John Pirillo

I'm doing a colossal effort in trying to cut down on my TBR list, and between my other pleasure reads, I'm also focusing on the short books. I believe this is either my 3rd or 4th Pirillo novella (I'm not counting the several dozen Fractal Flames art books of his that I've reviewed previously), and I was expecting to read it a lot sooner, but given my smartphone has very little space and I constantly get bombarded with other tempting books to read, I had barely finished reading it recently.

In typical Pirillo fashion, Kodama is a short 40 page story that can be read in any order as you wish that takes place in his expanded Sherlock Holmes universe where mystery solving is blended with magic and steampunk.

Princess Jade is the Shogun's prized daughter and during a visit to the Japanese embassy in London, she excuses herself from her well intentioned bodyguards and pays a visit to an ancient maple tree after dark in a desolate park to pay her respects. Little does she know that a well-meaning Constable who was tasked by Scotland Yard to protect her in the shadows grows suspicious when the tree starts to glow, and he meets his untimely death...

Sherlock Holmes and Watson are given the task to resolve the constable's strange murder and it all points to the Japanese embassy. Sherlock must use both his wits and his ability to abide with the trickiness of Japanese social protocal to convince the unwielding princess to cooperate and solve this murder...

I believe most of the book was a very fun read. We get to enjoy a lot of perks about Japanese culture that is devilishly flourished with heavily armed samurai and ninjas that hide behind the shadows of the embassy. Sherlock surprises us all with his fluency of the Japanese tongue, and his unexplained ability to slice a rose bush with his right hand without even grimacing (is this even possible?).

Sadly, the ending does seem to fall apart to a very rushed conclusion. John is very well known for writing short stories in his expanded universe at an absurdly fast pace, and at times, the stories suffer because they don't get the beta revision that they deserve. The resolution of the crime seemed so rushed that it felt anticlimatic. There are also two or three typos, notably in the final chapter, Holmes was mistyped as Homes. I also felt confused because the tree spirit was both spelled Kodoma and Kodama. At just around 40 pages, the novella could have been quickly revised, and the final two chapters improved to make it a much more satisfying read.

Due to the clunky final 2 chapters, I award the book 3 1/2 stars.… (plus d'informations)