The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

John Joseph Adams

Language: English

Publisher: Pgw

Published: Sep 1, 2009

Description:

Sherlock Holmes is back!

Sherlock Holmes, the world's first--and most famous--consulting detective, came to the world's attention more than 120 years ago through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novels and stories. But Conan Doyle didn't reveal all of the Great Detective's adventures...

Here are some of the best Holmes pastiches of the last 30 years, twenty-eight tales of mystery and the imagination detailing Holmes's further exploits, as told by many of today's greatest storytellers, including Stephen King, Anne Perry, Anthony Burgess, Neil Gaiman, Naomi Novik, Stephen Baxter, Tanith Lee, Michael Moorcock, and many more.

These are the improbable adventures of Sherlock Holmes, where nothing is impossible, and nothing can be ruled out. In these cases, Holmes investigates ghosts, curses, aliens, dinosaurs, shapeshifters, and evil gods. But is it the supernatural, or is there a perfectly rational explanation?

You won't be sure, and neither will Holmes and Watson as they match wits with pirates, assassins, con artists, and criminal masterminds of all stripes, including some familiar foes, such as their old nemesis, Professor Moriarty.

In these pages you'll also find our heroes crossing paths with H. G. Wells, Lewis Carroll, and even Arthur Conan Doyle himself, and you'll be astounded to learn the truth behind cases previously alluded to by Watson but never before documented until now.

These are tales that take us from the familiar quarters at 221B Baker Street to alternate realities, from the gaslit streets of London to the far future and beyond.

Whether it's mystery, fantasy, horror, or science fiction, no puzzle is too challenging for the Great Detective. The game is afoot!

From Publishers Weekly

For the most part, this volume of short Sherlock Holmes pastiches—a mix of straightforward imitations and parodies—delivers on its goal of presenting the best of such work from the last 30 years. All but one of the 28 entries is a reprint, largely from such recent anthologies as Gaslight Grimoire and Shadows Over Baker Street, and many introduce the supernatural into the rational sleuth's world. Stephen King does a solid job of giving Dr. Watson a chance to show his own detective skills in The Good Doctor. Barbara Roden's The Things That Shall Come Upon Them riffs cleverly on M.R. James's Casting the Runes. Perhaps the highlight is Peter Tremayne's The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey, which offers a plausible explanation for a classic untold tale in which a man disappears from the face of the earth after returning home to fetch an umbrella. Holmes authority Christopher Roden provides an introduction. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Short of revisiting Arthur Conan Doyle's original texts, you may not have more fun with the great detective than in Night Shade Books' collection THE IMPROBABLE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES. [...] From pirates to spirits, IMPROBABLE covers a lot of genre-fiction tropes, yet every author hews closely to Doyle's winning, winsome storytelling style. As the game is afoot, you're in able hands." --Bookgasm

"The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a good place to start or rediscover your love for one of the world's greatest literary creations, Sherlock Holmes." --io9.com

"These 28 short stories are impressive in their variety and quality [...] This is a substantial collection that will entertain." --School Library Journal

"The improbable intersection between Sherlock Holmes and science fiction is further demonstrated in this teeming collection of Holmes pastiches. [...] Not all the results are fantasy. In fact, many are not, and you cannot guess which will be from the respective bylines. [...] Some [stories], like Tanith Lee's powerful and heartbreaking "The Human Mystery," treat the immortal detective with a depth of understanding that makes one wish they could be declared official entries in the Holmesian canon." --SCIFI Magazine (A+ rating)

"A satisfyingly chunky 450-page anthology [featuring] twenty-eight curious accounts by a remarkable array of authors. [...] A grand collection." --The District Messenger (The Sherlock Holmes Society of London newsletter)