Sherlock's World by Ann K. McClellan was interesting enough while I was reading but ultimately mostly forgettable and I skim read most of it. I do want to give this book another try when I'm not in a reading slump though.

Accessible to people who aren't entrenched in academia, Sherlock's World was a breath of fresh air. While it seemed strange to me that it was so focused on JohnLock to the exclusion of everything else, it was amazing to read through. Fanfiction is something that is ultimately derided by people outside of fandoms, but is a powerful force inside them. As fan culture becomes more wide spread and easier to engage in than ever, I'm hoping for more books like McClellan's to analyze the fascinating aspects of fan culture.

There is none of the derision that I might have expected about fanfiction. All too often, these kinds of studies end up belittling its subject, but McClellan doesn't do that. Neither fanfiction nor the people who are write or read it are torn apart or dismissed out of hand. Instead, it provides a valuable look into fan culture and how it can make/break a series.

Ann K. McClellan's Sherlock's World reads very academic (as I think it is supposed to), examines how the BBC's Sherlock has inspired and been inspired by fanfiction. The examination of how fanfiction, world-building, and genre studies intermingle in the fans' mind is an interesting way to look at the impact of literature, fandoms, and popular culture. I admit that I DNF this work the first two times I attempted to read it, but returned a third time and was able to finish. I found the work to be rambling at times, and rarely provided a reason for the specific stories that focused on. Aside from these complaints, I did enjoy the work and can easily see how it adds to the scholarship of the subject matter and can serve to benefit those studying that area in the future.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-galley of this academic work in exchange for my honest review.

This book was entertaining for the simple fact that I couldn't tell how real and honest it was trying to be. As a reader of Sherlock fanfiction I have to say the author didn't make fun of them but more of deeply examined them? Either way it was interesting!

I enjoyed the in-depth look at Sherlock.fan studies, the look at fan fiction was tremendously interesting. Ms. McClellan wrote an excellent, nuanced study that could be enjoyed in equal measure by fans and academics.

As both an academic and a fan, I've always been suspicious of fan studies. Often, these kinds of books result in somewhat derogatory attempts to explain why fans do what they do. When it comes to fanfiction, especially slash, the derision is often even worse.

Therefore, I was pleasantly surprised to find this book to be a well-balanced and insightful exploration of several facets of the Sherlock fandom. Although the author does not shy away from fan practices that can be problematic, the discussion remains respectful and multi-dimensional.

I especially enjoyed the degree to which the discussion of the fan practices (from slash to RPF to genderswap) was grounded in specific stories. Rather than focusing on only fan motivations and psychology, this treatment situated fan fiction in the larger field of literary analysis in a fresh and intelligent way.

Overall, I found this book to be well written and informative for both scholars and Sherlock fans alike.

A dense and excruciatingly well-cited exploration of the BBC Sherlock Holes fandom and its approaches to marrying canonical elements of the series with alternate universe variations. For academic and fandom enthusiasts.

In my first read, I ended up DNF'ing this book at 25%, but I still think it's deserving of the 3 star rating that I'm giving it.

As a huge fan of the BBC show Sherlock, I found the subject matter of Ann K McClellan's Sherlock's World incredibly interesting and intriguing. I really appreciated how the author tried to not just delve deeper into the world of the show and Sherlock Holmes related media and works, but also into all media and works in general.

The problem with this book, however, was the writing style. It reads very dry, like an academic paper on the matter, rather than an indulging book for the masses.

That's one of the main reasons I ended up DNF'-ing it, despite being really interested in the content, because I don't really have the time and/or energy to take in text-book-like novels when I'm reading in my free time.

If you're someone who is genuinely interesting in learning about how media influences the world-building of fictional works from an academic perspective, however, this would definitely be an interesting read.

While I've not finished the book now, I do hope I can pick it up at some other, more suitable time!

I love the BBC series Sherlock. This book sheds light on FanFiction.Net and how it is a staple of the tb show. I like how they are both interconnected and how it made it popular. I highly recommend this for Sherlock fan.

Despite not being in the field, I am always attracted to fan studies books when they cover fandoms I know something about. I’ve watched nearly all of Sherlock (I don’t think I ever watched the nineteenth century episode for whatever reason) and have stumbled upon some fan creations (including a very popular Twitter account) that had me scratching my head a little—but now I feel like I understand the fandom and particularly why a lot of heterosexual women write slash romances much more than I did before. There was a lot of interesting insight about gender and gender roles here.

Sherlock series by BBC set in contemporary London has one of the most mixed bag reviews I have ever heard from fans and non-fans of the original Sherlock Holmes books. Sherlock Holmes is still popular after making his first appearance in the print 130 years ago. It is one of the most fan-fictionalized characters. No other character from the literary world has been written about than Sherlock Holmes. So what makes Sherlock's fanfic so popular?

Ann McClellan tries to answer this question in her latest book which consists of a series of essays. She tries to answer, even after 130 years of Sherlock Holmes, why are people so attracted to it? Sherlock's fanfic does not end at the BBC's remaking that stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson and created by one Mark Gattis and Steven Moffat. After reading this book, it does seem that Sherlock as a series is a mere portion of the fandom. The more aggressive and a larger portion is available on the internet where the world of Sherlock is constantly rebuilt. It explores different characters, genres, settings, fictitious realities.

I was shocked to see people often think of Sherlock as a sex symbol and there is a huge collection of fanfic all over the internet that likes to talk about it. Heck, many fans even have re-imagined their wildest dreams of performing a relationship between Dr. Watson and the detective himself. Most essays are written in third person narrative. I do feel this book could have been a bit short. It is a perfect read for someone looking to write or explore Sherlockians world deeply but if you just want to be in the awe of the literary character, this book is not for you.

3.5 out of 5!

It reads like a dissertation of the highest and most engaging standard. It educates, challenges and leaves you questioning. The only shame is that it wasn’t published three years ago as I feel there would be a bigger audience for it and I would love for this book to do well.

In December 2013 at the BFI, Caitlin Moran persuaded the unwilling Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch to read from an explicit homoerotic fanfic based on their characters in the BBC’s Sherlock series. The internet condemnation was swift. Fans felt that Moran had betrayed the unspoken rules: that fanfiction is written by fans for fans and that it’s shared in a safe space. The author of the fic in question, who hadn’t been consulted, was humiliated and mortified that two of her idols had been made to read her story out as a joke, and that her work had been singled out by Moran as an example of the embarrassing extremes of Sherlock fandom. Obviously it was an ill-judged move on Moran’s part and I feel deeply for the poor fan whose heartfelt writing was held up for a cheap laugh. But this episode only came about because Sherlock has created such a broad, lively and vocal fandom – especially extraordinary given there are only twelve episodes in the four seasons to date (plus a special). This scholarly study, to be published in October, delves into Sherlock fandom and forms an introduction to fan culture more generally.


I’m interested in fandom, although I don’t really have the energy to get that engaged with any of the usual suspects. (I’m in a fandom of one, focusing on Baroque operas based on ancient Persian history.) But I do go to London’s Film & Comic Con every year, to admire the cosplay and to enjoy the wonderful atmosphere that you get from a place where everyone feels safe and accepted, and people have often gone to fantastic lengths for their cosplay. My visits are almost purely for the pleasure of people-watching. Back in the day, I did read the odd bit of Lord of the Rings slash fanfiction when I was in Sixth Form (Aragorn/Legolas, since you ask), and I actually wrote a couple of pieces of non-slash short fanfic myself (based respectively on The Iliad and Amadeus, because I was a pretentious little thing); so I know vaguely whereof McClellan speaks. But what her book has done is broadened my understanding: there’s an incredibly wide range of tropes and themes within Sherlock fanfiction (and fanfiction in general).

I was fascinated to see fan culture being treated with the same scientific rigour as any other academic subject (this book is part of the Fan Studies series published by the University of Iowa Press), although Sherlock’s World doesn’t always display a corresponding editorial rigour, but we’ll come to that in a moment. First, let’s buckle our seatbelts and take a ride through the history of Sherlock Holmes fan culture, because it’s actually rather fascinating stuff. The remarkable thing is that it goes back an awfully long way. The first Sherlock Holmes ‘fanfiction’ was written in the 1890s, after Arthur Conan Doyle had killed off Holmes in his Strand series of stories. Forlorn admirers were invited to submit their own stories about Holmes to the journal Tit-Bits, which also published quizzes and votes about the great detective. It was precisely this outpouring of popular devotion which eventually persuaded Conan Doyle to bring Holmes back from the dead and to kick off a new series of adventures. Fan societies existed from the earliest days and now there are more than 700 Sherlock Holmes associations all over the world, not to mention the journals publishing ‘Great Game’ scholarship based on Holmes and his ‘life’.

This isn’t some small-scale niche fandom. The BBC’s Sherlock fandom has grown out of something extraordinarily passionate and lively, although McClellan notes that it’s the first Holmes sub-fandom (as opposed to that focused on Elementary, or the Rathbone films, or the Robert Downey Jr films) that has a predominantly female membership. And this may affect the way that fans express their interest – because Sherlock generates more fanfiction than any other facet of the Holmes canon. McClellan devotes much of a chapter to describing the history of fanfiction and exploring its demographic – mainly a case of women writing for women, with a heavy focus on slash pairings (same-sex characters, usually male, placed in romantic relationships). The rest of her book looks at specific kinds of Sherlock fanfiction, to explore how fans repurpose the BBC ‘canon’ in different and sometimes extremely creative ways.

As this is an academic book, I’ll just run through the contents of each chapter for greater clarity. Chapter 1 looks at how the BBC themselves branched out beyond the core TV series by using ‘transmedia’ such as official blogs and apps, which gave the impression that the characters had an existence beyond the show. Chapter 2 focuses on the way that fans have role-played as the characters on various social media platforms and the challenges that this can present. Chapter 3 has the rather wonderful title ‘Queering Sherlock’s World: Slash, Fanfiction, and (Non)Compliance in World Building’ and addresses one of the main components of Sherlock fanfiction, namely the conviction that the BBC’s Sherlock and John are actually (or should be) in a romantic relationship.

Chapter 4 takes us into more unusual territory by looking at gender-swap fiction, in which either Sherlock or John are written as female or trans characters. Chapter 5 offers even more unlikely scenarios, in which the characters are translated to alternate universes – here we meet Sherlocks who are elite tennis players, baseball players, leading Hollywood actors (maybe not so great a push on that one) or women in Second World War London. Yet, as in all other kinds of fanfic, the key rule is that characters must remain ‘canon’: to write their protagonists behaving OOC (out of character) is the greatest crime a fan author can commit. And finally Chapter 6 deals with one of the most fraught and controversial kinds of fanfiction (even among fans themselves): RPF or ‘real person fic’, in which fans write fiction not about Sherlock and John, but about Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. As you can see, it’s a hefty series of discussions.

I found much to enjoy here: I only scratched the surface of fanfiction in my own limited experience back at school, and I was amazed at some of the more esoteric forms it takes. I don’t really understand the point of the alternate universe settings, and I feel very uncomfortable about the whole question of RPF. Unlike McClellan, I absolutely don’t agree that historical fiction or biopic is essentially RPF. I think there’s a massive difference between a story about someone who’s dead (like Shakespeare’s Richard III, which she claims as early RPF) and a modern celebrity who has the right to some kind of privacy, surely. But like McClellan, I don’t buy one fan’s distinction between ‘bad’ self-insert RPF fanfiction (e.g. where the fan writes a story about her passionate romance with Benedict Cumberbatch) and ‘good’ ordinary RPF fanfiction.

Let’s explore that question a bit further. The fan argues that self-insert fic is ‘no longer completely fiction’ because the fan’s self has intruded on the world of the story. However, she claims that ordinary RPF fanfiction is completely fictional (like the one where Cumberbatch is in a relationship with Tom Hiddleston – yep, I saw that coming). But what’s the difference? Cumberbatch and Hiddleston are as real as you, me or Fan X. I don’t see the distinction. Then there’s another problem: Sherlock fanart is so heavily based on the actors themselves that it might as well be RPF. I was interested to read an extract from an interview with Amanda Abbington (who plays Mary Watson and is Martin Freeman’s former partner), in which she expresses concern about her children Googling Freeman (their dad) only to find explicit art of him entwined with Benedict Cumberbatch. Apparently Abbington was subjected to a torrent of abuse from fans for her comment – but it’s a fair question. Where is the line drawn? McClellan doesn’t actually deal that much with fanart, but it feels like a hugely problematic area.

So yes, there are a lot of interesting little nuggets, but there are also issues. The book is too long. With the best will in the world, Sherlock fanfiction can’t sustain a book of this length and there is consequently a lot of repetition. For example, we’re told several times about the fact that Sherlock Holmes’s famous meerschaum and deerstalker weren’t original to the Conan Doyle stories and that they were added by illustrators or actors further down the line. Each time this fact is presented as if new. And we’re told twice in as many paragraphs about the BBC’s Sherlock edition of Cluedo. There’s also too much explanation about things that really don’t need explaining, like the paragraph deconstructing what the tagline ‘Immerse yourself in the world of Sherlock Holmes’ might lead a fan to expect (predictably, immersion in the world of Sherlock). If this book is supposed to be for an academic audience, as the digressions into various sociological and philosophical theories suggest, then the reader has to be given credit for a certain amount of intuitive ability.

On the other hand, I should stress that despite being academic, there’s lots of quite fun writing here, such as McClellan’s careful deconstruction of several key Sherlock fanfics (I was especially amused by Method Act, a fanfic in which Benedict Cumberbatch and Sherlock somehow manage to swap realities and find themselves trying to blend into the other’s life). She’s consistently sensitive and thoughtful about fanfiction and this isn’t the place to come if you want a more Moranesque point-and-laugh attitude to fan culture. If you’re interested in the sociology of fandom, or if you simply want to find out a bit more about how fans seize on their favourite show, then this is well worth a read. But it could have been considerably shorter, tighter and pithier.

I shall leave you with my overriding thought on finishing this book. Pity Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, God bless them both, who have to deal with their real and imagined selves being put in all manner of situations. It’s highly significant that neither of them are active on social media.

This review is published at:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/08/08/sherlocks-world-ann-k-mcclellan/

I'm a fan of BBC Sherlock and found this book fascinating.
It's a well researched and well written look at the fandom and how it's evelution are changing the canon and creating new possibilities of evolution for the characters.
Fascinating and very interesting.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to University of Iowa Press and Netgalley for this ARC