Customer Reviews

The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There have been innumerable Sherlock Holmes theme compendiums out there, and most of them have been "one trick ponies" with 2 or 3 good stories in them combined with many lame and / or inept pieces padding things out. The talened anthologist Mr. Adams has cherry picked what would generally be considered the finest pieces from various themed anthologies and presented a uniformly excellent mix herein.

Three caveats: first, not all stories necessarily feature SF, fantasy, or horror elements. Some stories start out with seemingly paranormal events that are eventually explained (a la "straight up" Conan Doyle... or Scooby Doo!)and some are "merely" conventional mysteries. All are credibly written, and the variety makes things reasonably interesting. Anthologies of entirely supernatural Holmesian themes can quickly grate on the reader (e.g. "Shadows Over Baker Street") and the Adams approach is a better solution.

Second, though there is a brief "intro to Holmes" article kicking things off, if you are unfamiliar and / or hostile to Holmes and his typical literary appearances, this book will do little to enlighten you or change your mind. Adams suggests one can use this volume as an intro to Holmes, but realistically this would be a stretch. If you've never read Conan Doyle at all, start there first and then come here.

Third, as with the original stories, you can't read these in big sequential chunks. Read one or two then come back a few days later and read some more. If you read them all back to back, you will find characters and details blurring into one big mess. Follow a course of moderation and you will enjoy this anthology more. Assuming you are not taking this book to a brief desert island stay, this should not be a problem for most.

As with any anthology, you may personally loathe some stories (Valentine for me), feel others are too long (IMO the Baxter piece here) and may feel others are just right (for me Hambly, Gaiman, King). All in all, lots of great pieces here, few bombs, and admirable editorial discretion shown by Mr. Adams.

If you like Holmes and would like to see him explore some new ground, I think you will enjoy this book very much. Novices to the Baker Street world and Holmes-ophobes need not apply.

Inevitably every fan of Sherlock Holmes will reach the final story and sadly realize that there will be no more trips to 221B Baker Street from Arthur Conan Doyle's pen. The tantalizing hints dropped by Watson of other adventures seem to be destined to be forever untold. Happily others have taken up the task of chronicling these and other adventures of Holmes and/or Watson. Some have produced tales worthy of being included in the 'Canon' of Doyle's stories and others....well others make the reader appreciate Doyle's work even more. These works have appeared in various forms, full length novels, screen and stage plays and short stories - many, many short stories which have appeared in various publications. There are quite a few collections of these stories, often selected in a particular theme.

This particular anthology features stories that share a fantasy or science fiction slant, in some the stories are set in an alternative universe, in others the stories fit in with the original canon almost seamlessly. Many of these stories are meant to be taken seriously, others are strictly for fun. The quality of these selections also varies, many are page turners equal to Doyle's own stories, others are surprisingly amateurish, and a few a just boring.

This is a worthwhile read for fans, although it is not a place to begin reading the Holmes' stories. The gems found in this collection are wonderful additions to the canon, well worth wading through the lesser selections. Dedicated fans may have run across some of these stories before, most have been published elsewhere.

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, *however improbable,* must be the truth," declared Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four. No doubt Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his heyday, thought it improbable that 120 years after the appearance of the first Holmes story, people would still be writing adventures of the Great Detective, whether novel-length or less, but the fact--the truth, as Holmes would have said--is that Holmes is probably the most written-about and pastiched character or author in literature short of Shakespeare. (I count over 100 examples on just one list.) Despite its title, most of the adventures in this collection aren't all that improbable, and although quite a few were written by authors well-known in the fields of sf, fantasy, and horror (among them Stephen King, Tanith Lee, Vonda N. McIntyre, Michael Moorcock, and Neil Gaiman), most don't have any real elements of any of those genres: as is usually the case in such Holmesian gospel as The Hound of the Baskervilles: 150th Anniversary Edition (Signet Classics), what seems to the uninitiated to be a question of occult influence generally turns out to have a perfectly rational explanation (as Holmes says in one of the stories, "I have never yet met with a case which is not capable of a rational solution, however irrational it may appear at the outset," and for the most part these pieces continue that pattern). Some do cross Holmes with H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos Universe, and indeed in one of these the Great Old Ones prove to be, for the most part, benevolent; at least two take place in alternate universes; in two of them Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, is still alive 20 or 30 years after the date of his death in our reality, and in two Prof. Moriarty is a "consulting detective" and Holmes his respected adversary; in one a young Arthur Doyle dies suspiciously; another, though otherwise prosaic enough, ends with a note suggestive of near immortality; and yet another posits a science-fictional explanation of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders of 1888. The dates range from the late '70's till after Holmes's retirement to Sussex, and the locales, though mostly in London, include Ireland, Louisiana, and Montreal. And as in many of his pastiches, Holmes interacts with or refers to a number of historic personages, including humorist Stephen Leacock, poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, King Umberto of Italy, Oscar Wilde (who, notably, also appears in Nicholas Meyer's The West End Horror: A Posthumous Memoir of John H. Watson, M.D.), an unnamed but sufficiently described George Bernard Shaw (ditto), and C. L. Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), and fictional ones created by other authors, including Flaxman Low ("the first true psychic detective"), Max Carrados, Martin Hewitt, Paul Beck, Eugene Valmont, and Carnacki the Ghost-Finder. (There's also mention of a "crazy American, something-or-other Jones, who carried a bullwhip and fancied himself an archaeologist," though his appearance occurs at a time when Harrison Ford's Indy was, at best, a very young boy.) Watson's "voice" and the atmosphere of late-Victorian London are well captured throughout. Of these 28 stories, I marked 14 as being enjoyable enough to reread, which is a pretty good figure. (Of course, with anthologies, as I've said before, your mileage may vary.) On the whole, though not as "improbable" as the title suggests (it's rightly filed in Mysteries in your bookstore), it's a satisfying addition to the authorized continuation of The Canon, which shows little sign of not enlarging continuously.

This fascinating collection of pastiches represent both extremes of apocryphal Sherlockiana: some of them place Holmes in pretty outre situations that are bound to be considered as plain improbable (and hence not to be considered even with a few sacks of salt for anything apart from 'fun'), and some are so realistically (that is in the style of Sir ACD, and not of some pompous pretender) created that they could have walked into the canon. Unfortunately, there are also quite a few stories (as are bound to slip in such a hefty tome) that are neither realistic nor 'fun'. But let me recount the stories one-by-one: -

(*) Introduction by J.J.Adams: a frank confession regarding his editorial ambition, as well as clarification that this book consists of almost entirely reprints.

(*) A Sherlockiana Primer: a very good introduction to the Gaslit world of Holmes & Watson for the novice and the naive.

1) "THE DOCTOR'S CASE" by Stephen King: a stunning story, which could have been very much probable.
2) "The Horror of the Many Faces" by Tim Lebbon: a sharp decline after the high of the first story, this one is improbable (with all its Lovecraftian under/over-tones) as well as rather unwarrantably long.
3) "The Case of the Bloodless Sock" by Anne Perry: a very good story, and nothing 'improbable' as such in the story or the characters.
4) "THE ADVENTURE OF THE OTHER DETECTIVE" by Bradley H. Sinor: improbability strikes with a vengeance as Dr. Watson (and the reader) visits an alternate reality where Professor Moriarty occupies 221B Baker Street, accompanied by Sergeant Murray, and the inevitable happens, er..., inevitably.
5) "A Scandal in Montreal" by Edward D. Hoch: unfortunately, this is one of the poorer stories, taking Holmes to Canada, involving Irene Adler (the lady must have taken serious offense at such a poor portrayal as happens in this story), despite originating from the pen of one of the most prolific & consistent mystery-writers.
6) "THE ADVENTURE OF FIELD THEOREMS" by Vonda N. McIntyre: a superb fun' ride, and after the stories in No. 1 & 4, this one lightens up the reading substantially.
7) "The Adventure of the Death-Fetch" by Darrell Schweitzer: an enjoyable story, totally improbable, but not bad.
8) "The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland" by Mary Robinette Kowal: neither that shocking, nor that enjoyable, merely readable.
9) "The Adventure of the Mummy's Curse" by H.Paul Jeffers: improbable because it claims Watson to be a Master Mason, a mediocre story that involved a mystery which could have been easily solved by Inspector Lestrade had the case been brought to him.
10) "THE THINGS THAT SHALL COME UPON THEM" by Barbara Roden: a brilliant and dazzlingly competent story that brings together the pioneer Consulting & Occult detectives (Sherlock Holmes & Flaxman Low, respectively) to solve a mystery that had begun with one of the greatest horror stories in literature ("Casting The Runes") written by the greatest ghost-story writer (M.R.James) and solves the story without disrespecting anybody, and yet with just enough ambivalence at the end to challenge the reader to draw the conclusion.
11) "Murder to Music" by Anthony Burges: another sensationalist drama involving Watson treating obscure East Asian diseases in London (according to "The Dying Detective" he literally knew nothing about them), attempted assassination of the Spanish Monarch inside a train in London by using bombs that would explode at certain musical pitch, and Holmes learning about Spanish-inter-feuds during his stay at Marrakesh(???)and later publicly insulting Watson, four improbable things in a pretty mediocre story, which in itself is a feat!
12) "The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor" by Stephen Baxter: a 'fun' story, completely improbable, but enjoyable in an off-hand manner.
13) "MRS. HUDSON'S CASE" by Laurie R. King: a jewel-like story where the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson steals the thunder in her own style.
14) "THE SINGULAR HABITS OF WASPS" by Geoffrey A. Landis: science-fiction, mystery, horror, Holmes and Jack The Ripper, and all in less than 20 pages! You really can't have any more 'fun'.
15) "The Affair of the 46th Birthday" by Amy Myers: another mediocre story involving attempted assassination, Medici Ring, Russia and Italy (at least it spared France or Germany, or were they 'covered' in story no. 11, not sure, really).
16) "The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey" by Peter Tremayne: an average story, definitely improbable (Holmes falling in love with a villainous girl, who, after killing her father [THE James Philimore, who, after returning to his home to collect his umbrella, was never seen again], marries Professor Moriarty, and allows all the property to pass on to the Professor), definitely NOT re-readable.
17) "THE VALE OF THE WHITE HORSE" by Sharyn McCrumb: a superlative and gothic story involving family-curses and murder most heinous.
18) "The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger" by Michael Moorcock: good, readable, but the end could have been predicted by any Sherlockian long-long ago.
19) "The Adventure of the Lost World" by Dominic Green: a 'fun' story, with adequate mixture of humour and gore, throwing couple of Allosaurus in-between!
20) "The Adventure of the Antiquarian's Niece" by Barbara Hambly: this story is a classic example of British cuisine, where several good ingredients (Holmes & Carnaki) mixed with a lot of labour (almost 20 pages) and good intent (to spice up Lovecraftian horror with several shades of 'The Great Beast' incorporated for effect, nothing less), end up in a pathetically tasteless food, simply because the author didn't know when to stop and where to allow the readers to draw their own conclusion, unlike the one written by Barbara Roden, which is a study in restraint.
21) "Dynamics of a Hanging" by Tony Pi: this is a vile story which is completely improbable, and devoid of any redeeming feature, despite involving Dr. Watson, Professor Moriarty, Arthur Conan Doyle who has been murdered by Moriarty to ensure the secrecy of Moriarty's cipher, and Lewis Carroll, who gets Moriarty evicted from University without any proof and simply by spreading vile rumours. See now why I am so eager to bring a blunt instrument in immediate contact with Mr. Pi on a priority basis?
22) "Merridew of Abominable Memory" by Chris Roberson: improbable, and not-so-much fun.
23) "Commonplaces" by Naomi Novik: hmmm..... Holmes loves Watson (never expressed, but expected to be reciprocated nevertheless, leading to their "estrangement" during the hiatus since the good Doctor had got married), Irene Norton locates Holmes with a minimum of search, Holmes makes love with Irene, and Irene rediscovers herself. Really, how damnably improbable can a pastiche be? Greater men (& women) have already commented that stupidity has no limits, etc. etc.
24) "The Adventure of the Pirates of Devil's Cape" by Rob Rogers: a solid, enjoyable, and improbable story. Big relief after that ****** **** from Ms. Novik.
25) "The Adventure of the Green Skull" by Mark Valentine: a readable, poignant story without much of mystery or improbability.
26) "The Human Mystery" by Tanith Lee: yes, a masterly touch in this story, although I doubt even a misogynist like Holmes could have understood things after such a long time, perhaps that's what makes this story improbable.
27) "A STUDY IN EMERALD" by Neil Gaiman: a classic, and if you are yet to encounter this take on alternate universe, then I would recommend you to purchase the book and plunge head-first in this story.
28) "You See But You Do Not Observe" by Robert J. Sawyer: a very good story with a very strong dosage of science-fiction, if not science, and with a certain pathos.

Overall, out of 28 stories there are 8 superlative stories (a staggering percentage, let me state), 11 enjoyable stories, 3 moderately good stories, 4 clunkers, and 2 worthy of consigning their creators to some particular literary hell). To sum up, quite good. Recommended.

This anthology had lots of fascinating stories in it, combining Holmes genius with brilliantly weird stories. Were it not for the Holmes-Adler one-night-stand at the end which kind of wrecked it, this would've been 5 stars.

I just finished the book, all stories read and non skipped, and really enjoyed this.

That is not to say that I loved every story - some were definitely better, or more appealing, to me than others. But so much of that depends on personal taste - find out for yourself. For a Holmes fan this is a collection worth sampling.

John Joseph Adams edits stories by various writers in THE IMPROBABLE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, packing in nearly thirty tales of mystery with Holmes as the key. Simon Vance and Anne Flosnik provide fine dual narrations here.

I liked these stories. For the most part, they were true to the Holmes spirit. And speaking of spirits, some of the stories had a supernatural slant, and some had a rational explanation. This is far more satisfactory to me than the selection of stories in some other collections, notably Gaslight Grotesque and Gaslight Grimoire, which were all stories that dipped into the woo. I like a good ghost story as well as anybody, but I more so like to be kept guessing. This anthology did that.

After completing, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, it dawned on me how much of a fan I am of the consulting detective. Though I do not claim to be a Sherlockian, I have read every one of Conan Doyle's Holmes' adventures and many, many of the subsequent works by various authors that have Holmes and Watson confronted by fascinating cases. This collection is eclectic to say the least. Some are pure mysteries that channel the style of Conan Doyle while others explore other worlds and the supernatural, testing the boundaries of reality. Each story has a short introduction including the author's bona fides and a vague description of the coming story which never gave anything away.

This book is not to be rushed. I took breaks and read other works making the effort fresher overall. This is because many of the stories resemble each other using the same characters, devices, and settings. Do not interpret this as a criticism, each plot is unique but the collection needs to be absorbed somewhat sparingly or the tales will collapse together.

There is plenty of Sherlockian trivia throughout which will satisfy those well acquainted with Conan Doyle but even newcomers will find entertainment given the range of stories included. Not to mention the quality of authors contributing including Stephen King who opens the book with a fun romp where Watson solves the case. Two great quotes from Holmes in this one are "Character indexes behavior" and "One becomes inured even to insight".

Among the other-worldly stories was Tim Lebbon's The Horror of the Many Faces and The Adventure of the Other Detective by Bradley H. Sinor, a delightful yarn of a parallel world where Holmes is not of the same character. While The Singular Habit of Wasps tackles Jack the Ripper in a very original fashion (there are a few Ripper stories in this collection).

Anne Perry's The Case of the Bloodless Sock brings in Moriarity to present a more classic Sherlockian tale. A Scandal in Montreal by Edward D. Hoch was fun for me as it involved Holmes and Watson's first trip to my country. The story was one of the weaker ones but I love the travelogue from Montreal's McGill University to the Muskokas in Ontario with Stephen Leacock in tow. The Adventure of the Field Theorems by Vonda M. McIntyre imagines a world where Holmes and Conan Doyle solve a case together and the latter does not come off well. A young Holmes is explored in The Spector of Tullyfane Abbey, which covers an early love of his life who ends up marrying another with dire consequences.

And these are just a few from a collection that has very few disappointments. So take a trip to 22b Baker Street, light your pipe, pour a brandy, and try to solve the cases before Holmes and Watson ultimately do.

This book does not mention its chief flaw--too many of the stories have already been published elsewhere. I have read almost all of them in other anthologies, such as "Murder my Dear Watson.", and "The Mammoth Book of new Sherlock Holmes Stories." It also does not list all of the authors.I do not care to read any stories by authors who have previously suggested that Holmes and Watson shared, (or one of them WISHED to share)a sexual relationship. One such story appears in this anthology. Had I known that this book contained "twice-told" tales,and themes which do not fit Conan Doyle's ideas of his creations, I would not have bought it. Now, don't throw this review away just because of the Holmes/Watson theme--I also don't like books where Holmes is married or that are supposedly written by his sons or daughters! For me, the best reads stay true to Conan Doyle. That being said, I highly recommend both Stephen King's and Anne Perry's stories. I just suggest that you read them in other books.