The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes series
John Joseph Adams, editor
Night Shade Books
Fiction, Anthology/Horror/Mystery/Sci-Fi
Themes: Cross-Genre, Ghosts and Spirits, Occult, Time Travel, Twists
***+
Description
A family's curse takes the form of a white fox... an inventor's experiments with gravity lead to his suspicious demise... a popular author witnesses lights in the sky... Literature's most popular detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful chronicler and sidekick John Watson return in new tales penned by popular authors, several of which blur the boundaries between improbable and impossible.
Review
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most invoked names in fiction, for good or ill. For the most part, the authors collected here do well by the name, though - as is usual for my experience with anthologies, particularly anthologies that lead with touting the reputations of the writers included - the stories themselves are a mixed bag. Some wandered, but only a few seemed ultimately pointless, with two reading more like fanfic exercises and one an outright clunker so out of character (and out of synch with the other entries) that it read more like an insult than an homage. As for the "improbable" label, I found it misleading. While some stories did indeed incorporate supernatural or sci-fi elements, most had perfectly mundane explanations. On the whole, it's not a bad collection, adding some interesting new adventures to the great detective's archives.