Reviews

The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by John Joseph Adams

swirls's review against another edition

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5.0

What can I say? I love fanfiction and this was an excellent collection. Not all the stories are amazing, but there's enough bangers in this anthology that'll I'll probably listening/reading through it again sometime. Many of the stories have fantastic elements, but, much to my surprise, not all.

The audio does not include the Stephen King story, but that's one of the weakest of the collection. (Very odd portrayal of the duo, Dr. Watson solves the case while Holmes has an allergic reaction to cats swarming him.) Several of the stories were also published in Shadows of Baker Street and Gaslight Grimoire. But there's a new one from Barbara Hambly, who is always a delight to read, and her take on the Chthulu mythos was absolutely fabulous. I've not read Dominic Green before but his Professor Challenger/Holmes crossover had me cackling the whole way through.

This was just plain fun! Mummies and pirates and dinosaurs, oh my!

gmvader's review against another edition

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3.0

As with any review of a collection of short stories there are going to be some good and some not-so-good stories.

Many of these I expected, like Michael Moorcock’s story. I have never identified with anything Moorcock wrote and this was no exception. However the Stephen King one had his characteristic feel to it and the Naomi Novik story had the voice of Holmes down so well it felt like an original Doyle story.

There were surprises, the Kowal story I bounced off of, which I had never done with any of her work.

In all I would recommend this book to fans of Holmes and Doyle’s work. Most of the stories are fun and the mysteries are well-told. Some of the authors get into the voice and style of Doyle and others don’t and it works for some and not for others.

ru_bunny's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

cthuwu's review against another edition

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3.0

i can't really remember when i read this, but i do remember owning it. it was a really mixed bag. some of the stories were just five stars and other ones where like... how did you get in this book?

me2brett's review against another edition

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4.0

This is an excellent collection of stories. A few of them are weak - one bringing to mind nothing so much as the Asylum Sherlock Holmes movies. Others are extremely strong, from authors like Naomi Novik, Sharyn McCrumb, Anne Perry, and Neil Gaiman. I highly recommend picking up a copy, either at your bookstore or local library.

thomcat's review against another edition

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4.0

Twenty eight stories written over a span of twenty two years, these tales feature Holmes and Watson and something outside the norm, from ghosts to Cthulhu to physics and time travel. A really excellent collection from some very big-name authors.

Hard to pick favorites from this collection, but the offerings of Neil Gaiman and Anthony Burgess are both excellent.

The audio book version of this collection contains only twenty seven stories, lacking Stephen King's "The Doctor's Case", which was also published in his Nightmares and Dreamscapes and, I understand, performed in audio by the inestimable Tim Curry.

mmeller's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 stars. I enjoyed the combination of Sherlock Holmes and (sometimes) the occult. As with any such collection, some stories were more interesting to me than others, but all were enjoyable.

eggp's review against another edition

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3.0

Beloved duo
seldom read, often copied
unsuccessfully.

shirezu's review against another edition

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4.0

This collection contains a bit of everything but all of it Sherlock Holmes. I've read a few of the stories already but most were new to me. I was unhappy with a few that changed Holmes a bit too dramatically, especially Naomi Novik's interpretation, but on the whole they did a great job.

A must read for any Sherlock fan

mon_ique's review against another edition

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2.0

Alrighty.
There were quite a few stories in this party.
Some of them I didn't read cause they were literally horror/supernatural nonsense.
Others were just written weird...like the characters (I compare everything with BBC Sherlock..lol) and some I didn't enjoy the portray of the mains. There were relatively few that I actually enjoyed, but when I did enjoy them, they had a good author behind them, who wrote some sensible things so the bio before each story told me.

Overall, it was ok