In 1985, when I was seven, there came a movie that would be my obsession for many a year: Young Sherlock Holmes.

I adored everything about this movie. The special effects were, at the time, out of this world. The story was amazing. And I already loved Sherlock Holmes.

This will be a shocker to (none of) you, but I was raised on PBS. So I was already well familiar with Holmes, as played by Basil Rathbone, and I was becoming increasingly familiar with the Sherlock who will forever remain my quintessential Sherlock, Jeremy Brett. He first played Holmes in 1984, and, for me, he will always be the closest Holme’s to Conan Doyle’s ever created.

Watching Young Sherlock Holmes, then, offered a lot of insight into the depictions of Holmes I already knew: how he came by his method, why he wasn’t married, etc. But there was thing that bothered me. Granted, the young Sherlock Holmes was, indeed, young, but he also has so much energy in that film. He’s so alive, and physical, that I couldn’t see him growing up into the Holmes I “knew” from television.

And that’s where the newest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes comes into play. I went and saw it recently, and I adored it. It’s great fun, with amazing visuals, and RDJ and Jude Law have fantabulous chemistry together.

But what I really loved about that film is that this new Sherlock Holmes is the clear sequel to that movie I loved as a child, the Young Sherlock Holmes; Robert Downey Junior’s Holme’s is that little boy (whom I admit I had a bit of a crush on) all grown up.

That certainly wasn’t Guy Ritchie’s intention when he made the film, and he probably never even saw Young Sherlock Holmes. But that’s what the film felt like, to me. And that’s why, even without the bustles and the carriages and the like I would have loved it. That same energy and joy that infused the character of young Sherlock Holmes is in this Sherlock Holmes, and it made the film a pleasure to watch.

And in Other News . . .

Locus has weighed in on Tempest Rising, saying, “From small-town hijinks to otherworldly intrigue, this is a fun start to a new series, and a promising first novel.”

And finally, for those of you in the San Francisco Bay area, I will be attending this public event, at Borderlands Books,  hosted by io9.