March B. Street

March B. Street is a fictional detective appearing in two short stories, Slaves of Silver and The Rubber Bend, by American science fiction writer Gene Wolfe. He is an homage to Sherlock Holmes ("B. Street" being a reference to Baker Street, where Holmes resided), and the stories are written in the style of the original Holmes tales by Arthur Conan Doyle. Both stories appear in Wolfe's 1988 collection Storeys from the Old Hotel.

Character

March B. Street lives in the distant future as one of a minority of humans in a world now largely populated by sentient robots. He is a "declassified" human, meaning that he is no longer entitled to the financial protections that humans receive from the government. In many cases, such as that of his landlady (based on the Holmes character Mrs. Hudson), this is because they exceeded their determined "natural" lifespan, and instead of consenting to die chose to keep living. In Street's case, however, it is because he reproduced asexually, so that his child now receives his money.

Like Sherlock Holmes, Street is a consulting detective. The stories are narrated by Street's own version of Dr. Watson, Dr. Westing, a robot "bio-mechanic", meaning that he specialises in human healthcare. In The Rubber Bend an homage to another duo from classic detective fiction appears: Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin from the stories of Rex Stout, with Wolfe as a robot who, like his counterpart, enjoys cooking, even though he has no sense of taste. (Also like the original Wolfe he is very overweight, although in his case it's because he keeps adding new technology to his android physique.)

Style

The Street stories are hard science fiction, where the mysteries depend on complicated theoretical concepts. Slaves of Silver introduces technology that can add space to places on Earth by transporting that space from somewhere else in the galaxy, functioning as a kind of wormhole. Street's apartment, for instance, is much larger on the inside than it appears on the outside because he uses such technology. The Rubber Bend is AbOUT a form of time travel where one can bend their perception to view different periods of time.