Post by Salzmank on Dec 21, 2019 3:41:44 GMT
Sorry, another one:
I’m rather fond of a collection called The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2009), mostly because it has an interesting and unpredictable mix of Holmes pastiches, in that one story is a straightforward pastiche, say, while the next one has ghosts and demons and Cthulhu, and the next one is left ambiguous, etc. Good medley.
That said, like all collections it’s a mixed bag, quality-wise, and of the 28 stories only six (Stephen King’s “The Doctor’s Case,” Barbara Roden’s “The Things That Shall Come Upon Them,” Sharyn McCrumb’s “The Vale of the White Horse,” Tanith Lee’s “The Human Mystery,” and Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald”) are genuinely excellent, though several others are good. (Several of the bad ones even have good ideas at their centers but squander them. The biggest malefactor is Bradley H. Sinor’s “The Adventure of the Other Detective,” which has Watson sent over to another world where Mary Morstan is still alive, but where Professor Moriarty is the detective and Sherlock Holmes the criminal—yet does nothing with this great concept.)
Anyway, one of the excellent ones is “The Human Mystery,” and that’s a Christmas-set tale, with a grand, Hound of the Baskervilles-esque Yuletide legend to boot. Recommended.
I’m rather fond of a collection called The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2009), mostly because it has an interesting and unpredictable mix of Holmes pastiches, in that one story is a straightforward pastiche, say, while the next one has ghosts and demons and Cthulhu, and the next one is left ambiguous, etc. Good medley.
That said, like all collections it’s a mixed bag, quality-wise, and of the 28 stories only six (Stephen King’s “The Doctor’s Case,” Barbara Roden’s “The Things That Shall Come Upon Them,” Sharyn McCrumb’s “The Vale of the White Horse,” Tanith Lee’s “The Human Mystery,” and Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald”) are genuinely excellent, though several others are good. (Several of the bad ones even have good ideas at their centers but squander them. The biggest malefactor is Bradley H. Sinor’s “The Adventure of the Other Detective,” which has Watson sent over to another world where Mary Morstan is still alive, but where Professor Moriarty is the detective and Sherlock Holmes the criminal—yet does nothing with this great concept.)
Anyway, one of the excellent ones is “The Human Mystery,” and that’s a Christmas-set tale, with a grand, Hound of the Baskervilles-esque Yuletide legend to boot. Recommended.