рязко спада и навлизаме в типичния дикенсов свят, където една вечеря може да продължи 30-40 страници, а менюто ни е предложено в детайли чак до последното френско ударено е. Фактът че обичам книги тип занимателна уикипедия ми помогна да не се отегча от безбройните подробности и неравномерното действие. Спокойно мога да заявя, че творчеството на непознатия за мен Хенри Джеймс ми остава все така безразлично, но образът на реален писател, представен като момчето за всичко на литературен герой безспорно е оригинално авторово хрумване, което ме забавляваше до самия край.
Не така стоят нещата обаче с любимия ми Марк Твен. В "Петата купа" той е представен като досаден самовлюбен дядка-милионер, който не престава да сипе изтъркани анекдоти. Това е и единственият образ в книгата, която е щедро поръсена с реални личности в нов прочит, който ме подразни. Обичам Марк Твен и отказвам да повярвам, че не е харесвал своя Том Сойер само, защото се е превърнал в детски герой.
С изключение на тези дребни забележки "Петата купа" ми хареса и поддържа интереса ми до самия край, което си е постижение за солиден том от 600+ страници. Това което най-много ми допадна безспорно е стилът на автора. Станала съм зверски придирчива към добрия изказ и Дан Симънс ме изненада много приятно в тази посока. Не знам дали скоро ще прочета друга негова книга, защото много рядко посягам към сериозна фантастика, но нищо чудно да се изкуша.
Трудно е човек да препоръча "Петата купа", но любителите на класната детективска история, подплатена с множество факти от различни области и разказана със стил и финес, които не се плашат от обемно четиво, ще бъдат възнаградени с добро литературно приключение.
January 25, 2024
Очаквах роман за Шерлок Холмс, а получих такъв за писателя Хенри Джеймс. :)
Не с��м разочарован, той е личност достойна за главен герой и определено ще се запозная с творчеството му по нататък.
В книгата участват също и много именити негови съвременници - Марк Твен, Рузвелт и други, макар и епизодично.
По-слабата ми оценка е за често провлаченото до скука действие и немощната криминална интрига - и тази на анархисткия заговор и тази за клуба на "Петте купи".
Определено Симънс има по-добри попадения в други свои творби.
Не с��м разочарован, той е личност достойна за главен герой и определено ще се запозная с творчеството му по нататък.
В книгата участват също и много именити негови съвременници - Марк Твен, Рузвелт и други, макар и епизодично.
По-слабата ми оценка е за често провлаченото до скука действие и немощната криминална интрига - и тази на анархисткия заговор и тази за клуба на "Петте купи".
Определено Симънс има по-добри попадения в други свои творби.
September 4, 2019
In a similar vein to the brilliant Drood Dan Simmons now focuses on a different historical duo. On a trip to France Henry James makes the decision to end his life only to find intervention in the unlikeliest of people; the fictional detective genius made real Sherlock Holmes. James gets roped into traveling with Holmes to America to investigate the apparent suicide of Clover Adams seven years previous. Her brother doesn’t believe the suicide verdict and hires Holmes to delve a little deeper.
The crux of the story is the suicide investigation but an intriguing subplot, and what interested me the most before picking up The Fifth Heart, was Sherlock Holmes realisation that he might not be real and is instead a fictional character. This was an interesting idea and i was fascinated to see how it would play out. Sadly it’s completely underutilised to the point of barely being featured. Holmes does ask a few people their opinion on his reality crisis but he never becomes fully committed to exploring his theory. If I've missed the point of the Sherlock Holmes existential crisis then the author should have been clearer because as the reader it seemed completely pointless. There is a scene that did make me think of the Deadpool movie, which drew an audible sigh of disappointment.
Without the ‘Am i real?’ subplot fully explored The Fifth Heart is just an average Sherlock Holmes novel with the inclusion of other famous historical characters. This isn’t the Dan Simmons that impressed me so much with The Terror, Ilium and Hyperion but a more watered down version. Give this one a miss and read Drood, which stars Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. It’s way better.
The crux of the story is the suicide investigation but an intriguing subplot, and what interested me the most before picking up The Fifth Heart, was Sherlock Holmes realisation that he might not be real and is instead a fictional character. This was an interesting idea and i was fascinated to see how it would play out. Sadly it’s completely underutilised to the point of barely being featured. Holmes does ask a few people their opinion on his reality crisis but he never becomes fully committed to exploring his theory. If I've missed the point of the Sherlock Holmes existential crisis then the author should have been clearer because as the reader it seemed completely pointless. There is a scene that did make me think of the Deadpool movie, which drew an audible sigh of disappointment.
Without the ‘Am i real?’ subplot fully explored The Fifth Heart is just an average Sherlock Holmes novel with the inclusion of other famous historical characters. This isn’t the Dan Simmons that impressed me so much with The Terror, Ilium and Hyperion but a more watered down version. Give this one a miss and read Drood, which stars Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. It’s way better.
June 10, 2015
As a fan of both Simmons and Conan Doyle I wanted to like this one better. It's well written, with an interesting premise, and parts of it are great fun. It's the other parts I have more trouble with - the sudden reveals out of nowhere, the dropping of plot points into holes where they sink to be lost forever and Simmons' increasingly annoying tic of dumping his research on the page instead of plot.
That said, Holmes is Holmes, Henry James is nicely portrayed, and there's more than enough nods and winks to the canon to keep Baker Street Irregulars amused.
All in all, an entertaining diversion. I just wanted more meat on this rather large pile of bones.
That said, Holmes is Holmes, Henry James is nicely portrayed, and there's more than enough nods and winks to the canon to keep Baker Street Irregulars amused.
All in all, an entertaining diversion. I just wanted more meat on this rather large pile of bones.
April 29, 2015
I love Simmons, if I could have given this book more stars I would have given it an even higher rating.
April 16, 2015
During his Great Hiatus, Sherlock Holmes joins author Henry James to investigate the mystery of the supposed suicide of Clover Adams, wife of historian Henry Adams. I'd read that Dan Simmons throws everything but the kitchen sink into this tale, but I'm pretty sure that the kitchen sink made it in, as well.
Although I have an interest in the works of Henry James (especially the Gothic Turn of the Screw), I read this primarily as a Sherlock Holmes tale, intrigued by what I'd heard of the premise: that Holmes and James meet as each is preparing to throw himself into the Seine to drown. Indeed, this is how the novel begins. And one of the threads that runs through the book - sometimes subtly, sometimes in the spotlight - is the question of who is real and who is not, who is a fictional character manipulated by a creator and who is a full-fledged individual with free will. Holmes's deduction that he is a fictional character not only evolves over the course of the story but affects James and others, as well. Meta musing follows.
Simmons's portrayals of historical figures of the period sometimes border on the self-indulgent, however, and he shoehorns just about everyone who could conceivably have been in the United States in 1893 into the story whether they are needed or not (Adlai Stevenson, Samuel Clemens, etc.). Henry James himself comes across more often than not as unlikable. That said, he supplies some of the most effective and memorable moments of the novel by reading the Sherlock Holmes stories for the first time and deconstructing and critiquing them, only to learn the "true stories" from Holmes himself. It's safe to say that I'll never see "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" quite the same way again.
As a Sherlock Holmes tale, I found some things to admire here, but not enough to satisfy fully. The alternate or hidden history Simmons provides as the Holmes brothers' backstory is persuasive, although Simmons utterly fails to convince me of his characterization of Mycroft's adult life or the reasons behind the founding of The Diogenes Club (which seem both extreme and unlikely). The (spoiler alert?) revelations about Irene Adler, her son, and Sebastian Moran work for the purposes of this story, but didn't engage me as they might have done. More evocative are the rumblings about the surviving Moriarty and his potential plans for the highly visible stage of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Holmes's ability to become his alter ego Jan Sigerson fascinates, but his dismissal of the now-widowed and mourning John Watson rankles. The climactic physical action felt cartoonish and unreal, but the "meta" climax of Holmes's wrestling with his own reality resonates.
Ultimately, both the joys and frustrations of this 600-plus-page novel exist in the details. The larger work doesn't hold together with the coherence one might wish, and for such a personal novel in some ways (from the perspectives of both Holmes and James), it carries a cool aloofness that keeps the reader at arm's length from everyone involved. I'm glad I read it, but there are clearer and more compelling windows into the soul of the Great Detective.
Although I have an interest in the works of Henry James (especially the Gothic Turn of the Screw), I read this primarily as a Sherlock Holmes tale, intrigued by what I'd heard of the premise: that Holmes and James meet as each is preparing to throw himself into the Seine to drown. Indeed, this is how the novel begins. And one of the threads that runs through the book - sometimes subtly, sometimes in the spotlight - is the question of who is real and who is not, who is a fictional character manipulated by a creator and who is a full-fledged individual with free will. Holmes's deduction that he is a fictional character not only evolves over the course of the story but affects James and others, as well. Meta musing follows.
Simmons's portrayals of historical figures of the period sometimes border on the self-indulgent, however, and he shoehorns just about everyone who could conceivably have been in the United States in 1893 into the story whether they are needed or not (Adlai Stevenson, Samuel Clemens, etc.). Henry James himself comes across more often than not as unlikable. That said, he supplies some of the most effective and memorable moments of the novel by reading the Sherlock Holmes stories for the first time and deconstructing and critiquing them, only to learn the "true stories" from Holmes himself. It's safe to say that I'll never see "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" quite the same way again.
As a Sherlock Holmes tale, I found some things to admire here, but not enough to satisfy fully. The alternate or hidden history Simmons provides as the Holmes brothers' backstory is persuasive, although Simmons utterly fails to convince me of his characterization of Mycroft's adult life or the reasons behind the founding of The Diogenes Club (which seem both extreme and unlikely). The (spoiler alert?) revelations about Irene Adler, her son, and Sebastian Moran work for the purposes of this story, but didn't engage me as they might have done. More evocative are the rumblings about the surviving Moriarty and his potential plans for the highly visible stage of the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. Holmes's ability to become his alter ego Jan Sigerson fascinates, but his dismissal of the now-widowed and mourning John Watson rankles. The climactic physical action felt cartoonish and unreal, but the "meta" climax of Holmes's wrestling with his own reality resonates.
Ultimately, both the joys and frustrations of this 600-plus-page novel exist in the details. The larger work doesn't hold together with the coherence one might wish, and for such a personal novel in some ways (from the perspectives of both Holmes and James), it carries a cool aloofness that keeps the reader at arm's length from everyone involved. I'm glad I read it, but there are clearer and more compelling windows into the soul of the Great Detective.
June 20, 2015
Simmons' addition to the canon is an interesting read, for the most part. His version of Sherlock Holmes is pitch perfect, as the detective joins forces with Henry James to solve a mystery in the U.S., while pondering the reality of his own existence. The historical figures that the pair encounter, fictional ones included, are all well represented. Although Simmons is rapidly becoming the Tom Clancy of historical research, which does bog down the pacing, at least his output is more readable than Clancy's skeins of schematic scribbling.
In the final accounting, an enjoyable read for fans of both Holmes and Simmons.
In the final accounting, an enjoyable read for fans of both Holmes and Simmons.
July 26, 2015
A good Dan Simmons book, though not one of his best (Drood and The Terror are that), The Fifth Heart has a lot going for it, and not too much against it--depending on the reader's level of patience and tolerance.
It's a lot of things, perhaps too many. It's a thriller in a potboiler vein--like Conan Doyle's work. (He's often mentioned but never seen.) It's a mystery of rich people's manners and mannerisms--a la Henry James, perhaps the book's main character. It's a mystery of deduction and induction--a la Sherlock Holmes, the book's other main character. It's a historical adventure, like Simmons' Drood and The Terror.
But--and here's where the reader's patience and tolerance comes in--it's also a pseudo-metaphysical work, one that has the characters very self-aware, and pondering their reality: Are they themselves, or are they characters? The one failure of all this to me is that the characters remain surprisingly productive and un-neurotic despite these philosophical quandaries. We know that Holmes is a character, but the conceit of the novel is that he is not: He's a real person, and so is Dr. Watson. Arthur Conan Doyle is nothing more than the editor of Dr. Watson's unfortunately melodramatic scribblings of Sherlock Holmes's adventures. (Conan Doyle and Watson--both never seen--get a lot of verbal abuse from the many characters.) The reader has to swallow this.
The reader is also forced to swallow the occasional interruptions of a first-person I / omniscient-writer narrator who never fully shows himself. Is it Simmons? Conan Doyle? Watson? Or someone else entirely? It's never definitively shown; the question, in fact, is shied away from. But we, the reader, are supposed to wonder about it, which seems to be the purpose: to cause philosophical wonder. This is a drastic break of the fourth wall / suspension-of-disbelief, and so it needs the reader's tolerance.
This last bit struck me as unnecessary. The philosophical ponderings of existence, of character / person, of reality, and of unreality are all over this book, so we don't really need the intrusive first-person narrator break. It's too much.
Another unwanted intrusion is the much-more-rare Dan Simmons statements. This single-handedly ruined Flashback, which was really just one long Dan Simmons diatribe. He really tones it down here. But you can catch a few times that he elbows his character aside for a moment so he can speak directly to the reader. The most blatant of these was when Simmons makes his characters talk about the Pledge of Allegiance that apparently came from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Simmons actually makes a character ask if anything interesting came of a certain meeting between characters. That question is answered by bringing up the Pledge. Another character says how barbaric it is to make students say it, and Holmes himself says that making them do so is something that would happen in Germany. This is a constant Simmons break: He says something disparaging about the American education system as often as he can, in any book. And so he does here.
However, at the end, this book is a good distraction--which Simmons himself seems to realize, as he constantly has characters refer to badly-written but entertaining mystery-thrillers, clearly referring to himself and to his own book. This book, like its characters, is very, very aware of itself. Dan Simmons is always hovering in the shadows over every page, his tongue in his cheek, pleasantly aware and happy about his own literary magic trick.
If you have the tolerance to handle these breaks--which are not as avant-garde as Simmons seems to think they are--then chances are good you'll enjoy the book. It is as meticulously researched as Simmons's historical novels always are, often to the point of approaching info-dump. The characters are amusing, though distinct--so much so that you'll wonder why they're married or friendly with each other. The characters had all been real people, and they all get knocked around a bit verbally by the other characters and by Simmons himself. Samuel Clemens, John Hay, Conan Doyle, President Cleveland, and especially Henry James all get some chiding, some of it quite heavy. You'll learn more than you'd probably want about the 1893 Columbian Expedition (read Erik Larson's book about that, too), about the horse-drawn carriages of the time, about Mark Twain's foolish financial disasters, and about train schedules.
It all works somehow, and you'll feel like you're really there. Whether you're able to get back there after the author intrusions and first-person fourth-wall breaks is a big question. I was able to again suspend my disbelief, but only mostly, and only barely, while watching for the next unwanted and unappreciated break of that wall. It didn't ruin it for me, but I could understand how it might for somebody.
I still recommend that you try.
It's a lot of things, perhaps too many. It's a thriller in a potboiler vein--like Conan Doyle's work. (He's often mentioned but never seen.) It's a mystery of rich people's manners and mannerisms--a la Henry James, perhaps the book's main character. It's a mystery of deduction and induction--a la Sherlock Holmes, the book's other main character. It's a historical adventure, like Simmons' Drood and The Terror.
But--and here's where the reader's patience and tolerance comes in--it's also a pseudo-metaphysical work, one that has the characters very self-aware, and pondering their reality: Are they themselves, or are they characters? The one failure of all this to me is that the characters remain surprisingly productive and un-neurotic despite these philosophical quandaries. We know that Holmes is a character, but the conceit of the novel is that he is not: He's a real person, and so is Dr. Watson. Arthur Conan Doyle is nothing more than the editor of Dr. Watson's unfortunately melodramatic scribblings of Sherlock Holmes's adventures. (Conan Doyle and Watson--both never seen--get a lot of verbal abuse from the many characters.) The reader has to swallow this.
The reader is also forced to swallow the occasional interruptions of a first-person I / omniscient-writer narrator who never fully shows himself. Is it Simmons? Conan Doyle? Watson? Or someone else entirely? It's never definitively shown; the question, in fact, is shied away from. But we, the reader, are supposed to wonder about it, which seems to be the purpose: to cause philosophical wonder. This is a drastic break of the fourth wall / suspension-of-disbelief, and so it needs the reader's tolerance.
This last bit struck me as unnecessary. The philosophical ponderings of existence, of character / person, of reality, and of unreality are all over this book, so we don't really need the intrusive first-person narrator break. It's too much.
Another unwanted intrusion is the much-more-rare Dan Simmons statements. This single-handedly ruined Flashback, which was really just one long Dan Simmons diatribe. He really tones it down here. But you can catch a few times that he elbows his character aside for a moment so he can speak directly to the reader. The most blatant of these was when Simmons makes his characters talk about the Pledge of Allegiance that apparently came from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Simmons actually makes a character ask if anything interesting came of a certain meeting between characters. That question is answered by bringing up the Pledge. Another character says how barbaric it is to make students say it, and Holmes himself says that making them do so is something that would happen in Germany. This is a constant Simmons break: He says something disparaging about the American education system as often as he can, in any book. And so he does here.
However, at the end, this book is a good distraction--which Simmons himself seems to realize, as he constantly has characters refer to badly-written but entertaining mystery-thrillers, clearly referring to himself and to his own book. This book, like its characters, is very, very aware of itself. Dan Simmons is always hovering in the shadows over every page, his tongue in his cheek, pleasantly aware and happy about his own literary magic trick.
If you have the tolerance to handle these breaks--which are not as avant-garde as Simmons seems to think they are--then chances are good you'll enjoy the book. It is as meticulously researched as Simmons's historical novels always are, often to the point of approaching info-dump. The characters are amusing, though distinct--so much so that you'll wonder why they're married or friendly with each other. The characters had all been real people, and they all get knocked around a bit verbally by the other characters and by Simmons himself. Samuel Clemens, John Hay, Conan Doyle, President Cleveland, and especially Henry James all get some chiding, some of it quite heavy. You'll learn more than you'd probably want about the 1893 Columbian Expedition (read Erik Larson's book about that, too), about the horse-drawn carriages of the time, about Mark Twain's foolish financial disasters, and about train schedules.
It all works somehow, and you'll feel like you're really there. Whether you're able to get back there after the author intrusions and first-person fourth-wall breaks is a big question. I was able to again suspend my disbelief, but only mostly, and only barely, while watching for the next unwanted and unappreciated break of that wall. It didn't ruin it for me, but I could understand how it might for somebody.
I still recommend that you try.
December 13, 2022
In concept, this book is brilliant. The overly refined, American exile writer Henry James reluctantly teams with Sherlock Holmes in a preposterous investigation into possible foul play behind the suicide of Clover Adams, wife of Henry Adams, the great American historian, and scion of presidents. Along the way, the fascinating historical personages who were part of Adams' and James' social set - John Hay, Clarance King, Samuel Clemens, Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge - provide the top shelf supporting cast. Mix in an existential crisis of Holmes investigating the possibility that he may actually be a fictional character, and the author breaking the fourth wall to speak directly to his readers, and this book could have been a masterpiece of experimental meta fiction.
Simmons was simply not the writer to realize this potential masterpiece. Halfway through he abandoned most of his interesting elements (the fascinating meta fiction subplot of Holmes investigating his own existential crisis is completely dropped and forgotten) and the book becomes a mediocre, conventional crime mystery concentrating on Holmes work to foil an attempted assassination of the president at the 1893 Chicago's World Fair.
I wanted to love this book — it seemed to hit all my history nerd and literature nerd sweet spots. But the distance between potential and execution in this novel is vast.
Simmons was simply not the writer to realize this potential masterpiece. Halfway through he abandoned most of his interesting elements (the fascinating meta fiction subplot of Holmes investigating his own existential crisis is completely dropped and forgotten) and the book becomes a mediocre, conventional crime mystery concentrating on Holmes work to foil an attempted assassination of the president at the 1893 Chicago's World Fair.
I wanted to love this book — it seemed to hit all my history nerd and literature nerd sweet spots. But the distance between potential and execution in this novel is vast.
April 22, 2020
At the top of the card within the plain border, there were five hearts embossed. Four of the hearts had been colored in, in blue, with what looked to have been hasty strokes of a colored pencil or crayon. The fifth heart was left uncolored – blank.
Henry James knew immediately the more general meaning of what the hearts signified. He had no clue as to what the empty heart or the single line of print below the letters – a single sentence that looked to have been added by a typewriting machine – might mean.She was murdered.
What a great premise Dan Simmons devised for The Fifth Heart: Pairing up the unlikely duo of Henry James and Sherlock Holmes, the two travel to America, after a chance meeting in Paris, in order to solve a mystery; and after leisurely hobnobbing for a few weeks with the elite in Washington D.C., the action moves to a propulsive conclusion at Chicago's Columbian Exposition of 1893. The premise is amazing – and Simmons makes wonderful use of his setting and characters to provide both a compelling detective story and an in-depth exploration of the time and place – but there was something kind of off in this overall experience for me. Simmons dangles some metaphysical questions that are never properly resolved to my satisfaction, and he does quite a bit of ironic breaking of the fourth wall by the book's narrator that, if it has a point, went over my head. Overall though, despite feeling a bit too long (six hundred pages is a lot for a Holmesian whodunit), this was consistently entertaining and very often funny.
In the rainy March of 1893, for reasons that no one understands (primarily because no one besides us is aware of this story), the London-based American author Henry James decided to spend his April 15 birthday in Paris and there, on or before his birthday, commit suicide by throwing himself into the Seine at night.
So the book opens, and just as Henry James is about to fling himself into the Seine, he notices another man in the shadows – a form he recognises as the great Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes – and although James attempts to slink away quietly, Holmes catches him up, confessing that self-murder had been on his own mind. It would seem that Holmes had recently come to the conclusion that he must be a fictional character (that blasted Dr. Watson and his narrative inconsistencies), but running into Henry James – who happens to be a very good friend of all of the principles in Holmes' only open case – prompts the detective to book a crossing to America and insist that the writer accompany him. And despite blustery protest and an insistence on distaste for Holmes and his line of work, James accompanies Holmes to America, participating in the detective's deceitful cover story in introducing him to his own oldest and dearest friends. Read as a straight Sherlock Holmes mystery, there is a satisfying amount of Meerschaum pipes, deerstalker caps, and a crying out of, “The game is afoot!”
But it's not by whim that Simmons sets this Sherlock Holmes mystery in the United States – the author uses the setting to make a lot of unflattering commentary on his home country. The Washington elite who host James and Holmes throw dinner parties at which the conversation features chauvinism, antisemitism, and white supremacy (particularly skewering the image of a young Theodore Roosevelt). Even Sherlock Holmes himself exposes the menace of mass German immigration to America as they were known to harbour socialist beliefs and embraced anarchic methods. Actual (and fictional) characters abound in these pages, and I wondered at the treatment that Simmons gave to everyone from Clover Adams (whose actual suicide in 1885 is reframed as a homicide case for Holmes here; the she was murdered of the calling card seems pretty tasteless in light of her actual existence) to Mark Twain (who is shown both lamenting his weakness in giving Huckleberry Finn a happy ending and casually using the “n-word”). The streets of America are filled with lowerclass white thugs, corrupt policemen, or sometimes, despite a narrator who professes to despise the coincidences in H. Ryder Haggard-type adventure tales, one might encounter old friends or allies who arrive in the nick of time to rescue one from a spot of trouble.
Clemens laughed until he began coughing again. “Don’t you see, James?” he said at last. “You and I are only minor characters in this story about the Great Detective. Our little lives and endings mean nothing to the God-Writer, whoever the sonofabitch might be.”
And as for the narrator: I didn't get this intermittent breaking of the fourth wall (from his first explanation that he doesn't like it, either, when POV shifts between two characters, to beginning the epilogue with, “Henry James hated epilogues...I feel much the same way – as you may also – but this one is here and we have to deal with it”). If it was meant to be clever or significant, I didn't get it. Also, this narrative is broken into four parts, and in a way, it seems like each part is being told by a different narrator. Maybe the first and fourth were meant to be by the same person – these parts are separated into chapters which are simply numbered – but the second part has chapters which are numbered and then titled with a phrase from the chapter that follows, and the third part has chapters that are numbered and then titled with the chapter's date and time. And what is a little weird is that small details can be revealed in each part that repeat something revealed earlier, but stated as though we are learning it for the first time (it's always small and inconsequential things, but done often enough to make me think I'm meant to notice). And in the third part, the narrative is filled with errors: I first noticed a spelling mistake (which I didn't mark because, whatever, it happens), and then I noticed that, curiously (and again, I didn't mark the specifics, but it was something like this), a word was written like “heavy-handed” in one line of dialogue and then repeated back immediately as “heavyhanded”. Small things, but weird. But then Sherlock Holmes – whom we are told a couple of times earlier likes to punctuate his dramatic statements by flipping his black scarf over his shoulder – now throws his red scarf over his shoulder, and later someone mentions the assassination attempt that was made on Queen Elizabeth in 1888. I reckon these mistakes were put in to flag that this is obviously a different (inferior?) writer from the other parts, but for what purpose, I can't fathom.
As for the writing, it was sometimes funny:
There were only the three of them in the canvas-walled blacksmith shop – Holmes, the tall man with the big knife, and the tall man's body odor. Holmes stayed silent, the man with the knife stared at him without speaking, and the stench spoke for itself.
And sometimes it revealed Simmons' need for commentary:
“Forcing school children to recite a national pledge doesn’t sound very American to me,” said James. “No,” agreed Holmes. “It sounds German. Very German.”
And what was the most disappointing is that the metaphysical thread – Sherlock Holmes trying to discover whether or not he actually exists – didn't resolve to my satisfaction. I liked the part where Mark Twain explains to Holmes what Henry James' older brother, William, wrote about identity and consciousness and the difference between “I” and “me” – and I further admired Simmons' decision to put Henry and Sherlock together as they both, as successful as they were, lived under the shadows of their older brothers, William and Mycroft – and I wanted more of that.
I don't think that The Fifth Heart needed to be six hundred pages, but despite what may read as a long list of complaints here, I did enjoy the mystery and respect the amount of research Simmons must have engaged in – not only to bring to life nineteenth century America, but to believably bring to life both Sherlock Holmes and Henry James. And it's not like I don't have the time right now for long books...
March 25, 2024
“In the rainy March 1893 for reasons that no one understands primarily because no one besides us is aware of this story, the London-based American Henry James decided to ..."
And thus begins the Fifth Heart❤️ a 2015 novel by Dan Simmons of Hyperion Cantos fame.
Two characters, Henry James realist-literary writer of Victorian age and an imaginary contemporary but no less eminent Sherlock Holmes, team up to solve a literary conundrum and detective mystery par excellence.
Readers of Simmon's Drood will find familiar elements here but so will anybody who has been introduced to a certain private detective of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's seminal fiction - which is just about anyone.
Again, Dan Simmons does not disappoint. Not only are his historical and fictional characters skillfully researched, splendidly imagined and by the gifts of this thoroughly talented writer's pen fluidly ensconced in a meticulously researched environment but also woven into plot line that is as just as imaginative as it is convincing. Morover, when halfway through the book, Samuel Clemens - better known as Mark Twain - takes the stage, Mr. Simmons outshines himself. Managing a remake of the literary persona of the imminent American writer, Simmons’ Twain is as humorous and audacious as the trademark Missourian in the flesh, inclusive a fitting Southern plantation accent, if you have access to the audio version that is. Mr. Simmons convincingly recreates the time and localities of the past, the Grantian gilded age where his characters can feel truly at home.
Summa summarum, Mr. Simmons has excelled at his craft, once more. Persistently and consistently he be-gifts us with, once every couple of years, with a quality work of fiction of which this latest work is a case in point. He is, however, at the top of his game when he brings close to us the lives of historical characters, well-crafted and embellished to produce a fictional life based on a solid historical fundament. It is then when he tends to deliver a true masterpiece.
And thus begins the Fifth Heart❤️ a 2015 novel by Dan Simmons of Hyperion Cantos fame.
Two characters, Henry James realist-literary writer of Victorian age and an imaginary contemporary but no less eminent Sherlock Holmes, team up to solve a literary conundrum and detective mystery par excellence.
Readers of Simmon's Drood will find familiar elements here but so will anybody who has been introduced to a certain private detective of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's seminal fiction - which is just about anyone.
Again, Dan Simmons does not disappoint. Not only are his historical and fictional characters skillfully researched, splendidly imagined and by the gifts of this thoroughly talented writer's pen fluidly ensconced in a meticulously researched environment but also woven into plot line that is as just as imaginative as it is convincing. Morover, when halfway through the book, Samuel Clemens - better known as Mark Twain - takes the stage, Mr. Simmons outshines himself. Managing a remake of the literary persona of the imminent American writer, Simmons’ Twain is as humorous and audacious as the trademark Missourian in the flesh, inclusive a fitting Southern plantation accent, if you have access to the audio version that is. Mr. Simmons convincingly recreates the time and localities of the past, the Grantian gilded age where his characters can feel truly at home.
Summa summarum, Mr. Simmons has excelled at his craft, once more. Persistently and consistently he be-gifts us with, once every couple of years, with a quality work of fiction of which this latest work is a case in point. He is, however, at the top of his game when he brings close to us the lives of historical characters, well-crafted and embellished to produce a fictional life based on a solid historical fundament. It is then when he tends to deliver a true masterpiece.
March 29, 2015
The Fifth Heart is, in some ways, the third book in an unofficial series. Dan Simmons already tackled Ernest Hemingway in The Crook Factory, and breathed life into Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins by writing Drood. Both of those novels are an immense amount of fun -- The Crook Factory is a lighthearted spy novel with some sinister themes, and Drood is a phantasmagoric fever dream infused with opium. I recommend them both.
The Fifth Heart, however, succeeds in ways that the other two novels did not. By crafting a convoluted mystery involving Sherlock Holmes and Henry James, Simmons adds more depth of emotion and a heightened level of observation to this novel as opposed to the previous two. I believe this was intentional, as in all three of these books his writing style and approach adopt, to a certain degree, the modes of narrative that are most characteristic of the authors he chooses as protagonists. I don't mean to say that The Fifth Heart resembles anything written by Henry James, although I would have loved to see Simmons attempt that feat. Instead, Simmons focuses much more upon psychological observation, realistic human emotion, and verisimilitude that, for me, made this novel more moving than many of Simmons' other works.
Dan Simmons is a great writer and I'm always fascinated to see what he explores next. The Fifth Heart is not his first triumph, but it is certainly one of his works that deserve to be read many years from now.
The Fifth Heart, however, succeeds in ways that the other two novels did not. By crafting a convoluted mystery involving Sherlock Holmes and Henry James, Simmons adds more depth of emotion and a heightened level of observation to this novel as opposed to the previous two. I believe this was intentional, as in all three of these books his writing style and approach adopt, to a certain degree, the modes of narrative that are most characteristic of the authors he chooses as protagonists. I don't mean to say that The Fifth Heart resembles anything written by Henry James, although I would have loved to see Simmons attempt that feat. Instead, Simmons focuses much more upon psychological observation, realistic human emotion, and verisimilitude that, for me, made this novel more moving than many of Simmons' other works.
Dan Simmons is a great writer and I'm always fascinated to see what he explores next. The Fifth Heart is not his first triumph, but it is certainly one of his works that deserve to be read many years from now.
July 5, 2015
Dan Simmons is probably the most unpredictable among my favorite authors. All I know going in is that I will award it somewhere between one and five stars.
I’m setting on three this time. The Terror and The Abominable are two of my favorite Simmons novels. Both are historical fiction more than anything else and The Fifth Heart is written in the same vein.
I’ve never been a big fan of Sherlock Holmes which is a big part of the reason I didn’t enjoy this but the main reason I was disappointed is the because of the excessive historical fiction itself. The research is beyond thorough and Simmons proceeds to share every last detail of the information he dug up. Lots of stuff we simply do not need to know. At one point he spends over a page discussing the transit system from PA to NY to NJ in detail, why some trains go to some places and not others, etc. I wish he just said “My characters took a train someplace” and then moved on with the story. I felt like I was getting bludgeoned by the research at the expense of the plot, which by the way, was pretty weird to begin with.
Final thoughts: Well written but could have been shaved a few hundred pages.
I’m setting on three this time. The Terror and The Abominable are two of my favorite Simmons novels. Both are historical fiction more than anything else and The Fifth Heart is written in the same vein.
I’ve never been a big fan of Sherlock Holmes which is a big part of the reason I didn’t enjoy this but the main reason I was disappointed is the because of the excessive historical fiction itself. The research is beyond thorough and Simmons proceeds to share every last detail of the information he dug up. Lots of stuff we simply do not need to know. At one point he spends over a page discussing the transit system from PA to NY to NJ in detail, why some trains go to some places and not others, etc. I wish he just said “My characters took a train someplace” and then moved on with the story. I felt like I was getting bludgeoned by the research at the expense of the plot, which by the way, was pretty weird to begin with.
Final thoughts: Well written but could have been shaved a few hundred pages.
August 1, 2016
Страхотен роман от Дан Симънс.
Т.С. Елиът описва доста ясно смисъла му за мен в Бърнт Нортън:
"What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation"
Героите са пълнокръвни, историческата стойност е на лице, диалозите са умни, а сюжетът е изтъкан от паралели тип "животът имитира изкуството / изкуството имитира животът".
Паралелите освен, че се срещат в сюжета, се проявяват и в характерите на героите - било то литературни или истински. Тази запазена кохенрентност ме спечели и накара да чета до края, като се забавлявах ужасно много.
Цялата тази прелест е съпътствана с интересна теологична теория за ролята на създателя (било то създателя на света или на един "сензационен" роман :) ), която изречена от думите на Марк Твен звучи още по-умоангажиращо.
пс: според мен има два вида читатели. Такива, които харесват Ужас на Симънс и такива, които не харесват Ужас. Аз не харесвам Ужас, но се влюбих в Петата купа. Така че ако не харесвате Ужас, не отписвайте Симънс.
Т.С. Елиът описва доста ясно смисъла му за мен в Бърнт Нортън:
"What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation"
Героите са пълнокръвни, историческата стойност е на лице, диалозите са умни, а сюжетът е изтъкан от паралели тип "животът имитира изкуството / изкуството имитира животът".
Паралелите освен, че се срещат в сюжета, се проявяват и в характерите на героите - било то литературни или истински. Тази запазена кохенрентност ме спечели и накара да чета до края, като се забавлявах ужасно много.
Цялата тази прелест е съпътствана с интересна теологична теория за ролята на създателя (било то създателя на света или на един "сензационен" роман :) ), която изречена от думите на Марк Твен звучи още по-умоангажиращо.
пс: според мен има два вида читатели. Такива, които харесват Ужас на Симънс и такива, които не харесват Ужас. Аз не харесвам Ужас, но се влюбих в Петата купа. Така че ако не харесвате Ужас, не отписвайте Симънс.
April 13, 2015
I think Dan Simmons just has a direct line into my brain because he keeps coming out with exactly the book I want to read. This one has a special place in my heart because a) I love reading books about literary people and b) I've long been obsessed with Sherlock Holmes and all things related. This book is a virtuoso performance, and the discussion between Henry James and Samuel Clemens about being characters in a book 50 to 100 years from their present time was one of my favorite book passages of all time. Also, as someone who is a devoted Sherlock fan I also have noticed the discrepancies and faulty plotting in many of the stories, but as Simmons points out that's not really what Sherlock Holmes is about-it's about the plot, the characters, the feelings they evoke, and Simmons has recreated that here for sure. Another nice little Easter egg is the references to previous Simmons work including The Abominable (mountain climbing/exploring) and Black Hills. I loved this book and I can't wait to reread it in the future and have it's pleasures revealed anew.
April 28, 2015
Giving up at 30%. Simmons is talented, and has used every intelligent trick in the book - literary characters, meta-fiction, changing view points, philosophical musings (as in - how do I know that I am not a literary character? and suchlike), speaking directly to the reader, a murder, historical characters, and more and more. It is all quite interesting, and still, something just doesn't work in this book. You don't care what happened, you don't care about the characters (maybe a little about Henry James), there's never real suspense, and its all just too slow. It's a nice literary exercise, but there's no soul or emotional investment in it.
May 7, 2015
A sensation novel featuring anarchists and assassins at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition (the White City). Sherlock Holmes and Henry James play detective as they try to uncover a world-wide conspiracy and also solve a secondary mystery involving a woman's suicide. Lots of famous people of that time are featured in the story - at times too many - including Teddy Roosevelt, Samuel Clemens, and Rudyard Kipling. There is also some existential musing by Holmes on whether or not he might be a fictional character. Lots of fun, and an exciting ending.
September 21, 2015
When I was a junior in high school, I wrote a paper on The Red Badge of Courage. I got an A, even though I had never read the book. Didn't use Cliffnotes, just my own natural talent for bullshit. Still haven't read it, and don't plan to. I share this because it is an anecdote involving Stephen Crane that is 200% more relevant to The Fifth Heart than the anecdote involving Stephen Crane that actually appears toward the end of The Fifth Heart.
So many thoughts going through my head right now. This is a book I started three times before it stuck, and now that I've finished it (finally), I'm wishing I hadn't been that tenacious. Here are some things:
--I think Dan Simmons really wanted people to see how much research he did for this book. And I'm impressed! Except Dan, just because a well-known person was alive during the era of your historical fiction, it doesn't obligate you to include them in the narrative. Or should I say, "narrative."
--most likely, I stuck with this book because I thought the premise had promise (groan): Henry James and Sherlock Holmes team up to solve a mystery, except Holmes is suffering an existential crises because he's starting to think he's a fictional character. That sounds cool. Except the actual novel read like one where the author forgets the "am I real" conceit for the most part and goes back and sprinkles a couple (and no more) references to this seemingly CENTRAL part of the premise.
--The "mystery" at the heart of this book is a 300-page red herring. I have no idea how many pages are in this book, but too many of them are spent on the Clover Adams element and not enough on interesting matters. What this book is really about is an assassination attempt on the president, that Holmes must stop. At the Chicago World's Fair. Actually, what this book is really about is how rich folks lived in America after the civil war.
--the author doesn't seem to like Henry James, Sherlock Holmes, or anyone else of the time period in which he's writing. Oh, and he did a lot of research. And if you read this book, you're going to read it all.
There are things here to recommend. I like how he sprinkled very real people and events throughout, I just wish it had been done with some purpose, rather than as narrative tangents. The section that took place in Washington DC was good, for the most part, and the section on the Adams Memorial (Google it, the statue is haunting) was great. But otherwise, if you want to read a fictionalized historical novel, pick anything else.
So many thoughts going through my head right now. This is a book I started three times before it stuck, and now that I've finished it (finally), I'm wishing I hadn't been that tenacious. Here are some things:
--I think Dan Simmons really wanted people to see how much research he did for this book. And I'm impressed! Except Dan, just because a well-known person was alive during the era of your historical fiction, it doesn't obligate you to include them in the narrative. Or should I say, "narrative."
--most likely, I stuck with this book because I thought the premise had promise (groan): Henry James and Sherlock Holmes team up to solve a mystery, except Holmes is suffering an existential crises because he's starting to think he's a fictional character. That sounds cool. Except the actual novel read like one where the author forgets the "am I real" conceit for the most part and goes back and sprinkles a couple (and no more) references to this seemingly CENTRAL part of the premise.
--The "mystery" at the heart of this book is a 300-page red herring. I have no idea how many pages are in this book, but too many of them are spent on the Clover Adams element and not enough on interesting matters. What this book is really about is an assassination attempt on the president, that Holmes must stop. At the Chicago World's Fair. Actually, what this book is really about is how rich folks lived in America after the civil war.
--the author doesn't seem to like Henry James, Sherlock Holmes, or anyone else of the time period in which he's writing. Oh, and he did a lot of research. And if you read this book, you're going to read it all.
There are things here to recommend. I like how he sprinkled very real people and events throughout, I just wish it had been done with some purpose, rather than as narrative tangents. The section that took place in Washington DC was good, for the most part, and the section on the Adams Memorial (Google it, the statue is haunting) was great. But otherwise, if you want to read a fictionalized historical novel, pick anything else.
January 25, 2015
The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons
In 1893 a chance meeting with Sherlock Holmes for London based American author Henry James will turn his depressed life upside down and will never be the same. When paths cross, James finds himself the center piece of a complicated murder crime. Now he must assist the famous consulting detective Sherlock Holmes on the greatest mystery of his rich historical career. Mr. Holmes has discovered he is not a real person, yet only a literary character, an inked fictional creation. The reader is faced with the bewilderment of not knowing if the person standing before them is a true being residing at 221 B Baker Street or a escaped patient from a secured madhouse. His identity and true existence hangs in the balance as the suspenseful perplexity unfolds.
Dan Simmons The Fifth Heart duplicates another home run for this talented author. His genius of clashing fiction with history once again comes to life in this most recent effort. As the reader follows Henry James and Sherlock Holmes through every adventure and calamity, clever motivations by not only secondary characters but by Holmes himself become center stage. In a genius move by creator Simmons, the reader moves from the eyes of Henry James to the eyes of Sherlock Holmes. The results determines the runaway speed in which the story takes, as if this ride of Dan's conception has no brakes.
American writer Dan Simmons is best known for his Hugo Award winning Science Fiction series The Hyperion Cantos. His talent not only shines within the pages of The Fifth Heart, but is present among Historical Fiction reads like The Terror and Drood, a disturbing novel based on the last years of Charles Dickens life. Simmons has become a top five author of mine. If given the chance, the same will happen for you.
February 21, 2017
This is my second Simmons book (first was Hyperion) and the two couldn't be more different!
Don't get me wrong I love them both but this one has a lot more elements that I enjoy...like the enigma that is Sherlock Holmes!
I enjoyed Henry James too and all the historical details and most of the secondary characters - so much attention to detail - just brilliant.
This is a mystery in a mystery with a few other mysteries thrown in for good measure.
I will concede that a couple of the scenes involving social gatherings were a bit boring but they didn't last long and we were soon off on another adventure with either Holmes or James.
I've said it before and I'll say it again you can find out so much stuff and hide in plain sight if you master the art of disguise - my favourite element of any Holmes story!!!
Don't get me wrong I love them both but this one has a lot more elements that I enjoy...like the enigma that is Sherlock Holmes!
I enjoyed Henry James too and all the historical details and most of the secondary characters - so much attention to detail - just brilliant.
This is a mystery in a mystery with a few other mysteries thrown in for good measure.
I will concede that a couple of the scenes involving social gatherings were a bit boring but they didn't last long and we were soon off on another adventure with either Holmes or James.
I've said it before and I'll say it again you can find out so much stuff and hide in plain sight if you master the art of disguise - my favourite element of any Holmes story!!!
May 13, 2015
One night in 1893, Sherlock Holmes encounters suicidal Henry James on the Seine. Holmes distracts James from his suicide plan and convinces him to accompany him to America to solve the case of the murder of Clover Adams. From this point on, the narrative builds into a complex mystery that involves not only resolving Adams' murder, but also the question of whether or not a fictional character is "real."
I won The Fifth Heart as a GoodReads giveaway--as a fan of Conan Doyle and Henry James, I thought that I was going to be extremely critical when reading this novel. However, I was pleasantly surprised and became almost immediately engrossed in the world of the fictional Holmes and James that Simmons created.
I won The Fifth Heart as a GoodReads giveaway--as a fan of Conan Doyle and Henry James, I thought that I was going to be extremely critical when reading this novel. However, I was pleasantly surprised and became almost immediately engrossed in the world of the fictional Holmes and James that Simmons created.
December 27, 2022
While I loved the inclusion of some of my favorite writers, I am not a fan of history rewritten to suit modern sensibilities or to make someone a villain. I found the dialogs tedious and the descriptions overdrawn.
I quit a bit under half-way through the book. It's a Dan Simmons' door-stopper that should have been a novelette.
I quit a bit under half-way through the book. It's a Dan Simmons' door-stopper that should have been a novelette.
March 11, 2017
A novel pairing the world’s greatest detective and a novelist who explored the psychological depths of his characters. A meticulously researched novel that centers on the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago — the newly electrified White City who some will recognize from Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America — peopled with dozens of real historical figures: President Grover Cleveland, Vice President Adlai Stephenson, Mark Twain, Henry and Clover Adams, John and Clara Hay and their family, explorer Clarence King, Senators Henry Cabot Lodge and Don Cameron and their wives, freewheeling Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison, and not least of all, the brooding Henry James. The novel posits the fussy James and the blunt, forceful Sherlock Holmes as an odd couple pairing who investigate the supposed suicide of socialite and photographer Clover Adams seven years earlier and then several more, more dangerous mysteries.
This should have been a spectacular treat for a fan of Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series and of The Turn of the Screw like me. Maybe it was its excessive length (618 pages or, in my case, 23 and a half hours on Audible), or the many subplots, or James’ infuriating self-pity, prissiness, and superciliousness, or Holmes’ inexplicable (and sometimes self-defeating) cat-and-mouse games, but I simply had to force myself to finish reading it. And what a pity! Author Dan Simmons had the makings of a wondrous historical novel and an action-packed thriller; the ending boasted so many twists and turns that, had the entire novel contained less meaningless exposition and more action or at least interactions between James and Holmes, Simmons would have had a true gem on his hands. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about James and his eminent family (including his insufferable brother William) and of the preeminent families of 1890s Washington, D.C., and New England. Yet, I somehow began to dread returning to the novel, never knowing whether the next stretch would be compelling or more tedium.
The ending implies that The Fifth Heart is the first of a series. If so, James and Holmes will have to collaborate and investigate without me.
Even so, I would like to thank my Great Escape Sisters for the chance to sample an author I might not otherwise have explored.
This should have been a spectacular treat for a fan of Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series and of The Turn of the Screw like me. Maybe it was its excessive length (618 pages or, in my case, 23 and a half hours on Audible), or the many subplots, or James’ infuriating self-pity, prissiness, and superciliousness, or Holmes’ inexplicable (and sometimes self-defeating) cat-and-mouse games, but I simply had to force myself to finish reading it. And what a pity! Author Dan Simmons had the makings of a wondrous historical novel and an action-packed thriller; the ending boasted so many twists and turns that, had the entire novel contained less meaningless exposition and more action or at least interactions between James and Holmes, Simmons would have had a true gem on his hands. I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about James and his eminent family (including his insufferable brother William) and of the preeminent families of 1890s Washington, D.C., and New England. Yet, I somehow began to dread returning to the novel, never knowing whether the next stretch would be compelling or more tedium.
The ending implies that The Fifth Heart is the first of a series. If so, James and Holmes will have to collaborate and investigate without me.
Even so, I would like to thank my Great Escape Sisters for the chance to sample an author I might not otherwise have explored.
October 21, 2019
Прочитът на „Петата купа“ го отлагам почти три години. Знаейки как Симънс не обича жанрови рамки, доста се притеснявах да се впусна в тази почти историческа книга от него. Оказа се, че не е било нужно.
Преплитайки реални хора и популярни литературни герои от края на деветнадесети век, Симънс успява да нарисува една огромна, почти достоверна и изключително подробна картина на литературното общество в Америка от тогава. Препратките към произведения и автори са стотици, от което малко страда действието в романа. Плюс, че тук за първи път улових Данчо да изпуска юздите на повествованието и да остави Хоумс да заживее собствен живот на страниците. Което показва, че или не е текстообработващата програма за която го мислех, или е счупил теста на Тюринг с шут.
Не толкова младият Хенри Джеймс е изпаднал в тежка депресия и решава да се самоубие в Париж. Там се среща с Шерлок Хоумс, който с безапелационното си поведение успява да го изтръгне от лапите на болестта и да го поведе на приключение в родната му Америка (на Джеймс, не на Хоумс). Там трябва да разнищат стар случай, засягащ едни от най-близките приятели на Джеймс, а в движение да предотвратят мащабен анархистки заговор.
Шерлок на Симънс е изключително пълнокръвен и достоверен. Запазвайки характера даден му от сър Артър Конан Дойл, авторът успява да го направи дишащ, човечен и дори раним. На Хенри Джеймс съм чел само „Примката на призрака“, но действието тук се развива години преди да е написана, така че нямам мнение. Все пак ще придвижа напред „Бостънци“, която залежава от една петилетка на четеца. Отделно беше много приятно да видя десетки други автори, както и десетки литературни герои, които се промъкват уж случайно между страниците.
Звезда надолу, защото Симънс си е позволил да изкриви определени събития в тази своя алтернативна вселена, от което ми загорча и замириса леко на пропаганда, но това е цената на известността. Повечето ми приятели в гудрийдс твърдят, че „Drood“ е дори по-добра от тази. Ще се пробва, а ако я видим и на български ще е чудесно.
Преплитайки реални хора и популярни литературни герои от края на деветнадесети век, Симънс успява да нарисува една огромна, почти достоверна и изключително подробна картина на литературното общество в Америка от тогава. Препратките към произведения и автори са стотици, от което малко страда действието в романа. Плюс, че тук за първи път улових Данчо да изпуска юздите на повествованието и да остави Хоумс да заживее собствен живот на страниците. Което показва, че или не е текстообработващата програма за която го мислех, или е счупил теста на Тюринг с шут.
Не толкова младият Хенри Джеймс е изпаднал в тежка депресия и решава да се самоубие в Париж. Там се среща с Шерлок Хоумс, който с безапелационното си поведение успява да го изтръгне от лапите на болестта и да го поведе на приключение в родната му Америка (на Джеймс, не на Хоумс). Там трябва да разнищат стар случай, засягащ едни от най-близките приятели на Джеймс, а в движение да предотвратят мащабен анархистки заговор.
Шерлок на Симънс е изключително пълнокръвен и достоверен. Запазвайки характера даден му от сър Артър Конан Дойл, авторът успява да го направи дишащ, човечен и дори раним. На Хенри Джеймс съм чел само „Примката на призрака“, но действието тук се развива години преди да е написана, така че нямам мнение. Все пак ще придвижа напред „Бостънци“, която залежава от една петилетка на четеца. Отделно беше много приятно да видя десетки други автори, както и десетки литературни герои, които се промъкват уж случайно между страниците.
Звезда надолу, защото Симънс си е позволил да изкриви определени събития в тази своя алтернативна вселена, от което ми загорча и замириса леко на пропаганда, но това е цената на известността. Повечето ми приятели в гудрийдс твърдят, че „Drood“ е дори по-добра от тази. Ще се пробва, а ако я видим и на български ще е чудесно.
April 28, 2015
I will always read Dan Simmons's books. Hyperion made too much of a believer out of me to abandon him if he writes one that I don't like.
The premise is interesting. Sherlock Holmes is real-ish, and teams with Henry James to stop the crime of the century. There were several things in the book I didn't like.
(1) Winks and nods. There are a lot of winks and nods to the reader, letting us know that Simmons is writing in modern times and guesses what we might be wondering about the universe the characters inhabit.
(2) Many historical figures pop up in the book for no apparent reason other than Simmons can conjure them into existence. (Minor spoiler) At one point, Samuel Clemens comes into the story, lingers for a while, then goes away. Same of a lot of others.
(3) Research muscles. There are a million details inserted into the book that seem like nothing more than someone showing off that they did a lot of research. No other way to describe some of the inane and distracting descriptions.
(4) Sherlock Holmes is undergoing a dilemma that I won't describe for reason of spoilers. But after one moment when he almost sees outside of his prison,--a really cool idea--we never return to that version of his dilemma.
I tend not to like the modern trend of books that grab historical characters and put them in unlikely stories. This is no exception. If you like those kinds of books, than you might enjoy The Fifth Heart.
The premise is interesting. Sherlock Holmes is real-ish, and teams with Henry James to stop the crime of the century. There were several things in the book I didn't like.
(1) Winks and nods. There are a lot of winks and nods to the reader, letting us know that Simmons is writing in modern times and guesses what we might be wondering about the universe the characters inhabit.
(2) Many historical figures pop up in the book for no apparent reason other than Simmons can conjure them into existence. (Minor spoiler) At one point, Samuel Clemens comes into the story, lingers for a while, then goes away. Same of a lot of others.
(3) Research muscles. There are a million details inserted into the book that seem like nothing more than someone showing off that they did a lot of research. No other way to describe some of the inane and distracting descriptions.
(4) Sherlock Holmes is undergoing a dilemma that I won't describe for reason of spoilers. But after one moment when he almost sees outside of his prison,--a really cool idea--we never return to that version of his dilemma.
I tend not to like the modern trend of books that grab historical characters and put them in unlikely stories. This is no exception. If you like those kinds of books, than you might enjoy The Fifth Heart.
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