Turtledove
Register
Advertisement
"The Scarlet Band"  
2006 05 Analog
Author Harry Turtledove
First Appearance Analog
Series Atlantis
Genre(s) Alternate history, detective story, pastiche
Publication date May, 2006
Preceded by "Audubon in Atlantis" (publication);
Liberating Atlantis (chronologically)
Followed by Opening Atlantis (publication date)

"The Scarlet Band" is a novella of Atlantis and a pastiche of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It was originally published in the May 2006 issue of Analog and reprinted in Atlantis and Other Places in 2010. Although the second Atlantis story ever published, it is chronologically set last in the series.

As Holmes and Watson were not yet in the public domain at time of publication, Harry Turtledove obfuscates their identities. He also makes the Watson analog a passively racist xenophobe, whereas the original character was quite enlightened and tolerant in that regard. The title is a reference to two of Doyle's Holmes stories: "A Study in Scarlet" and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band."

The English detective Athelstan Helms, and his associate and biographer Doctor James Walton, travel to Atlantis in the 1880s to help authorities investigate a series of murders. The victims were all critics of the House of Universal Devotion, a homegrown religion. Naturally, the authorities (and Walton) are convinced the House is responsible, but Helms isn't so certain.

Advertisement