Episode 29: The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes

In Episode 29, Babes Jenn and Lyndsay sit down with Susan Rice and Mickey Fromkin to talk about The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes and how ASH came to be.

Who are The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes you may ask?

Founded by a group of women students at Albertus Magnus College in the late 1960s and led by Principal Unprincipled Adventuress Evelyn Herzog, ASH achieved early notoriety when its members picketed the Annual Dinner of the Baker Street Irregulars in protest of the BSI policy of excluding women. For the next 25 years ASH thrived with its own (coeducational) dinner on the same January night as the BSI event.  When women were finally invited into the BSI in 1991, selected Adventuresses were among the first to be invested.

Both Susan and Mickey not only share the story of ASH, but also their own personal stories of how they became members and found other like-minded women who share their love for our favorite consulting detective.

For more information on The Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes you can visit their website or you can email Susan Rice at susan221bee@gmail.com.  

You can also subscribe to the ASH publication, The Serpentine Muse.  

The Muse is a quarterly journal of ASH activities and (mostly) light-hearted Sherlockian and Victorian topics. Contents include event reports, short articles, toasts, contests, poetry, drawings, and photos of, and by, ASH members and others. It is not necessary to be a member of ASH to subscribe or contribute material for publication in The Muse. 

For more information on The Serpentine Muse, click here.

Help Save Undershaw

As some of you may know, the judicial review for Undershaw will be taking place this Wednesday, May 23rd.  There is still time to help! 

- The easiest thing you can do is “Like” the Save Undershaw Facebook page.  They have reached their goal of 12,000 fans, but you can never have enough support. So if you haven’t clicked “Like” yet, go and do it.

- You can purchase Sherlock’s Home: the Empty House.  You can currently order it on Book Depository and they are shipping within 48 hours.  You can also visit the book’s page on Amazon and Amazon.co.uk and hit the “Like” button there as well.  All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to the Undershaw Preservation Trust for campaign expenses.

- You can also purchase Alistair Duncan’s book An Entirely New Country in our bookshop.  According to Alistair’s website 50% of the net royalties will be placed at the disposal of The Undershaw Preservation Trust.  

SPREAD THE WORD! Be creative. Tell your friends. Make a sign. Take a photo. Just get the word out to Save Undershaw!

Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays on the BBC Series

The critically-acclaimed BBC television series Sherlock (2010- ) re-envisions Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective for the digital age, joining participants in the active traditions of Sherlockians/Holmesians and fans from other communities, including science fiction, media, and anime. This collection explores the cultural intersections and fan traditions that converge in Sherlock and its fandoms. Essays focus on the industrial and cultural contexts of Sherlock’s release, on the text of Sherlock as adaptation and transformative work, and on Sherlock’s critical and popular reception.

The volume’s multiple perspectives examine Sherlock Holmes as an international transmedia figure with continued cultural impact, offering insight into not only the BBC series itself, but also into its literary source, and with it, the international resonance of the Victorian detective and his sidekick.

Introduction is by our own Lyndsay Faye!

Buy it on [Amazon] now.

Review: An Entirely New Country

An Entirely New Country 

By Alistair Duncan 

Reviewed by Maria Fleischhack

The Baker Street Babes

 

Being familiar with Alistair Duncan through the Save Undershaw campaign, I was very interested in reading An Entirely New Country, which is set against the backdrop of the ten years Arthur Conan Doyle spent at Undershaw, the house he designed and had built for his family in the 1890s. I had also read Andrew Lycett’s biography of Doyle and was curious to see how Duncan would write about those significant years in Doyle’s life. 

An Entirely New Country is a detailed account of ten of the most important and productive years in the life of Arthur Conan Doyle. This window into the life of the author, sportsman, politician, husband, father and friend is framed by Doyle’s life in Undershaw, Hindhead; the home which he designed and had built for himself and his family and where he moved in 1897. The ulterior motif for the move to Surrey was the health of Doyle’s wife Louise, who suffered from tuberculosis. The healthy environment of Hindhead did indeed help her to live much longer than any physician had dared to hope. However, it is also known that Doyle fell in love with a much younger woman, who would eventually become his wife after Louise’s death. The difficult situation Doyle found himself in and the rather insensitive way in which he dealt with it is only one of the focal points of An Entirely New Country. Duncan manages to depict Doyle as the private man; the man who always consulted his mother before making any major and even minor decisions; the man who dined with royalty and who moved in the highest political and social circles; the man who stood up for a completely unknown man named George Edalji, because he believed he had been erroneously convicted of a crime he had never committed. 

Duncan makes extensive use of contemporary newspaper articles, letters and diary entries to paint a very vivid and round picture of the beloved author. As pointed out by Mark Gatiss in the introduction to the book, Conan Doyle’s many roles in life are brought into focus and insights into his private life shed new light on Arthur Conan Doyle - the man. The book is a pot of gold where it comes to details and unknown facts about Doyle’s life, which add up to a much larger and more concise picture of a man who has done and achieved more than seems humanly possibly in one lifetime

An Entirely New Country is a biography, but Duncan’s subtle humour makes it much more than just a collection of facts and dates. The commentary on the different aspects of Conan Doyle’s life and interactions with his friends and acquaintances helps to see a much more private person; a person who failed his loved ones; who, despite his best efforts, did not always succeed; and a man, who did not particularly like his most famous and beloved character: Sherlock Holmes. Many things have been written about Arthur Conan Doyle, both good and bad; but Duncan’s book manages to offer a deeper understanding of the intentions and motivations of the polymath, who helped shape his times and who is still a well beloved and widely read author. 

The book is a brilliant read, never boring and it leaves one with a very vivid image of Doyle at the turn of the century. Alistair Duncan added profoundly to the already extensive source material we have on Doyle, and I highly and whole-heartedly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in Doyle and his contemporaries.

You can buy this book in the Baker Street Babes Bookshop!

Support Steampunk Holmes

Some of you may have come across the Steampunk Holmes project in your wanderings around the interwebs.  As the website says, “Steampunk Holmes is a mashup of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, characters, and stories from other 19th century works set in an alternative Steampunk universe.”

Baker Street Babes Jenn, Lyndsay, and Amy had the pleasure of chatting with three of the collaborators on this project, Developer Richard Monson-Haefel, Author P. C. Martin, and Artist Daniel Cortes, for the podcast.  The interview will be Episode 25 and you will all get a chance to listen to how passionate and awesome these folks are next week. Seriously, they made Mycroft a woman and Watson has a bionic arm.  Trust us, you’ll want to check this out!

In the meantime, Steampunk Holmes has launched a Kickstarter Campaign to help raise funds for the interactive application.  We encourage you to take a moment and not only check out www.steampunkholmes.com but also consider donating some money to the project.  There are some great rewards for people who participate.  

Also, to whet your appetite, you can download an e-pub version of Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus for any e-reader at Smashwords.

What are you waiting for?! Go now! And look out for Episode 25 in the coming days!

Episode 23: New and Old Sherlockians

Babes Ardy, Amy, Jenn, Maria, Sarah and Taylor chat to Mattias Boström, a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, about “New” and “Old” Sherlockians. Mattias is working on a book about the Sherlock Holmes success story at the moment, so we have plenty to talk about! What does it mean to be a Sherlockian or Holmesian these days? Do people still play The Game? What’s the difference between Sherlockian societies’ meetings and Sherlock meetups? What will happen to the Sherlock Holmes societies when the “Old” and the “New” Sherlockians meet? While we discuss these questions and more, one thing is certain: we are all united in our love for Sherlock Holmes.

As we found out, Mattias is always happy to chat to people about Holmes, so go follow him on Twitter @mattias221b!

Special thanks go to Roger Johnson and Carrie Chandler from the Sherlock Holmes Society of London, who could not be there in person but provided us with questions for the discussion. You can follow Carrie on Twitter at @carriechandler or @SHSLBakerStweet for official SHSL news.

The book that Mattias mentioned in the episode is Steven Doyle and David Crowder’s Sherlock Holmes for Dummies, which you can buy from the bookseller of your choice.

Episode 21: Gerry O'Hara & Tracy Revels

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Be prepared for old fashioned English humor, some Bram Stoker chatter, Southern twang, and lots of Sherlock Holmes love (as always). Holmesian authors Gerry O'Hara and Tracey Revels chat with Babes Maria & Taylor about Sherlock Holmes and the supernatural. From Dracula to Titania with a dash of Lord of the Rings and bunnies (what?).
Gerry O’Hara is an English film and television director. O’Hara was an assistant director on Laurence Olivier’s film, Richard III; the Carol Reed film, Our Man in Havana and the Academy Award-winning Tom Jones. O’Hara’s directorial debut was the 1963 cautionary tale That Kind of Girl, about the dangers of contracting venereal disease. During the 1960s, he directed episodes of The Avengers and a film based on a Van Der Valk novel by Nicolas Freeling, Amsterdam Affair. O’Hara directed the highly controversial film The Brute. O’Hara directed and wrote the screenplay for the 1979 film, The Bitch, an adaptation of the Jackie Collins novel. Later television credits include directing and writing episodes of The Professionals, script editor for the ITV series C.A.T.S. Eyes and directing an episode of Press Gang. Most recently he has become a published author, writing Sherlock Holmes & The Affair of Transylvania.

Sherlock Holmes and The Affair In Transylvania is a complete re-telling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, incident by bloody incident.   When Dr Watson tells Holmes the distressing news that his niece’s husband is missing on a visit to Count Dracula, the great detective decides that he and Watson should journey to Transylvania.

Tracy Revels is a professor of history at Wofford College in South Carolina, and author of a few Sherlock Holmes pastiches! The most notable is Shadowfall.

When the sacred relics and mystical objects of London begin disappearing, Sherlock Holmes must call on more than his powers of deduction to solve a mystery that threatens the safety of the British Empire and Doctor Watson’s mortal soul.

And we’re happy to say a sequel was written, entitled Shadowblood.

A sequel to Shadowfall, this novel continues the adventures of Holmes as a man of two worlds, gifted with both deductive and magical powers. The convalescing Watson’s country holiday is brought to an abrupt end when an eccentric recluse named Edgar Telfair demands that Holmes investigate his daughters disappearance. Holmes’ refusal to take the case is followed by Telfair’s sudden, horrific slaying. The act revives Watson’s suppressed memories of the Shadows and reintroduces him to Holmes s double life. Together Holmes and Watson must find Alice Telfair, a witch whose shocking powers are obtained through blood magic, the vilest form of sorcery. Tracking her from Paris to Prague to America, they soon learn that she is traveling with a shadowy figure equally as dangerous. Old friends, including Lestrade and Mycroft, assist Holmes and Watson in their quest. In America the pair enlists new allies: a Pinkerton agent with a past, a Seminole showman, a blind photographer whose cameras capture the spirit world, and a strange little boy destined for a frightening future. But Holmes and Watson are being stalked, not only by Alice Telfair and her hideous assistant, but also by a mysterious interloper whose quest for justice stretches from beyond the grave.

 Sherlock Hares!

Doctor Wabbit!

Baker Street Babe Amy To Publish Sherlock Holmes Pastiche!

That's right! Our very own Amy is publishing her own Sherlock Holmes pastiche named The Detective and The Woman: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes by MXPublishing.

England’s greatest detective and the woman who outsmarted him are thrown together by a criminal plot with implications that stretch across the Atlantic. Their investigation leads them to south Florida, where they meet legendary inventor Thomas Edison and employ disguise, wit, and courage to outsmart a diabolical villain.

The first time I met Sherlock Holmes, I was about eight or nine. I enjoyed the stories, but I was too young to understand the subtle humor or fully appreciate the cleverness of the plots. A few years later, a friend bought me a copy of The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King, and I was introduced to the concept of Sherlock Holmes pastiches--works that place Conan Doyle's characters into new stories and contexts. The BBC's Sherlock series inspired me to re-read the the original Holmes canon in 2010, and I realized how much wittier and more engaging the stories and characters were than I remembered. National Novel Writing Month in November 2011 gave me a chance to try my hand at writing my own pastiche, an homage to the Baker Street detective and The Woman herself, Irene Adler. 

The Detective and The Woman: A Novel of Sherlock Holmes will be out on April 16th, 2012, and will be available through pre-order. You'll be able to pick it up online and in stores near you.

Episode 18: The Reichenbach Fall

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"It is with a heavy heart that I take up my pen to write these the last words in which I shall ever record the singular gifts by which my friend Sherlock Holmes was distinguised."

- The Final Problem

SPOILERS FOR THE REICHENBACH FALL!

On the 15th of January, 2011, we and upwards of 8million other people in the UK (and beyond) were staring at out television, tissues and wine in hand. It is the night of The Reichenbach Fall and The Final Problem. "My best friend, Sherlock Holmes, is dead..." a broken John Watson reveals to his therapist, and we start our emotional roller coaster of the Sherlock Series 2 finale.

Babes Curly, Ardy, Jenn, Turk, Amy, Maria, and Marie mull over Reichenbach. We console, we laugh, we theorize, and we declare our everlasting love for Molly Hooper. Why did Mycroft do what he did? Did Sherlock really believe he was going to die? We discuss so much and with such passion because this is the show that started off this podcast. So we discuss the brilliant directing and editing and performances, as well as the larger impact, and how we've all been hit by an emotional bus of crying and heartbreak.

How did he do it? Moriarty in Sherlock's clothes? Well places rubbish truck? Rhodedendrun a la Guy Ritchie? Magical unicorn? We discuss our theories, our hopes for The Empty House, and our continual heartbreak over this amazing piece of television.

In all seriousness, this is what acting and storytelling is about. Sherlock is the epitome of what television should be, what art should be. Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, and everyone involved in this production deserve every award possible. Thank you Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat for an amazing series, and thank you Steve Thompson for Reichenbach.

PROJECT REICHENBACH: The Baker Street Babes Have Cracked

Warning: Contains large amounts of crackiness and sadness with a sprinkling of foul language and a heaping spoonful of WTF.

The Baker Street Babes have cracked.

Project Reichenbach was born as a coping technique for tomorrows episode. Provisions, shock therapy, and ultimate defeat in dealing with the fact that The Reichenbach Fall is airing at 9PM on Sunday, January 15th whether we want it to or not.

Dear Sherlockians. You are not alone. Learn what your provisions must be. Get mentally prepared. And don't let what happens to Curly, happen to you. Oh, and enjoy the hedgehog.

There are supplementary videos to this one that we will be posting along the rest of the day and tomorrow, as well as a Post-Reichenbach one. So keep an eye out.

The AMAZING Caitlin wrote a song for us for this... but fuck it was really damn sad... so we are going to play it for our Reichenbach episode.

You can find out more about the SHERLOCK Anniversary Meet Up at http://bit.ly/SHAnniversary and http://bit.ly/londonsham

Episode 14: Les Klinger

Just in time for Game of Shadows, our interview with Les Klinger is a knock out. Sherlockian scholarship and Brad Pitt jumping his neighbor's fence, this episode is as much of us interviewing him as it is just a full on discussion of why we love Sherlock Holmes, in all his forms. Learn all about his dinner date with Robert Downey Jr, A Study in Sherlock, and quite a bit of banter!

Babes: Curly, Ardy, and Jenn.

Stayed tuned also from a message from Maria (from Episode 2!) about The German Sherlock Holmes Society, Undershaw, and Sherlocon! A Sherlock Holmes convention happening at the end of August, 2012! Find out more at http://www.dshc.de/

You can follow Les on Twitter @lklinger and go to his website http://www.lesliesklinger.com

Les Klinger is a legend in the Sherlockian world. He is the editor of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, a three book edition of all of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes fiction with extensive annotations, “hailed as the definitive exegesis of Holmes and his times;” the book won an Edgar Award.

He is the consultant of the Guy Ritchie Sherlock Holmes movies starring Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law. He also edited the scholarly ten-volume Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, a heavily annotated edition of the entire Sherlock Holmes canon, and The New Annotated Dracula, an annotated version of Bram Stoker’s novel.

He published two collections of classic fiction in 2011, In the Shadow of Dracula and In the Shadow of Sherlock Holmes, both from IDW. In 2011, he co-edited with Laurie R. King The Grand Game, a two-volume collection of classical Sherlockian scholarship, published by The Baker Street Irregulars, and A Study in Sherlock, a collection of stories by all-star writers inspired by the Sherlock Holmes tales (Random House).

Klinger is a member of the Sherlock Holmes literary club called The Baker Street Irregulars, as well as numerous other Sherlockian societies. He served three terms as chapter president of the Southern California chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. He is a member of Sisters in Crime, the Horror Writers Association (and currently serves on the Board of HWA), the Dracula Society, and the Transylvanian Society of Dracula.

He’s also just a really nice guy.

Episode 12: Anthony Horowitz

Anthony Horowitz in the author of The House of Silk, a book that has the Sherlockian and Holmesian world reeling. Endorsed by The Arthur Conan Doyle Estate, some have called it canon, while others say it's just another pastiche. Babe, Jenn sits down with the popular author of the Alex Rider series and talks the story, how it came about, what fueled it, and who Anthony would have tea with.

Please note that while the majority of background noise has been removed, this interview took place in a hotel lobby and there may be some doors slamming.

You can buy The House of Silk now at all major bookstores and online.

Remember, we're online! Facebook - Twitter  and of course at www.bakerstreetbabes.com

News: Collaboration, Conferences, and Dining

It's been an amazing twenty-four hours for The Baker Street Babes. Tons of things have happened and one of these is our new collaboration with MX Publishing! If you follow our tumblr or twitter, you would have seen a post about The Great Sherlock Holmes debate that they are hosting.

Well! Not only are we collaborating with them to bring you book reviews and interviews with authors of new pastiches and works on Sherlock Holmes, but we will be one of the Team Members for the debate! We're entering on the side of BBC Sherlock, but the debate itself it going to be a lot of fun! So if you tune in on the 10th of November (8pm GMT, 3pm EST, Noon PST), you will see the Baker Street Babes in action!
You can learn about the amazing people at MX below!

About MX Publishing
 MX Publishing is one of the UK's leading independent publishers based in London. We have two main divisions - Coaching and Therapy including NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and Victorian Literature and History. We have a host of Holmes authors including the internationally acclaimed Alistair Duncan, Paul R Spiring, and Brian W Pugh. In addition to Holmes we are interested in sporting history and on occasion also consider historical fiction. MX Publishing is the #1 publisher of women Sherlock Holmes authors in the UK.

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Curly is lucky enough to be attending two swanky Sherlock Holmes soirees in October! A Study In Scandal conference in Toronto, Canada and Watson's Tin Box Dinner in Columbia, MD. She'll be writing full reports of both events!

Was Arthur Conan Doyle a scandal magnet? After all, this is a man whose integrity is engraved in stone - his headstone, in fact - which reads “Steel True, Blade Straight,” a champion of the falsely accused who, together with his great detective, is forever associated with justice and moral rectitude.
And yet, controversy pursued him during his lifetime and has dogged him into his afterlife, resulting in a kind of mystery story in its own right.
Now we will be the detectives, conducting an investigation into the spurious (or are they?) charges levelled against him in an effort to gather enough evidence to justify them or dismiss them as myths and innuendo once and for all.
We will also explore the culture of scandal endemic in Victorian literature, theatre and popular culture which no doubt exerted its influence on the Canon and Conan Doyle’s other writings

 
Watson’s Tin Box is dedicated to reading and discussing the stories of Sherlock Holmes. Ours is a congenial group which invites and encourages members of all levels of knowledge and understanding of the stories, from the seasoned Sherlockian to the beginner, whom we all envy as they are discovering Holmes for the first time. The goal is to enjoy the stories and each other’s company!





We'll be updating you more about our newest developments, including some AMAZING interviews we've got set up, but for now just spread the word about the podcast. Tell your friends and other Sherlock Holmes fans about it!

Episode 6: Lyndsay Faye & The Pastiche

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 Lyndsay Faye, author of the Sherlock Holmes pastiche Dust & Shadow, graces us with her amazing presence in NYC for a fantastic interview. Babes Curly & Jenn talk with Lyndsay at length about our favourite Consulting Detective, pastiche work, why there can't be a Watson without a Holmest (and vis versa), sexuality, and cake... what? This interview is seriously fantastic and every Sherlock Holmes fan needs to listen.

Afterwards Ardy, Taylor, and Curly talk more about pastiches, as well as fan fiction, telling you where to find some good ones and where to find some rather interesting ones. Learn everything you need to know about the Sherlock Holmes copyright, and join Jenn & Curly for a "Watson Adventure" with out report on our amazing scavanger hunt in Greenwich Village, NYC.

Wait? Sherlock Holmes CAKE POPS?! Ohhh yeah. Curly likes to bake, so she made these treats for Lyndsay and Jenn!

Pastiche List

Dust and Shadow
Marry Russell Series
Sherlock Holmes in Orbit (aka SH sci-fi/supernatural stories)

The Secret Cases of Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes and the Running Noose

Sherlock Holmes and the King's Evil  

Sherlock Holmes and the Ghosts of Bly

A Study In Lavender

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution

And the Lovecraft crossovers:  Neil Gaiman's magnificent short story "A Study in Emerald" is in this one, but is also available online for free, over here 

The Baker Street Babes Reviewed!

Because Curly is a little vain, she occasionally Googles herself and her projects, and she came across this gem! The Baker Street Babes were reviewed by blogger Brad Keefauver.

Thank you SO much for such a fantastic review, this was such amazing to come across and we're very glad you enjoy the podcast and like what we're doing. We can't appreciate it enough! Make sure to check out Sherlock Peoria as well!

Review Link

The View from Sherlock Peoria
No. 466, June 19, 2011

Beyond "The Girl In the Comic Shop"

There's a phenomenon that happens in those places traditionally haunted by the male of the species that I like to call "the girl in the comic shop" effect. Long years of patronizing dealers in DC, Marvel, and the like have taught me this one thing, if nothing else: Any female who walks into a comic book store automatically gets bonus hotness points added instantly. It happens in the military (as the comic strip Doonesbury has been playing up this week), it happens in comic stores, and it also happens in Sherlockian circles. (If you've seen how the Holmes birthday weekend in New York can turn a mild-mannered bookworm into a cleavage-wielding super-hottie, you know this to be true.)

So this week when I encountered a plucky band of bloggers/podcasters calling themselves "The Baker Street Babes," I took them at their word. Their podcast web site likes to use phrases like "Central London overfloweth with gorgeous, intelligent women with a thirst for murder" and "A podcast by sexy fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his lovely creation, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," baiting male web wanderers like sirens of the Sherlockian seas. What would Conan Doyle think? Well, I don't think his gentleman filter often let the words "Woo-hoo!" get to paper, but you just know it was in there.

So, suffice it to say that I started listening to their podcasts.

Their first episode starts with a very sweet opening dedication to Edward Hardwicke by Curly, the American member of the trio, quietly recorded like she's hiding out from her friends to give you the inside scoop on the episode. Their theme song comes up, sung by Caitlin Obom (who shows up as a guest on their second podcast) in a mellow fashion that doesn't quite prepare you for the giggly, chatty introduction to come. 

There is a lovely vocal range to the initial Babes roster: Curly is an American in London, with all the inflections of her generation. Kafers is from York, with one of those British accents that makes you wish you had Henry Higgins's skill at tracking same. Artie is a transplanted German whose English has a Scottish lilt to it. Their "how I met Sherlock Holmes" stories are fresh and fun, the highlight of which is Curly's reaction when The Great Mouse Detective first gets mentioned. 

"OH, MY GOD, YES!!!" she screams, with the intensity of a horror movie victim. She really, really likes The Great Mouse Detective, something that shows up more than a few times. But each of the Babes has their little personality points -- Kafers and her tales of riding the bus with friends dressed as Victorian men and A.J. Raffles, Artie's careful character analyses -- they're obviously having a whole lot of fun, and it's a lot of fun to listen to them as a result. Podcasts live or die on the personality and energy of their talkers, and the Baker Street Babes are riding the current wave of Sherlock in movie and TV with an unabashed glee that can't help but remind an aging Sherlockian burn-out like myself of times long-gone.

In the 1980s, a group of Sherlock Holmes fans banding together might seek recognition and validation from some of older, established club and start putting out a journal or newsletter to seek a larger presence in the Sherlockian world. But this is 2011, and the Baker Street Babes are demonstrating the new model of that old-school process. This is the era of the web-entertainer fan, of building Twitter presence, of publishing podcasts, of being a micro-star in a firmament of endless internet distraction.

In a time when much Sherlockiana is focused on times past, it's heartening to hear the Babes going on about the future, chasing down word on Benedict Cumberbatch's future projects, discussing Moffat and Gatiss's ability to keep a secret, and being totally in love with our latest crop of Watsons. These are their "good old days" of being Sherlock Holmes fans, and it's a real treat to hear them as it happens, rather than the memories of same from the Jeremy Brett era.

It is, indeed, a brand new day for Sherlock Holmes of late, and the Baker Street Babes are a happy addition to his age-old fandom. I look forward to hearing more of their adventures.

Your humble correspondent,
Brad Keefauver

http://www.sherlockpeoria.net/

Episode 4: The Women of Sherlock Holmes

http://bakerstreetbabes.podomatic.com/entry/2011-07-20T16_05_08-07_00

Babes: Curly, Ardy, and Jenn look at the Women in Sherlock Holmes, both canon and BBC, beyond Irene Adler (though we chat about her too!) Join us as we look at the role of women in Victorian times and the stories themselves, compare them with other Victorian heroines, look at the strong ones and weak ones alike, and try and grapple with the BBC!Verse women. Most importantly though! We answer questions from all of you!! We have some news to tell as well, a favour to ask, and a song about a snarky and sexy Blackberry loving lady at the end. It's The Baker Street Babes and it is Episode 4!

Exciting Reading List of Excitement!
Here's the Irene Adler series; eight novels by Carole Nelson Douglas: http://carolenelsondouglas.com/book-series/irene-adler/

You all may be interested to know that there are also Victorian!Lestrade novels, by M. J. Trow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M_J_Trow.

Thanks to @alistaird221b For pointing us to this book as well!

http://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Women-Life-Sherlock-Holmes/dp/1593304811