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Louisa Ellen Stein and Kristina Busse (eds), Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom: Essays on the BBC Series, McFarland, 2012. ISBN 978-0786468188
Along with the BBC's Doctor Who,1 Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss' reimagining of Sherlock Holmes2 is one of the most successful and critically acclaimed television series of the moment. While academics have been quick to publish on the ubiquitous Doctor,3 the emergence of scholarly studies of Sherlock (2010-present) has been a more recent development. The collection Sherlock and Transmedia Fandom, edited by Louisa Ellen Stein and Kristina Busse, offers a starting place by analysing Sherlock as a contemporary television series. The collection also offers an interesting model for collaborative scholarship via an approach that encouraged chapter contributors to read and comment on each others' work throughout the writing and editing processes.
Focusing on 'the BBC's recent televisual reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes in the series Sherlock, and on its reception, [...] with great awareness of the rich history of Sherlock Holmes as a figure and as an expansive transmedia text' (pp. 9-10), the chapters aim to 'paint a picture of Sherlock Holmes as an evolving transmedia figure, at the center of myriad cultural intersections and diverse representational and fan traditions' (p. 10). The book succeeds admirably in these aims, offering a broad yet coherent range of articles on Sherlock by writers from the United Kingdom, North America and Holland (with Nicole Lamerichs'...