The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

If you're precious about Doyle's works, I probably wouldn't recommend this. It does tend to lean more towards the speculative than the detective side. Then again it's a little strange in my opinion to be a staunch defender of the Holmesian canon when the author himself said to another writer "You may marry [Holmes], or murder or do what you like with him."

And these authors do. If you allow yourself more than your usual helping of willing suspension of disbelieve you will encounter terror, hilarity, shock, excitement and suspense. You will also discover (and this is an official spoiler alert) dinosaurs, pirates, Siamese twins, mummy's curses, Jack the Ripper, alien abductions, Lovecraftian horrors (a lot of these actually), alternate dimensions, ghost, ghouls, strange contraptions and some brilliant interpretations of the world's greatest consulting detective. We also get a slew of cameos from Doyle's work as well as the appearance of actual historical figures (including Doyle himself. Twice.)

I tended to dislike Anne Flosnik narrations but that could be because they pale in comparison to Simon Vance's renditions. His are genius.

The quality varies from author to author as you would expect, but there has to be at least one tale here that tickles your fancy. For all the ones I hated there were two I adored. I highly recommend this collection.

First, I must point out that I am not a die-hard Sherlock Holmes aficionado. I’ve read some of the stories, but not all, watched the TV series with Jeremy Brett, seen some other adaptations. I fall into that category of Holmes’s fans who can enjoy departures from the canon. (I even enjoyed the recent movie featuring Holmes.)

About the book, Simon Vance is (as I anticipated) brilliant. The other narrator was fine, but the reader who introduces the stories has an annoying voice; fortunately the introductions are short. The stories themselves are very respectful of Doyle’s characters. Frankly, given the number SF and fantasy writers, I expected to find Holmes in some very unusual territory. This was not the case. While there were a few stories I just couldn’t make it through, they were few and far between. (The notable stand-out for truly horrible story which did not respect the Holmes canon was the one by Sharyn McCrumb, who made her story about her characters and her themes with little respect for Holmes; I did not finish that one.)
Overall, I found that the number of stories I really enjoyed far outweighed the ones I just couldn’t endure. As a final thought, most of the “chapter” breaks are between stories, so it is easy to find the beginning of a new story.

In a sentence this book is waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyy too long. It really could have used a tougher editor. Some of these stories are as good as short stories get. Yet, sadly, others reek of ham handed Fan Fiction. It's as if they simply included every story they received without review.
But you can't argue with value. At 30+ hours it's well worth the one credit. Just keep the skip button handy.
Oh, and where is the Stephen King story? I could not find it either.

I was skeptical at first, but I was hooked after the american stopped talking and the Brit started reading about Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu. Such brilliant stories!

"Stephen King does a solid job of giving Dr. Watson a chance to show his own detective skills in "The Good Doctor" - Critics Comment

I couldn't find this story in the TOC or on this "unabridged" recording. Otherwise, I enjoyed the narrator and some of the stories.

As a lover of the Sherlock Holmes stories, I really enjoyed the unique approach offered in having Holmes solve these Sci-fi mysteries . The stories are well written and the editor (John Joseph Adams) does a fantastic job of maintaining the continuity of the narrating form used of Watson throughout the book.

Simon Vance is a great narrator and he does a particularly good job in his portrayal of all the English characters in this book, but especially Holmes and Watson. Very Entertaining in deed,.

I have to say, first off, that I found John Joseph Adams' introductions excruciating. Amiable fellow he may be, but I really don't enjoy being told what I'm about to think of something, or how many obscure SF awards a particular writer has received, and convenient chapters allowing the introductions to each piece to be easily skipped would have been a real plus from my perspective.

Simon Vance, on the other hand, is a consistently outstanding Watson, and where he is the narrator his efforts really help to lift the material; in some cases this is certainly required, as some stories fall well short of the original mark.

The tales are indeed a mixed bag, with many showing Science Fiction and Fantasy leanings, and some even outright Horror. Most manage to capture the 'Sherlockian' tone well enough, but some manage to combine 'dull' with 'faithful'.

However, there's more good than bad, and the collection as a whole constitutes agreeable entertainment.

While I prefer more straightforward detective narratives with the typical rationalist flavour of the original, I found Neil Gaiman's effort the most appealing, despite its reliance on the whole gamut of SF, Fantasy, and even Horror. I don't know that my namesake would have approved, but I'm sure that Gaiman has placed his two characters exactly where he would have wanted them to be in this nightmarish alternate past.

My recommendation? If you're a Holmes fan, and have enjoyed respectful pastiches such as Bert Coules' 'Further Adventures...' radio plays for the BBC, AND you have a credit to spare, I reckon you'll be happy enough!

Let's face it, certain stories in this series are particularly non-canon. And there are even a few that are almost insulting in their cavalier creative lisence with the characters. However, even those stories I've mentioned above aren't without a certain amusement for someone who can take a little ribbing about being a Holmes fanatic. Just remember that not everyone is as reverant as a devoted fan and shouldn't have to be to enjoy spinning these characters into new stories that give us more chances to see them in action. As long as you're prepared to take this series of shorts as just that, a series of short stories and not an attempt to revamp or in any way challenge the Arthur Conan Doyle versions of our heroes, you'll find it, over all, a very satisfying listen.

This book is tooooo long and mixes genres from sheer fantasy to mystery. About half the stories are hack stories with little or no point to them. There are some great stories in this book though. Although, the description of the actual book claims to include a story from Stephen King. It is not included in this story - so it can't be called "unabridged".

Naration is 4.5 stars. 5 Stars for Simon and 4 for Ms. Flosnik. Simon plays an excellent Dr. Watson. Anne had some trouble in her first couple of stories. Her accents were a little off, but she did an overall good job. Her last story was well done.

To dispose of the obvious, I am not a Sherlockian. I also don't have a homoerotic sidekick, ingest heroin on weekends, or have an IQ that exceeds the combined IQ of the FOX nightly news broadcasters (squared). Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The stories were mixed but overall entertaining, and the reading by Simon Vance was, to put a fine point on it, spectacular--he is Dr.Watson. The handful of stories read by Flosnik were also generally passable (hint faint praise). I enjoyed the book and you will too, unless you have based your Assistant Professorship on a critical analysis of Sherlockian pastiche.