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tombomp's review
3.0
Quick review: Overall it was probably more good than bad. I liked that the variety in stories meant that even the bad ones didn't matter much. There were a few really good stories too. Not something I'd recommend to many people but if you're into this sort of thing then it's good.
Best stories: The Adventure of the Field Theorems, The Greatest Detective of All Time
Worst Stories: The Mouse and the Master, The Adventure of the Pearly Gates
Short review of all the stories because hey why not right. Will contain minor spoilers for things revealed in the first few pages of a story, anything that's clearly intended to be an interesting reveal or is nearer the end is in spoiler tags.
The Musgrave Version: Sherlock Holmes meets Fu Manchu except narrated by the client from The Musgrave Ritual. The digs at Watson are a little amusing and I appreciate the attempts to talk about the racism with the Fu Manchu character while still keeping him an evil mastermind but nothing really happens. Dull but OK.
The Case of the Detective's Smile: Another crossover. Again nothing much happens except . I found it a bit mawkish and excessive, it relies entirely on the interest of (kind of) seeing the crossover. Poor.
The Adventure of the Russian Grave: Holmes in an historical event. The pretext for it is pretty flimsy and nothing much happens till the very end so you have to enjoy the pay off. I liked that it was all a . OK.
The Adventure of the Field Theorems: a funny, clever, affectionate tribute to Conan Doyle, Houdini, magic and UFO stories that I highly recommend. Probably one of the best non-Doyle Holmes stories I've read. Probably benefits from the slightly extended length but makes the most of it and gives Holmes a chance to show his appreciation of other masters of a craft. Good character writing for Holmes and just enough detail to make a convincing mystery and retain a sci-fi element but without making it the centerpiece. Loved it.
The Adventure of the Missing Coffin: pretty funny joke story (although told in the third person! what a faux pas) that's another crossover although they only appear at the end. Features and some pretty decent jokes. Obviously not super hilarious but I thought it was a funny play on the typical Holmes story + the supernatural while still sticking pretty closely to how they should go. I liked it.
The Adventure of the Second Scarf: Sherlock Holmes... in SPACEEE! Pretty mediocre because it gets tied up too hard in explaining the introduced sci fi elements which make things like the explanation kind of clumsy, but it's ok.
The Phantom of the Barbary Coast: Not really convinced by the attempted Irene Adler connection but hey. There's a reasonably interesting mystery revolving around some stuff I'd never heard of before but that are explained and are interesting and the villain is a so that gets points in my book. Not brilliant but enjoyable enough.
Mouse and the Master: I really don't get this one, I feel it's a reference to something but I have no idea what. The main character is a stereotypical noir detective and the story is basically about how the accepted Holmes stories are all wrong and actually Holmes and Watson are very different etc but it's just... weird and doesn't pull it off at all. There are a couple funny lines but not much more. It's just incoherent> Very strange
Two Roads No Choices: A time travel story and a pretty cool one. More like a "traditional" sci-fi story with Sherlock Holmes as a character, but I thought it dealt with the topic in an interesting way with a good set up, an attempt at a moral problem and. Good story.
The Richmond Enigma: Another crossover Quite a bit of it is repeating the story of its source material, which is a little silly, and the conclusion is a little dull. Holmes doesn't do any detecting and it just ends. Eh.
A Study in Sussex: Amazing. Genius. I highly recommend just reading it yourself unless you're scared of bees but given someone else has spoiled it I'll put the plot in spoiler tags because it deserves commemorating somewhere: I wish I had this person's creative imagination to be honest. Bloody hell.
Holmes Team Advantage: Eh. Does very little with the concept. Pretty dull.
Alimentary, My Dear Watson: OK, I was not expecting this. At all. Very short and that it's an Alice in Wonderland crossover is obvious from the first page. Worth warning for child sexual abuse (yeah)
The Future Engine: There's an engine... that can predict or maybe even affect the future!! That's why it's called the future engine. Involving a descendant of Babbage. An alright caper, doesn't do enough with the concept, but it's ok. Oh also at the start Holmes gives a ridiculous speech extolling the incredible progressive virtues of the British empire and how the world is being lead into a glorious new age and then at the end he says
Then starts the modern/future stories, most of which resort to having Holmes be a computer program because I guess it's hard to find excuses to have him appear otherwise. The language used to talk about computers is pretty funny in general - I feel some of the authors had never used a computer. But only in an era where there was a sudden craze for all things "cyber" could a line like "computer, delete MORIARTY.DAT" be considered a fitting climax to a story. It's beautiful in a way.
Holmes Ex Machina: A guy uses computers to create a virtual "actor" of Holmes from the books, virtual Holmes solves a very simple mystery, nothing much happens. Oh, and instead of films everything is on "holos". The future!! Eh.
The Sherlock Solution: Another one that gets some points for creativity. Basically. Has a few funny bits and the ending clearly cries out for a sequel. It's alright.
The Fan Who Molded Himself: This is a pretty wild one that makes novel use of time travel and. I liked the concept a lot anyway - I don't usually like . I liked this a lot.
Second Fiddle: The descriptions of the murder are pretty brutal. Definitely much more "modern" crime style than a lot of the others. Holmes gets pulled to present day California by time travel to solve a murder (the only sci-fi bit is to get the plot started) with an investigator who's mad at being upstaged.. Pretty decent, although I could have done without some of the ~grittier~ stuff.
Moriarty by Modem: Another "Holmes is a computer program" thing. Not very exciting, nothing much happens, although I liked the attempt at a dramatic ending in the CYBERWORLD. Kind of. OK.
The Greatest Detective of All Time: Fun premise, Holmes is literally what the title says so he and Watson get consulted on things by many time travellers to solve mysteries in their own times.. Does some cool stuff with the concept/time travel, has a mystery of sorts, entertaining ending, pretty good.
The Case of the Purloined L'Isitek: A story existing for the sake of a few abominable puns. Here Holmes's place is taken by an alien that shares his name. Pretty pedestrian mystery but it's OK. Having someone who's not Holmes but acts like him as a joke makes it a bit better than average generic mystery.
The Adventure of the Illegal Alien: Holmes as AI in an incoherent and mercifully short story. Takes on a client,. Just really bad and insulting and makes a mess of the character of Holmes as well as barely making sense through sloppy writing.
Dogs, Masques, Love, Death, Flowers: Two bad stories in a row! If anyone has the slightest clue what's going on in this story please tell me. Set on a spaceship where people are in cold storage or something with a load of stream of conciousness passages that are incomprehensible because they hint at a setting behind the story that's impossible to understand or guess at. I have no idea what happens at the ending, what the motive for the murder was, how it happened, why any of the things in the story happened in fact. Just a total mess. The idea of robots based on fictional detectives is cute though.
You See But You Do Not Observe: This is a kind of "cute" story, where Holmes solves the - in the most ridiculous way with a load of gobbledegook "science", of course, but it's fun nonetheless. Ending spoilers: It's at least coherent within itself and takes an interesting angle compared to a lot of the stories. I liked it a lot.
Illusions: A fun, short story with Conan Doyle as the main character. He attends a spiritualist seance in the hope of making contact with the great beyond and meeting someone:. A cute, amusing, light story that'd have been a great ending to the collection imo.
The Adventure of the Pearly Gate: But instead, we get this. Congrats to the author for saying that 3 of Jack The Ripper's victims are in hell! What an unpleasant thing to say, especially as it's pretty easily guessable why he'd think that (and it's a really really bad reason). The rest of the story is naff as heck - I don't think Holmes meeting St Peter is something even the best authors could write well, and it certainly doesn't come across well here. Features Holmes being *bored of heaven*, which is uh... yeah. It's just a really ridiculous view of heaven that's both not interesting and also would probably be kind of insulting if you believed in it. The whole way Jack the Ripper and his victims are talked about is also really insulting and just bizarre too - like because he's "insane" he can't recognise "fake" Pearly Gates unlike everyone else?? None of his victims are in heaven?? I dunno. Just a bizarre, unpleasant story that's a shame to end the book on.
Best stories: The Adventure of the Field Theorems, The Greatest Detective of All Time
Worst Stories: The Mouse and the Master, The Adventure of the Pearly Gates
Short review of all the stories because hey why not right. Will contain minor spoilers for things revealed in the first few pages of a story, anything that's clearly intended to be an interesting reveal or is nearer the end is in spoiler tags.
The Musgrave Version: Sherlock Holmes meets Fu Manchu except narrated by the client from The Musgrave Ritual. The digs at Watson are a little amusing and I appreciate the attempts to talk about the racism with the Fu Manchu character while still keeping him an evil mastermind but nothing really happens. Dull but OK.
The Case of the Detective's Smile: Another crossover
Spoiler
with Alice from Alice in Wonderland, except her real life inspirationSpoiler
MAGIC IS REALThe Adventure of the Russian Grave: Holmes in an historical event
Spoiler
witnessing a certain cometSpoiler
very clever Moriarty trap from the grave though, even if it was a bit unlikelyThe Adventure of the Field Theorems: a funny, clever, affectionate tribute to Conan Doyle, Houdini, magic and UFO stories that I highly recommend. Probably one of the best non-Doyle Holmes stories I've read. Probably benefits from the slightly extended length but makes the most of it and gives Holmes a chance to show his appreciation of other masters of a craft. Good character writing for Holmes and just enough detail to make a convincing mystery and retain a sci-fi element but without making it the centerpiece. Loved it.
The Adventure of the Missing Coffin: pretty funny joke story (although told in the third person! what a faux pas) that's another crossover although they only appear at the end. Features
Spoiler
vampiresThe Adventure of the Second Scarf: Sherlock Holmes... in SPACEEE! Pretty mediocre because it gets tied up too hard in explaining the introduced sci fi elements which make things like the explanation kind of clumsy, but it's ok.
The Phantom of the Barbary Coast: Not really convinced by the attempted Irene Adler connection but hey. There's a reasonably interesting mystery revolving around some stuff I'd never heard of before
Spoiler
the equivalent of pressganging except in the USSpoiler
corrupt policemanMouse and the Master: I really don't get this one, I feel it's a reference to something but I have no idea what. The main character is a stereotypical noir detective and the story is basically about how the accepted Holmes stories are all wrong and actually Holmes and Watson are very different etc but it's just... weird and doesn't pull it off at all. There are a couple funny lines but not much more.
Spoiler
Watson gets turned into an old fool who makes up all the stories based on mishearings and Holmes is an arsehole. And then Holmes sends the detective to a spiritualist meeting which Watson has been taken in by where a load of fictional characters are trying to make contact with the other side. And then the detective stops the criminals by listening to a voice in his head. What???Two Roads No Choices: A time travel story and a pretty cool one. More like a "traditional" sci-fi story with Sherlock Holmes as a character, but I thought it dealt with the topic in an interesting way with a good set up, an attempt at a moral problem and
Spoiler
an interesting ending with regards to determinism and the paradoxes of time travelThe Richmond Enigma: Another crossover
Spoiler
and also another time travel story, this time with the most famous time travel story of all time (probably)Spoiler
the time traveller just says "oh well I'll fly around a bit and destroy my time machine. woo"A Study in Sussex: Amazing. Genius. I highly recommend just reading it yourself unless you're scared of bees but given someone else has spoiled it I'll put the plot in spoiler tags because it deserves commemorating somewhere:
Spoiler
Holmes has been injecting himself with bee venom, which has healed his old age complaints. He decides to inject himself with a massive amount with Watson watching. Overnight, he turns into a giant swarm of bees with his own conciousness and flies away. The ending is Watson injecting himself with the rest of the venom. FinHolmes Team Advantage:
Spoiler
There's a cloning machine used by evil people! And then Holmes clones himself! And the clones do stuff not described and then they die because they didn't get "molecularly stabilised".Alimentary, My Dear Watson: OK, I was not expecting this. At all. Very short and that it's an Alice in Wonderland crossover is obvious from the first page. Worth warning for child sexual abuse (yeah)
Spoiler
Makes a marked contrast to the reverent tone towards Carroll in the earlier story, here he gets eaten by the Cheshire Cat after all the characters from Alice in Wonderland trick him into a trap because he's been abusing Alice. Like. I mean. I wasn't expecting to read a story with a premise like that. At least Holmes immediately sympathised and helped cover the "murder" upThe Future Engine: There's an engine... that can predict or maybe even affect the future!! That's why it's called the future engine. Involving a descendant of Babbage.
Spoiler
I laughed so hard when it was said the maths used to operate it is the "binomial theorem" and Holmes collapses in paroxysms over Moriarty.Spoiler
actually progress is bad, because Moriarty was able to predict stock markets using a primitive computer. Incredible stuff, really makes you thinkThen starts the modern/future stories, most of which resort to having Holmes be a computer program because I guess it's hard to find excuses to have him appear otherwise. The language used to talk about computers is pretty funny in general - I feel some of the authors had never used a computer. But only in an era where there was a sudden craze for all things "cyber" could a line like "computer, delete MORIARTY.DAT" be considered a fitting climax to a story. It's beautiful in a way.
Holmes Ex Machina: A guy uses computers to create a virtual "actor" of Holmes from the books, virtual Holmes solves a very simple mystery, nothing much happens. Oh, and instead of films everything is on "holos". The future!! Eh.
The Sherlock Solution: Another one that gets some points for creativity. Basically
Spoiler
the entire staff of a company have been turned into Holmes through some transferral of a computer program that also released Moriarty into the world as an evil villainThe Fan Who Molded Himself: This is a pretty wild one that makes novel use of time travel and
Spoiler
changing up our preconceived notions of the Holmes characterSpoiler
Holmes was an arsehole or ~dark gritty~ stuff but I thought this was clever/creative enough that it worked well. And it's pretty scary!Second Fiddle: The descriptions of the murder are pretty brutal. Definitely much more "modern" crime style than a lot of the others. Holmes gets pulled to present day California by time travel to solve a murder (the only sci-fi bit is to get the plot started) with an investigator who's mad at being upstaged.
Spoiler
By the end, he has a healthier view of things. Kind of. PossiblyMoriarty by Modem: Another "Holmes is a computer program" thing. Not very exciting, nothing much happens, although I liked the attempt at a dramatic ending in the CYBERWORLD. Kind of. OK.
The Greatest Detective of All Time: Fun premise, Holmes is literally what the title says so he and Watson get consulted on things by many time travellers to solve mysteries in their own times.
Spoiler
And Moriarty acts as the counterpart for future villainsThe Case of the Purloined L'Isitek: A story existing for the sake of a few abominable puns. Here Holmes's place is taken by an alien that shares his name. Pretty pedestrian mystery but it's OK. Having someone who's not Holmes but acts like him as a joke makes it a bit better than average generic mystery.
The Adventure of the Illegal Alien: Holmes as AI in an incoherent and mercifully short story. Takes on a client,
Spoiler
solves the mystery by calling in a favour of a descendant (?) of Mycroft by saying he's Holmes even though he's an AI and the dude somehow totally accepting it, then lies to the client because Holmes is some sort of British patriot who covers up murder for commercial gain now apparently?? Oh and the AI computer gets wiped but he disappears into the Internet somehow. And a policeman is a dolphinDogs, Masques, Love, Death, Flowers: Two bad stories in a row! If anyone has the slightest clue what's going on in this story please tell me. Set on a spaceship where people are in cold storage or something with a load of stream of conciousness passages that are incomprehensible because they hint at a setting behind the story that's impossible to understand or guess at. I have no idea what happens at the ending, what the motive for the murder was, how it happened, why any of the things in the story happened in fact. Just a total mess. The idea of robots based on fictional detectives is cute though.
You See But You Do Not Observe: This is a kind of "cute" story, where Holmes solves the
Spoiler
Fermi paradoxSpoiler
Of course, the problem is that Holmes got resurrected by the power of people's will to see him again after his death at Reichenbach, putting Earth out of sync with the rest of the universe and preventing contact with aliens! What a great+totally ridiculous idea.Illusions: A fun, short story with Conan Doyle as the main character. He attends a spiritualist seance in the hope of making contact with the great beyond and meeting someone:
Spoiler
his uncle, who demands he make more Sherlock Holmes storiesThe Adventure of the Pearly Gate: But instead, we get this. Congrats to the author for saying that 3 of Jack The Ripper's victims are in hell! What an unpleasant thing to say, especially as it's pretty easily guessable why he'd think that (and it's a really really bad reason). The rest of the story is naff as heck - I don't think Holmes meeting St Peter is something even the best authors could write well, and it certainly doesn't come across well here. Features Holmes being *bored of heaven*, which is uh... yeah. It's just a really ridiculous view of heaven that's both not interesting and also would probably be kind of insulting if you believed in it. The whole way Jack the Ripper and his victims are talked about is also really insulting and just bizarre too - like because he's "insane" he can't recognise "fake" Pearly Gates unlike everyone else?? None of his victims are in heaven?? I dunno. Just a bizarre, unpleasant story that's a shame to end the book on.
swarmofbees's review
adventurous
lighthearted
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Diverse cast of characters? No
2.25
fibrejunky's review
3.0
As is usual with books of this sort, some were better than others. A few were excellent.
bloodravenlib's review
3.0
I bought a second hand copy of this book.
See my note in my blog:
[http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/06/booknote-sherlock-holmes-in-orbit.html]
See my note in my blog:
[http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/06/booknote-sherlock-holmes-in-orbit.html]
mybookishhedgemaze's review
1.0
While one or two stories were worth reading the rest were, at best, boring or pointless (one spent a few pages trying to establish that Watson is a jealous, compulsive liar, and that the adventures of Holmes are either made up or another man aided him...that's it, no actual story-line...come to think of it, there were three stories written around this basis in one way or another) and, at worst, offensive to true Sherlock fans (Sherlock is a meth addict with schizophrenia whose sidekick is an imbecile, neither has ever left their shared apartment which stinks of every body fluid imaginable...this one fits into the previous category of Sherlock/Watson being shams).
smcleish's review
3.0
A collection of Sherlock Holmes stories with a science fiction or fantasy element. Quite a number involve time travel (interactions with [book:The Time Machine|2493] particularly popular). Many are parodies, and most of the poor stories are the ones where the humour doesn't work.
trin's review
3.0
Another collection of sci-fi Holmes pastiches; this one is much better than [b: Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space|76229|Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space|Isaac Asimov|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1228451047s/76229.jpg|73749], despite opening, for some bizarre reason, with what's by far the worst story in the whole book. (Profic writers really could learn a thing or two from fandom. Rule No. 1: Don't character bash. Rule No. 2: DON'T CHARACTER BASH.) I suspect this is because all these stories were written specifically for this anthology, while the other was a collection of previously published stuff. Thus, the focus of these tales is much more the actual Sherlock Holmes (and sometimes—but not nearly enough—Watson), and not characters merely similar to him. So, while none of the stories were what I'd call revelatory—I still haven't found my ideal Sherlock Holmes sci-fi pastiche (maybe I'll have to write it myself)—the collection as a whole was quite enjoyable. Though I wish someone would give Watson a bit more love. *pouts*
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