andy_hird's review

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5.0

Wow - amazing. Granted, my review is largely colored by the last two stories, which were fantastic and well worth the price of the book just by themselves. But I really liked the collection as a whole too. There was a delightful variety of 'types' of stories, including the one where Watson gets pulled into an alternate reality where Moriarty is the hero, and that also makes me give this 5 stars. Not all stories were great (neither were all of the original stories by Doyle), but the wide array of ideas behind them makes me love this collection.

carstensena's review

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3.0

A terrific variety of stories, mostly involving the fantastic. 90% were quite good. The others, not so much. Of course, I read it in uncorrected proof form, so maybe those were fixed. Here's hoping.

I'm always amazed that the cover of these collections often hype the most famous contributors, but my favorite stories are usually by the lesser-knowns. Maybe it's a matter of expectations?

gmvader's review

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

shirezu's review

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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

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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