My favorite story in this Sherlock Holmes meets H. P. Lovecraft collection of original stories is “A Study in Emerald” by Neil Gaiman. Most of the stories in this volume follow the A. Conan Doyle template: Watson narrating an adventure. But Neil Gaiman goes in a different direction and produces a very off-beat story of the Cthulhu Mythos. I also enjoyed “Tiger! Tiger!” by Elizabeth Bear who features Irene Adler instead of Holmes and Watson. Of the traditional format stories, I liked John Pelan’s “The Mystery of the Worm,” Michael Reaves’ “The Adventure of the Arab’s Manuscript,” and Richard A. Lupoff’s “The Adventure of the Voorish Sign.” If you’re a fan of Sherlock Holmes and H. P. Lovecraft, you’ll find some fun stories in Shadows Over Baker Street.” GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
“A Study in Emerald” 1881 (This story won Neil Gaiman the 2004 Hugo Award for Best Short Story)
“Tiger! Tiger!” 1882 Elizabeth Bear
“The Case of the Wavy Black Dagger” 1884 Steve Perry
“A Case of Royal Blood” 1888 Steven-Elliot Altman (Narrated by H.G. Wells)
“The Weeping Masks” 1890 James Lowder
“Art in the Blood” 1892 Brian Stableford
“The Curious Case of Miss Violet Stone” 1894 Poppy Z. Brite, David Ferguson
“The Adventure of the Antiquarian’s Niece” 1894 Barbara Hambly (Thomas Carnacki is one of the main characters)
“The Mystery of the Worm” 1894 John Pelan (Dr. Nikola also appears; an annotated version of this story was published in Studies in Modern Horror, issue no. 3 )
“The Mystery of the Hanged Man’s Puzzle” 1897 Paul Finch
“The Horror of the Many Faces” 1898 Tim Lebbon
“The Adventure of the Arab’s Manuscript” 1898 Michael Reaves
“The Drowned Geologist” 1898 Caitlín R. Kiernan
“A Case of Insomnia” 1899 John P. Vourlis
“The Adventure of the Voorish Sign” 1899 Richard A. Lupoff
“The Adventure of Exham Priory” 1901 F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
“Death Did Not Become Him” 1902 David Niall Wilson, Patricia Lee Macomber
“Nightmare in Wax” 1915 Simon Clark
Contributors
Sounds like great fun George – I’m not as well up on Lovecraftian lore as I used to be in my teens but I’ll see about getting this one – cheers!
Sergio, I found this Sherlock Holmes/H. P. Lovecraft mash-up fun reading. Well worth a look!
Holmes meets Cthulhu! How can you go wrong?
Jeff, surprisingly, the Holmes meets Cthulhu formula works!
Surprisingly, my library has several copies of this.
Jeff, there are also plenty of copies of SHADOWS OVER BAKER STREET available online for a pittance.
To misquote Jeff: “Holmes meets Cthulhu! How can you” expect anything good? I’ll take my Holmes pastiches a little more on the traditional side, Holmes and horror have never seemed like a good fit. Yes, I’ve read some bad pastiches – who hasn’t? – and I’ve read some with different backgrounds, even some steampunk stories which I enjoyed, but this seems to far out of bounds.
Rick, you’d be surprised by the quality of these stories.
It’s “italics gone wild” day on the blog, I guess.
Jeff, usually Deb gives me a heads-up when I goof up on the italics. But, like Rick said, the italics weren’t there earlier today. WordPress gremlins!
funny, it didn’t look that when I first read today’s entry.
Rick, you’re right. I blame it on the WordPress gremlins.
George, I suspect a new anthology in the offing: SHERLOCK HOLMES VS. THE WORDPRESS GREMLINS!
Jerry, I like the sound of that!
Or maybe Blogger vs The WordPress Gremlins, Jerry.
Rick, very clever!