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3.64 AVERAGE
3.64 AVERAGE
Like all short story collections, there were some good one, some bad, and some mediocre. Unfortunately, there were more mediocre than good.
I've never read a lot of Holmes pastiche, on the theory that writers who refuse to come up with their own damn characters are probably mediocre. But maybe I've been hideously unfair? No, I haven't, this sucks.
Since these writers are mostly amateurs, I won’t name and shame, but will credit the ones I liked. In fact, let’s break the book’s ordering and put those first, because I don't suppose many people want to read a story-by-story review, and I'd rather spotlight the good than the bad.
“The Song of the Mudlark,” by Shane Simmons is fun. Narrated by Wiggins, it’s somewhat more cynical than most Holmes stories in tone, without being tedious about it.
“The Tale of the Forty Thieves” by C. H. Dye is also good, and a real contrast to “Song of the Mudlark”; it’s charming and funny, and shows Holmes’s more compassionate side. It makes me think of “Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.”
“The King of Diamonds” by John Heywood is the story in this book that comes closest to imitating Doyle in plotting and language.
There, wasn’t that nice? Three stories I have positive things to say about! And this anthology is only … ah … twenty-three stories long. Jesus Christ.
“The Adventure of the Slipshod Charlady.” Gibberish. Try to read this story and tell me why the villains did what they did.
“The Case of the Lichfield Murders.” Very Beryl Coronet-y in that there are two characters, and the one the police arrested won’t be the murderer, so … ? Still more competent than a lot of the others.
“The Kingdom of the Blind” is goofy faux-Gothic nonsense in terms of plotting but has no atmosphere.
“The Adventure of the Pawnbroker’s Daughter” has no real deductions. Instead, we get pseudoscience about how Holmes can tell when people are lying. Come on.
“The Adventure of the Defenestrated Princess” is disastrously bad. Wants to use Mycroft, but is set before Watson’s heard of Mycroft, so everyone calls him “M.” A pair of super assassins murder twelve people single-handedly. Why is this a Holmes story?
“The Adventure of the Inn on the Marsh” is a more competent take on the same theme, but rife with melodrama and gaping plot holes.
“The Adventure of the Traveling Orchestra” is incredibly overstuffed for a fifteen-page story, and the key deduction is nonsensical.
“The Haunting of Sherlock Holmes” would be perfectly fine as AO3 fanfiction, but I prefer for published Sherlock Holmes pastiche to at least gesture at having a mystery or adventure.
“The Allegro Mystery” is generically bad. The scenes don’t hold together, the characters are badly written (‘“He’s bloody brilliant, but he boils my blood sometimes,” scoffed Lestrade.’) even the grammar is poor.
“The Deadly Solider” is more fanfiction, this time starring Moriarty. He’s basically a pulp villain, very silly, but in fairness, Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t know how to write good Moriarty stories, either.
“The Case of the Vanishing Stars” is very overstuffed, and the solution is incredibly obvious.
“The Strange Missive of Germaine Wilkes” doesn’t have characters to make it interesting, just a short, not terribly inspired puzzle. Another Moriarty one. The kiss of death, I tell you.
“The Case of the Vanished Killer” was on the border. Clumsy writing ultimately keeps it down. Impossible-crime adjacent, but doesn’t really play up the vanishing as much as you’d think, given that it’s named after it.
“The Adventure of the Aspen Papers” is dull, there’s no real mystery, and none of the human interactions in it seem very believable.
“The Ululation of Wolves” is in one of my less favored class of mystery stories, where the writer learned a science fact and then wrote an entire story based on it. I also don’t enjoy the modern trend of having Holmes and Watson constantly sniping at each other.
“The Case of the Vanishing Inn” is character assassination. Lestrade may not have shone in the canon, but good lord. More Moriarty. Does the author of this story think Holmes doesn’t know what Moriarty looks like? He’s a professor, Holmes could see his face any time he cared to drop by the campus.
“The Adventure of Urquahard Manse” sucks, man. I’m not going to give away its dumb plot twist, but the way people act in this story is deranged. You have a dark family secret, sure, but why would it cause you to do … that?
“The Adventure of the Seventh Stain” is long and kind of dull, and is really, really concerned with letting us know that its 21st century author didn’t approve of England’s 19th century class system. It is bad, you’re right! I almost put it in the “good” list, but that was Stockholm syndrome, I’d never suggest that anyone actively seek this out, which is the (very low) standard I’m using here.
“The Two Umbrellas” is an espionage story. I’m going to spend more time on this story, not because I especially hate it, but on the contrary, because it’s much better-written than the rest, and deserves more than a two-sentence slap. My issue with this story (and a lot of Moriarty stories, actually) is that it takes it for granted that we’ll import assumptions from the canon, even if they don’t really make sense in the context of the story. By the end of this story, Moriarty has admitted in Holmes’s hearing to being a criminal involved in international espionage. Again, everyone knows where Moriarty lives. Couldn’t they just, like … arrest him? Or search his house for evidence or something? The story doesn’t even think to ask that question, because … it's Moriarty. You can't arrest him, otherwise the Final Problem couldn't happen. In “The Strange Missive of Germaine Wilkes” earlier in this collection Moriarty sends a coded message ordering someone to be murdered. Can you not arrest someone for that? Of course not! How could you? It’s Moriarty!
“The Adventure of the Fateful Malady” is preposterous and baroque, and it’s absurd to think that the doctors of the hospital wouldn’t come to the same conclusion Holmes did, but mainly, I want to say how annoying I found the footnotes. Nobody cares what canon story you’re referencing, and nobody’s impressed that you know “wears his heart on his sleeve” comes from Othello. Get over yourself.
And now I’m free. There are forty-two books in this series. Forty-two! It’s irritating to think of the little gems like “Mudlark,” and “Forty Thieves” that must be scattered throughout those volumes, but Sherlock Holmes pastiche, on the whole, is trash. Bad writing, bad plotting, and bad characterization. I do understand the comfort of familiarity. I'm not claiming to be "above" this. What I absolutely refuse to do, however, is give a pass to stories that would never have been published on their own merits just because they have Holmes in them, and that's most of this book.
Since these writers are mostly amateurs, I won’t name and shame, but will credit the ones I liked. In fact, let’s break the book’s ordering and put those first, because I don't suppose many people want to read a story-by-story review, and I'd rather spotlight the good than the bad.
“The Song of the Mudlark,” by Shane Simmons is fun. Narrated by Wiggins, it’s somewhat more cynical than most Holmes stories in tone, without being tedious about it.
“The Tale of the Forty Thieves” by C. H. Dye is also good, and a real contrast to “Song of the Mudlark”; it’s charming and funny, and shows Holmes’s more compassionate side. It makes me think of “Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.”
“The King of Diamonds” by John Heywood is the story in this book that comes closest to imitating Doyle in plotting and language.
There, wasn’t that nice? Three stories I have positive things to say about! And this anthology is only … ah … twenty-three stories long. Jesus Christ.
“The Adventure of the Slipshod Charlady.” Gibberish. Try to read this story and tell me why the villains did what they did.
“The Case of the Lichfield Murders.” Very Beryl Coronet-y in that there are two characters, and the one the police arrested won’t be the murderer, so … ? Still more competent than a lot of the others.
“The Kingdom of the Blind” is goofy faux-Gothic nonsense in terms of plotting but has no atmosphere.
“The Adventure of the Pawnbroker’s Daughter” has no real deductions. Instead, we get pseudoscience about how Holmes can tell when people are lying. Come on.
“The Adventure of the Defenestrated Princess” is disastrously bad. Wants to use Mycroft, but is set before Watson’s heard of Mycroft, so everyone calls him “M.” A pair of super assassins murder twelve people single-handedly. Why is this a Holmes story?
“The Adventure of the Inn on the Marsh” is a more competent take on the same theme, but rife with melodrama and gaping plot holes.
“The Adventure of the Traveling Orchestra” is incredibly overstuffed for a fifteen-page story, and the key deduction is nonsensical.
“The Haunting of Sherlock Holmes” would be perfectly fine as AO3 fanfiction, but I prefer for published Sherlock Holmes pastiche to at least gesture at having a mystery or adventure.
“The Allegro Mystery” is generically bad. The scenes don’t hold together, the characters are badly written (‘“He’s bloody brilliant, but he boils my blood sometimes,” scoffed Lestrade.’) even the grammar is poor.
“The Deadly Solider” is more fanfiction, this time starring Moriarty. He’s basically a pulp villain, very silly, but in fairness, Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t know how to write good Moriarty stories, either.
“The Case of the Vanishing Stars” is very overstuffed, and the solution is incredibly obvious.
“The Strange Missive of Germaine Wilkes” doesn’t have characters to make it interesting, just a short, not terribly inspired puzzle. Another Moriarty one. The kiss of death, I tell you.
“The Case of the Vanished Killer” was on the border. Clumsy writing ultimately keeps it down. Impossible-crime adjacent, but doesn’t really play up the vanishing as much as you’d think, given that it’s named after it.
“The Adventure of the Aspen Papers” is dull, there’s no real mystery, and none of the human interactions in it seem very believable.
“The Ululation of Wolves” is in one of my less favored class of mystery stories, where the writer learned a science fact and then wrote an entire story based on it. I also don’t enjoy the modern trend of having Holmes and Watson constantly sniping at each other.
“The Case of the Vanishing Inn” is character assassination. Lestrade may not have shone in the canon, but good lord. More Moriarty. Does the author of this story think Holmes doesn’t know what Moriarty looks like? He’s a professor, Holmes could see his face any time he cared to drop by the campus.
“The Adventure of Urquahard Manse” sucks, man. I’m not going to give away its dumb plot twist, but the way people act in this story is deranged. You have a dark family secret, sure, but why would it cause you to do … that?
“The Adventure of the Seventh Stain” is long and kind of dull, and is really, really concerned with letting us know that its 21st century author didn’t approve of England’s 19th century class system. It is bad, you’re right! I almost put it in the “good” list, but that was Stockholm syndrome, I’d never suggest that anyone actively seek this out, which is the (very low) standard I’m using here.
“The Two Umbrellas” is an espionage story. I’m going to spend more time on this story, not because I especially hate it, but on the contrary, because it’s much better-written than the rest, and deserves more than a two-sentence slap. My issue with this story (and a lot of Moriarty stories, actually) is that it takes it for granted that we’ll import assumptions from the canon, even if they don’t really make sense in the context of the story. By the end of this story, Moriarty has admitted in Holmes’s hearing to being a criminal involved in international espionage. Again, everyone knows where Moriarty lives. Couldn’t they just, like … arrest him? Or search his house for evidence or something? The story doesn’t even think to ask that question, because … it's Moriarty. You can't arrest him, otherwise the Final Problem couldn't happen. In “The Strange Missive of Germaine Wilkes” earlier in this collection Moriarty sends a coded message ordering someone to be murdered. Can you not arrest someone for that? Of course not! How could you? It’s Moriarty!
“The Adventure of the Fateful Malady” is preposterous and baroque, and it’s absurd to think that the doctors of the hospital wouldn’t come to the same conclusion Holmes did, but mainly, I want to say how annoying I found the footnotes. Nobody cares what canon story you’re referencing, and nobody’s impressed that you know “wears his heart on his sleeve” comes from Othello. Get over yourself.
And now I’m free. There are forty-two books in this series. Forty-two! It’s irritating to think of the little gems like “Mudlark,” and “Forty Thieves” that must be scattered throughout those volumes, but Sherlock Holmes pastiche, on the whole, is trash. Bad writing, bad plotting, and bad characterization. I do understand the comfort of familiarity. I'm not claiming to be "above" this. What I absolutely refuse to do, however, is give a pass to stories that would never have been published on their own merits just because they have Holmes in them, and that's most of this book.
adventurous
dark
lighthearted
mysterious
relaxing
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
With anthologies, I expect a few clunkers along with the rest. With this, every story was enjoyable, with some feeling very close to Doyle's style. A few more typos and formatting errors than I would expect, but for an indie publisher it's understandable. I look forward to the next!