A Study in Emerald

By: Neil Gaiman

Narrated by: Neil Gaiman

Length: 49 mins

Publisher's summary

Alluding to both the Sherlock Holmes canon and the Old Ones of the Cthulhu Mythos, this Hugo Award-winning short story will delight fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, H. P. Lovecraft, and of course, Neil Gaiman.

A Study in Emerald draws listeners in through carefully revealed details as a consulting detective and his narrator friend solve the mystery of a murdered German noble. But with its subtle allusions and surprise ending, this mystery hints that the real fun in solving this case lies in imagining all the details that Gaiman doesn't reveal, and challenges listeners to be detectives themselves.

©2006 Neil Gaiman (P)2006 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

• Hugo winner, Best Short Story, 2004

Never gets old

I've listened to this story literally a dozen times over the years and I never get tired of it. And of course, Neil Gaiman's reading is perfect as always.

Great story for Gaiman fans!!

If you are collecting all of Neil Gaiman's audiobooks like me, this one won't disappoint! His performace is brilliant as usual and his voice is perfect for Sherlock Holmes! Wishing he would do more like this one.

Needed to read it

I had a hard time following this story as it was read. I am a fan of audiobooks, but there were several times that I wanted to refer to something earlier in the story, which is much easier when reading a book than listening to one. In the end, I did enjoy the story and though Neil Gaiman did a good job reading it, I would have liked this one more in print. (although I'm living in Peru, I'm from the US and English is my first language so it wasn't a language barrier)

Flawed

Good try, but Sherlock Holmes "look-alikes" tend to be tiresome.

Fun

It's not really possible to cover any of the details of what made this brief story great without giving away things that... well, make the story great.

But seriously, if you're looking at reviews, you're at least moderately interested, so go ahead and "buy" this book for free. Seriously.

Especially for Baker Street Irregulars

Gaiman does as wonderful a job with the reading of this alternate world fantasy as he did with the writing of it. It's especially fun if you know your Sherlockiana, which Gaiman certainly does.

Holmes/Lovecraft mashup

This short story is an alternate history mashup piece of Sherlock Holmes/HP Lovecraft fan fiction. All the familiar faces - Lestrade, Holmes (kind of) and his loyal doctor sidekick - are present as they are brought in to solve the case of a murdered member of the royal family, with the only clue being the word "Rache" written in green ichor at the murder scene.

Green ichor, because the royal family isn't human and this is an alternate history in which eldritch things arrived centuries ago to bestow their benevolent rule upon humanity and relieve us of the necessity of determining our own fates.

That isn't the only twist in this retelling of "A Study in Scarlet," it's just the non-spoilery one revealed in the first few pages.

Honestly, I think Neil Gaiman is a wee bit overrated - his stories are interesting twists and he writes well, but while he does a very good job incorporating myths and legends into modern stories, over and over, and writing what's basically literate fan fiction, I haven't found anything of his to be truly genius since Sandman and Good Omens. Still, I keep reading his stuff because it never fails to be entertaining.

forever entertaining

one of my favorites stories Neil has written and read, always a pleasure to experience

Elegantly done

Whenever Neil Gaiman does something with either Lovecraft or Conan Doyle, good things happen, and since this story mixes both, you expect sparks to fly. As they do.

On one level the story is simply clever -- the situation, the advertisements. But it isn't merely clever, but also reflects an interesting perspective on the way that cultural ideas develop. For example, the Great Old Ones, or whatever Lovecraft called them, fit in here very much like actual European royalty, and their vices, though heinous, probably aren't greater in magnitude or different in kind. And they have much the same claim to legitimacy, which is to say they grabbed power and held onto it, and they're doing a reasonable job running the state, without being too parasitical. They've been around so long that they're part of the national identity now, and people feel properly loyal without questioning very much how all this came about.

So what makes them fundamentally different? The fact that they came from another planet and don't look human? People seem to have adjusted to that well enough, and there's plenty of precedent for foreign-born rulers. In fact, aren't they just the established national order now, and isn't rebellion against them regicide, hence treason? Would Holmes and Watson be the same people without their loyalty to the Crown, or would they just look like sleepwalkers if they were loyal under these circumstances? If they did look like sleepwalkers, would it just be because a familiar cultural process is being shown under an unfamiliar light?

Gaiman narrates the story himself, and it's hard to imagine anyone else doing it better.

A great short story

Keeps you busy and wishing for more.