Gary

This tribute to one of the still living masters of fantasy made me realize just how under-represented the works of Jack vance are in audiobook form. The writers here have captured the odd cadences,the delicate pallettes of imagery and the whimsical ideas Mr Vance has entertained his readers with for countless decades. You can feel the respect of their tellings for the original works throughout,and until these treasures find their way to this website,I heartily invite all to have a taste of what Vance is and hope this will prompt the appearence of the classics these homages sprang from.

I feel the first segments of these productions were a bit disappointing.Not the fault of the actors,who perform their parts with sufficient skill,nor of the production itself,which shows itself as an assembly of loving craft. I think ultimatly its Conan Doyle himself that must be blamed for this:the need to expand his audience and the lure of money probably tempted him to rehash old plots for a quick buck.Forgivable:these arepleasant productions but not deep.

However,the REAL gem of this mix,unlike the previous review had mentioned was the last "comedy".If you have read all the old short stories and are very familiar with the characters,you'll definatly savor the dialogue here.It begins with Holmes and Watson trying to converse civilly enough,but it escalates into the delightfully vicious bile spitting only old friends can indulge in.And it gets WEIRD.Buy this collection just for the happy catfight and twisted twist ending.

One only has to track down the original text of this book to appreciate the reader's skill in its interpretation of it. I did this,curious to investigate the unabridged version,and found it unfathomable!The text was laid out in the ancient English style,with endless lines running into each other and no paragraphs or punctuation to guide you through it.But Derek Jacobi manages to not only to conquer the text,but to give it life as well.If you can excuse the odd patterning of the result,the book is a very worthwhile investment.