The Curious Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Volume One

De: Stephen Herczeg

Narrado por: Michael Langan

An eclectic mix of eight stories drawn from the annals of the MX Series of New Sherlock Holmes stories and the many Holmes anthologies of Belanger Books, all from the pen of emerging pastiche author Stephen Herczeg.

Holmes is presented with a dishevelled and confused man that appears to be from another century. Time travel, or something more mysterious?Several years after the mystery of the Engineer’s thumb, Victor Hatherley is again at odds. Will Holmes discover his whereabouts and save him? And what is the connection to Holmes’ greatest foe of all?

Death from the venomous bite of a rare Gila Monster. An accident or is the innocent looking herpetologist not what he seems? A bomb appears beneath the floor of Parliament, along with a threat from Sudanese terrorists. Will Holmes make sense of the warning and identify the culprit?

Holmes must solve the mystery of a dead body found in an alleyway in a retrofuture of steam power.Bodies appear to leave the morgue of their own accord. A mysterious fire draws Holmes to one conclusion. Zombies. On the night of her arranged engagement to a German industrialist, a young woman disappears. A derailed train, and a dead professor sees Holmes befriend an adventurous young woman to solve the mystery and foil the robbery of a priceless relic.

©2021 Steve Herczeg (P)2021 MX Publishing

Takes the title "Curious" very literally

Collection of very odd stories that Holmes and Watson find themselves in. If you're open to expanding the world beyond what Conan Doyle set then this is for you, but it wasn't quite to my taste. Stories were interesting but some strange choices like in the first one, Waston refers to Holmes as "Sherlock" often which isn't how it's done in the canon. A little light on deductions and more focus on watching these strange scenarios play out.
Michael Langdon is an excellent narrator. Always enjoy listening to him voice another tale from Watson's notes

Holmes in a variety of settings

This was interesting. Some of the stories were pretty good, some were so-so, and one was a bit too Mary Sue for me. Holmes in a steampunk retro-future was definitely one of my favorites. But the zombies stretched my suspension of disbelief almost to the breaking point, though of course your mileage may vary.

However, one thing I have to fault the author on is his attempt to use abstruse and recondite vocabulary to make his work sound more erudite. Unfortunately, he doesn't know what several of them mean, as witnessed by how he used them. I know what every one of the words I used to describe his "smart words" attempt means, so I feel I am justified in calling him out for this. It reminds me of the cartoon characters trying to sound smart, using the obviously wrong words.

Now on to the reader. Over all, he is an excellent narrator. His vocal characterizations are first-rate, and he rarely mispronounces words, though he did have a few small ones that had me gritting my teeth, just a bit. But then there was the mispronunciation so huge, so unavoidable, that I was tempted to dock him another star was his butchery of Gila Monster. Although the first word looks like it should be pronounced ghee-la or perhaps gee-la, this a case of an imported word, that doesn't follow the rules of "sound it out." Unfortunately, the correct pronunciation is hee-la, as it is a word of Spanish origin. Since that word occurs very frequently in the story titled "The Case of the Gila Monster," all I can do is shout in my head, "That's NOT how you PRONOUNCE that word!"

Still and all, this was a fun little collection, and probably worth your time.

Thank you for these stories!

I really liked these stories and plan to buy the next volume. I hope the author continues to write more. I like the spirit in which they are written, keeping in line with what I think Holmes and Watson are like, while venturing into different areas. After listening to the entire Holmes canon several times, I get greedy for more. Thank you for what I am sure is very hard work.

Entertaining set of Holmes stories

I enjoyed The Curious Cases of Sherlock Holmes (V1)
By Stephen Herczeg. This collection has something for everyone - classic Conan Doyle style, time travel, spies and even zombies! The narration by Michael Langan was outstanding! He gave a great performance with unique voices for each character.

maybe it's me

For the first time ever with audible, I returned a book. I've been working my way through multiple Sherlock Holmes offerings and found most to be very pleasant. For example, the Richard T Ryan series is one I would recommend to anyone. Unfortunately, The Stephen Herczeg "Curious Cases" were just simplistic, mechanical and uninteresting. Both the writing and the performance reminded me of Data in "Elementary Dear Data" before Moriarty obtains special powers. The book and performance did not work for me.