The List of Seven

Mark Frost is best known as the writer on Twin Peaks, and he brings a similarly twisted vision to this wonderful novel set in a slightly skewed Victorian England.

The protagonist is Arthur Conan Doyle, still a doctor, and with no inkling of his creation of the worlds greatest detective.

That's before he gets involved with a secret service agent with amazing deductive skills, a penchant for morphine, and a twisted, brilliant older brother.

This may sound like a Holmes pastiche, but Frost's imagination takes it way beyond that. We get a flight through the British Museum vaults, chased by the undead. We get a visit to Whitby abbey in the dead of night alongside an Irish writer named Bram Stoker who gets the idea of his life on the trip, and show more we get a glimpse of what might have happened if Victorian ingenuity had taken a slightly different turn into Zombie armies and vast, impersonal factories.

All that, and more literary references than you can shake a stick at, alongside pathos, friendship, betrayal and loss.

Frost is a fine, intelligent writer, with a unique vision, and this is his best work. show less

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

I recently had occasion to think again about the exquisitely strange 1990s television show Twin Peaks, co-created by David Lynch and Mark Frost; and that got me thinking again about Frost's two genre novels from that time period as well, 1993's The List of 7 and '95's The 6 Messiahs, the first of which I read way back when it originally came out, which inspired me this month to check them out from the library here in Chicago. Essentially steampunk tales from the dawn of that term's creation, they tell related stories based on the idea of the real show more Arthur Conan Doyle going on a series of occultish adventures in the late 1800s, accompanied by a secret agent of the Queen named Jack Sparks who ends up providing many of the traits for Doyle's later Sherlock Holmes stories.

Almost twenty years later, I had mostly fond if not dim memories of the first book, one of the first steampunk tales I ever read; and indeed, re-reading it again this month, it was in fact as entertaining as my memory had it. But twenty years of genre development has made steampunk a much more sophisticated thing now than it was at its inception, and unfortunately these books now display the weaknesses that come with their age; read now in the wake of much better books that have come after, they seem a little clunkier than they did before, a bit more obvious in their machinations, and with a bad Hollywood tone much of the time, as if Frost were only writing them so that he could then sell the film rights, not surprising when it comes to an industry veteran like himself. Now combine this with the fact that the very concept gets kind of muddled by the second book -- the whole charm of the first one laying mostly in the idea of Doyle being a young, clueless, untested doctor, thrown into the middle of shadowy conspiracies he doesn't understand, an aspect missing in the sequel where he is now a field-tested veteran of the strange -- and it's easy to see why Frost eventually abandoned what could've been the start of a lucrative franchise, and has only penned sports-themed novels in the years since. Interesting for a lark, and for those curious about steampunk's origins, but not something you should go out of your way to read.

Out of 10: 7.9 show less

Truly action-packed, heart-felt adventure mystery filled with mythology, philosophy, the occult, magic, and evil. Arthur and Jack are educated, intelligent and capable 'good' guys. With much help from Larry and Barry Jack saves Arthur's life from the efforts of a wealthy and violent cabal planning on taking control of England and probably the world.

Frightening appearances of 'Stepford Wives' type characters chase Jack and Arthur through underground tunnels, museum storage areas, open fields from city to country. One of the best 'good against evil' books I've read in a while.

Super smart and scary read with a very chilling ending.

This was an interesting book but I wasn't fond of the writing style. I'm sure the author wanted to give it the feel of a Victorian novel or of the Sherlock Holmes stories, I did love the descriptions but the action scenes were bogged down by all the verbiage. The build to the big battle left me wanting.

The story is about Arthur Conan Doyle who in trying to publish his book The Dark Brotherhood, gets pulled into a world of mystery, intrigue, supernatural, and evil.

You see how the man he meets, Jack Sparks, will become the basis for Sherlock Holmes and Sparks' brother for Moriarity. Even going over the falls.

The book was good enough that I kept reading. The author clearly did his research. The cockney characters are great and add so much show more flavor to the story.

I think the book would make a great movie because the descriptions would be pared down and the action amped up. show less

I was suffering from severe Twin Peaks withdrawal so when I saw the credit linking author Mark Frost to that series I simply had to buy this book: it had a likely looking cover anyway, with an atmospheric picture of sinister Gothic figures in monkish habits, snow and a ruined abbey.

Featuring Arthur Conan Doyle and a secret agent called Jack Sparks, List of Seven is more than just a Sherlock Holmes pastiche or a mere horror thriller and, to use an entirely original turn of phrase, it kept me riveted from the first page.

A mysterious séance, a malign infestation, satanic forces, Madame Blavatsky, powerful evil, zombie-like undead characters, mad noblemen and exciting derry-do in the shadowy gloom of Victorian England, an enigmatic hero, show more and the need to save the civilized world from dark forces… It might be a mess of clichés but it is an incredibly exciting mess! show less

A fast-paced breathless thriller that borrows some bits from Sherlock Holmes, with Arthur Conan Doyle as the protagonist. I don't normally re-read my books, but this one will be an exception. I missed many references buried in its pages. The horror was tolerable for wimpy me!

Great book but then I was pretty sure it was going to be pretty damn good just from it's reputation and the cover blurb. The writing was even better than I thought it would be. I often stopped and said out loud, "WOW, that's great!" I like the horror and fantasy elements that took it out of the straight mystery/thriller genre (the more monsters the better as far as I'm concerned).

It was really too bad he had to throw a bunch of german in on the last page. It was distracting (unless you speak German) and took away from the "surprise" ending.