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49 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Big Disappointment...., October 27, 2011
When this book was announced several months ago, the concept sounded great: Find noted authors, such as Lee Childs, and get them to write Sherlock Holmes stories. Can you imagine what the creator of Reacher could have done with Holmes and Watson? It might have been one of the best Holmes pastiches ever. What finally showed up was a big let-down. I had hoped that this would be like some of the better Holmes anthologies of the past decade or so, including "Holmes for the Holidays," "More Holmes for the Holidays," "Murder My Dear Watson," "Murder in Baker Street," and others. Each of these had pastiches by noted mystery authors, such as Anne Perry, writing traditional Holmes and Watson stories in the correct period. This book, however, allowed most of the authors to write whatever they felt like, simply using Holmes as a jumping-off place. Only about one-third of the stories are anything like a traditional Holmes adventure. The Lee Childs story was particularly disappointing. I was really looking forward to seeing his take on our heroes. Instead, he wrote a story set in modern London. And don't be fooled - the Lee Child story is only seven pages. Just long enough to get his name on the cover and sell the book to some of his fans. Another author, who apparently couldn't come up with an idea, drew an amateur comic book that runs on for far too many pages, and has nothing to do with the traditional Holmes and Watson. Finally, the book ends with a Twitter interview between editor Les Klinger and Laurie R. King, the other editor, who is writing as her bread-and-butter character, Mary Russell. Russell is supposedly Holmes's wife in King's novels, and is now at least one-hundred-and-twelve years old, according to King's internal chronology. Pretty amazing for an extremely advanced senior to understand Twitter. The less said about this story the better. I will be looking forward to the next true Holmes and Watson collection, whenever it appears. If you liked the recent British television show "Sherlock," which features characters based on Holmes and Watson BUT ARE NOT HOLMES AND WATSON, then you might like this book. (I believe that Mr. Klinger was an advisor for that show, so he probably encourages this type of non-traditional Holmes.) If you want the real thing, only parts of this book will please you.
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27 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
This Is One For The Rubbish Bin, November 4, 2011
This review is from: A Study in Sherlock: Stories inspired by the Holmes canon (Paperback)
I was so excited, as only a geeky Sherlockian can be, when I heard almost a year ago that Laurie King and Les Klinger had a new compilation in the works. All right, I will admit to some nervousness about Mrs King being involved with the project, because her take on Holmes is too far removed from the consulting detective of Canon for my tastes. That aside, I was convinced this had at least the potential to be one of the better short story volumes and never expected 'A Study In Sherlock' to even remotely be a publication intended to cash in on Holmes' recent surge in popularity. Everything I'd heard about this right before its release hailed this book as being fresh and innovative. After having read through it, I wonder if that wasn't a polite way of saying it had almost nothing at all to do with Sherlock Holmes - oh, don't get me wrong! I have NOTHING whatsoever against taking some creative liberties with the characters, and neither did Doyle, for that matter. But overall, this so utterly lacked the flavour of Canon, so consistently strayed from the original stories (or even any of the well done adaptations out there), I had a difficult time reconciling the vast majority of these as pastiches. A pastiche is a story that attempts, at least in part, to re-create some of what we all love about the Holmes Canon. This didn't even try. For example, while the story in the form of a graphic novel set in the present day was an imaginative idea, I failed to take anything from it, and have seen better done graphic fanworks - which actually included the detective and managed to be more intelligent and engaging. I'm not so stodgy - at least, I don't think I am - that I cannot appreciate deviations, but a comic strip involving a pack of dogs featuring an appearance by Larry King did not strike me as being innovatively witty. Just stupid. Or the modern day story of a female detective named 'Sheila-Locke', which had all the hallmarks of a badly written genderswap fan fic, complete with a fifth grade Mary-Sue. Yup. This one was actually about a 10 year old modern girl named Sheila-Lock who apparently solves mysteries (which could have been better crafted by said 10yr old fan fic writer) though not even Holmes' deductive process came into play. I truly wish this review was an exaggeration. I WANTED to enjoy this, to have some fresh Holmes mysteries to get caught up in, though of all the poorly done pastiches I've read, this is probably the worst. My advice would be to save your money for better, more intelligent and faithful delvings into 221B. This one is for the rubbish bin. I refuse to even sell it and inflict this nonsense on anyone else.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A Study in Shamlock, October 30, 2011
This review is from: A Study in Sherlock: Stories inspired by the Holmes canon (Paperback)
I have to agree with at least one other reviewer of this long-awaited (at least by me) collection: A complete and total let-down and a waste of money. I am about as familiar with Doyle's canon as anyone (including all the Edgar winners and Baker Street Irregulars quoted) and I can tell you what the great author would have thought about these feeble attempts to follow up on his work: RUBBISH!! Holmes and Watson are whisked away to upstate New York to help fake the President's assassination. That's it, folks. Nothing to deduce, no great turn of events (think Second Stain or Silver Blaze). Lee Child falls spectacularly on his face - the game is not afoot, the game is over, (as he would have Jack Reacher say), before the middle of his anemic contribution. You know, I really think that it would be helpful if there were some LAWS about writing any type of pastiche about SH: we have ALL read how Holmes made deductions about where Watson had been and what he had been doing at their first meeting. Don't say the same thing over and over again in almost the same language and then try to pass it off as your own cleverness. We ALL know that to him Irene Adler was always THE woman. And enough with the "that shade of mud is only found on the feet of the three-toed sloth, and I only know two in all of England". For gosh sake, do something original within the structure of the adventure. There are, indeed, many worthy pastiches/adaptations that are out there by the famous (Stephen King's "The Doctor's Case") and not so famous. As for this compendium of "adventures", save your money, folks. It just doesn't get any worse than this.
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