Lord Darcy and New Amsterdam
I’m reading Randall Garrett’s collection of LORD DARCY stories at the moment, and it’s proving to be hard going. The kind of book I dip into a story at a time, then set aside for a long stretch while I go find something that’s more my speed as a reader. I have issues with Garrett’s pacing, but that’s a conceit of the genre–he’s essentially doing Sherlock Holmes stories in an alternate universe where magic exists and thaumaturgical forensics is a studied art–and I have never been a voracious reader of the pure mystery story. I’m making a concreted effort to finish the collection because it plays into my thesis, being a significant source of inspiration behind Elizabeth Bear’s New Amsterdam stories featuring the forensic sorcerer Abigail Irene Garrett and the immortal vampire detective Sebastien de Ulloa. Those stories I devoured at a rapid clip when I first encountered them, immediately pre-ordering collections every time they were announced. The difference isn’t
