The Amazing Dr. Darwin

The name “Darwin” is likely one to ring a lot of bells for a lot of people, mostly because the most famous bearer of the name, Charles Darwin put forward the theory of evolution. His fame, however, casts a very long, very large shadow over the rest of his family, who may have had been remarkably notable in their own right, except now no one knows about them because of Charles Darwin's fame.

One such notable Darwin is Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather. He was a highly notable physician, regarded as the best in his day - a reputation that led to him being invited to be Royal Physician in George III's time. Erasmus turned down this post. He is also noted as being the founder and key member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group which counted such notables as Joseph Priestley, James Watt, and William Murdock amongst its members - men whose discoveries and inventions would help launch the Industrial Revolution. It is also speculated that Erasmus's musings on natural philosophy would eventually - along with the writings of other scientists - influence the development of his grandson's own landmark theory.

Charles Sheffield's book, titled The Amazing Dr. Darwin, is actually a collection of stories, dealing with the adventures of Erasmus Darwin and his friend, Colonel Jacob Pole (likely a stand-in for the real Erasmus Darwin's own friend, Colonel Edward Pole) as they solve unusual cases the length and breadth of England. In the first story, titled “The Devil of Malkirk,” Darwin and Pole (who meet here for the first time) head to Scotland to solve a medical mystery (Darwin) and to find treasure (Pole), though the two are actually linked in more ways than one. The second story, “The Heart of Ahura Mazda,” finds Darwin and Pole in London, looking into the curse supposedly laid upon a fist-sized ruby to protect it from thieves. “The Phantom of Dunwell Cove” has Darwin and Pole looking into the strange disappearance of jewelry from a group of wedding guests. In “The Lambeth Immortal” Darwin and Pole attempt to make sense of the existence of a murderous creature that supposedly inhabits the bottom of an ancient flint mine. “The Solborne Vampire” is, as the title implies, about a vampire - whose existence Darwin (and Pole, naturally) seeks to disprove, or at least make sense of. The final story, “The Treasure of Odirex,” starts out with Darwin being called to prove or disprove the mental condition of a man's wife, but it soon leads to something else entirely.

On the surface, with such simple summaries, the stories seem to be quite entertaining, and admittedly, they are. Each one has a touch of the supernatural to it, one which Darwin quickly dispels with his medical and scientific knowledge. Pole, in the meantime, provides a kind of support to Darwin; he might not necessarily be Darwin's equal in the mental realm, but he more than holds his own when there is any action that needs to be undertaken. This is not, of course, to be mistaken as any reluctance on Darwin's part to do anything beyond sit and think; merely a reflection of the fact that, due to his weight (a somewhat legendary thing, in his time), Darwin simply was not as capable as Pole in executing more physically taxing actions.

Despite their differences, Darwin and Pole are rather well-matched, despite Pole's credulity in all things supernatural, and Darwin's distinct incredulity (which he extends to religion). They are also rather entertaining in their quirks: Darwin with his prodigious appetite (well-documented by contemporary accounts), and Pole with his obsession for treasure (he claims to have chased it all over the world, whenever he could).

Unfortunately, for all the possible advantages that the above attributes present, they are not nearly enough to make these stories stand out, especially when one puts them alongside the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - stories whose pattern Sheffield seems to have adopted or adapted for his own use in these tales. Though the characters themselves seem fascinating, after the first three stories the reader almost gets bored with them, mostly because they seem rather static: the reader already knows what Darwin will do in a given situation, because it's exactly what Darwin did in the last story. While there is certainly some pleasure to be derived in such predictability (after all, Sherlock Holmes is quite predictable in terms of how he will approach a case, at least in the general sense), there is no such pleasure in Darwin's brand of predictability. Also, while Darwin might have been quite interesting on his own, Colonel Pole is really not that interesting in the least. He is not nearly so entertaining as Watson - though I suppose one can get to like Watson because he is the primary narrator for the Holmes stories (for the most part, at any rate), and a reader must at least like the narrator if they are to make any kind of headway. His mania for treasure, especially, might grate on readers after a while, not least because of how predictable it makes him.

Another major flaw is the stories themselves. The potential for world-building is incredibly high, and yet the reader receives very little of it, with a significant amount of interesting information being condensed into a series of end-notes. It's possible to blame the fact that these are short stories, and so there is a very limited space for world-building of the detail I might like, but it might also be to blame for a host of other problems, including the fact that these stories simply never get as good as they could be. Each of the short stories, on their own, would make a pretty rip-roaring good novel - all the elements for one were right there, but they are never used to their full potential. The mysteries could have been made richer, deeper, and more involved than the simple puzzles they turned out to be. The chief joy in reading mysteries, after all, is to get caught up in a proper set of unusual events, and solve them alongside the protagonists, and to get sense of quiet satisfaction when, at the end, all is revealed and our suspicions are proven right - or wrong, as the case may be.

There is no such satisfaction in these stories. The short story form, while noteworthy and enjoyable when applied to the right kind of tale (some of the most notable Sherlock Holmes stories are short stories), simply does not work for the kinds of mysteries that are in The Amazing Dr. Darwin. They are too big for the short story form, presenting potential that is quite literally stifled and buried by the limits of the form they were written in. Character development, too, is constrained by the limits of the form, and so characters who might have been interesting to the reader given time are done a great disservice because there is no chance for them to truly grow.

The Amazing Dr. Darwin is a rather sad case: a case of six - six! - potentially intriguing novels, nipped in the bud because they were written in the wrong kind of form. As it stands, this book might be a worthwhile introduction to a young-adult reader seeking to get into the more “mature” (and by this I mean more intellectually challenging) side of the mystery genre, or for someone who is looking for something light and not too involved. But for someone looking for a serious read, for a book they can settle into for a while, then this is certainly not the book to read.