The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

By: Robert J. Sawyer, Christopher Roden, Michael Moorcock, Anne Perry, Neil Gaiman, Anthony Burgess, Laurie R. King, John Joseph Adams - editor

Narrated by: Simon Vance, Anne Flosnik

Length: 21 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

A modern short-story collection featuring the great detective. Stories included:

"A Sherlockiana Primer", © 2009 by Christopher Roden
"The Horror of the Many Faces", © 2003 by Tim Lebbon
"The Case of the Bloodless Sock", © 2001 by Anne Perry
"The Adventure of the Other Detective", © 2003 by Bradley H. Sinor
"A Scandal in Montreal", © 2008 by Edward D. Hoch
"The Adventure of the Field Theorems"; © 1995 Vonda N. McIntyre
"The Adventure of the Death-Fetch", © 1994 by Darrell Schweitzer
"The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland", © 2005 by Mary Robinette Kowal
"The Adventure of the Mummy's Curse", © 2006 by H. Paul Jeffers
"The Things That Shall Come Upon Them", © 2008 by Barbara Roden
"Murder to Music", © 1989 by Anthony Burgess
"The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor", © 1997 Stephen Baxter
"Mrs. Hudson's Case", © 1997 Laurie R. King
"The Singular Habits of Wasps", © 1994 by Geoffrey A. Landis
"The Affair of the 46th Birthday"; © 2009 by Amy Myers
"The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey", © 2001 by Peter Tremayne
"The Vale of the White Horse"; © 2003 by Sharyn McCrumb
"The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger", © 1993 by Michael Moorcock
"The Adventure of the Lost World", © 2004 by Dominic Green
"The Adventure of the Antiquarian's Niece"; © 2003 by Barbara Hambly
"Dynamics of a Hanging", © 2005 by Tony Pi
"Merridew of Abominable Memory" © 2008 by Monkeybrain, Inc.
"Commonplaces" © 2008-2009 by Naomi Novik
"The Adventure of the Pirates of Devil's Cape", © 2009 by Rob Rogers
"The Adventure of the Green Skull", © 2008 by Mark Valentine
"The Human Mystery", © 1999 by Tanith Lee
"A Study in Emerald", © 2003 by Neil Gaiman
"You See But You Do Not Observe", © 1995 by Robert J. Sawyer.

©2010 John Joseph Adams (P)2010 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"For the most part, this volume of short Sherlock Holmes pastiches - a mix of straightforward imitations and parodies - delivers on its goal of presenting the best of such work from the last 30 years....Barbara Roden's "The Things That Shall Come Upon Them" riffs cleverly on M.R. James's "Casting the Runes". Perhaps the highlight is Peter Tremayne's "The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey", which offers a plausible explanation for a classic untold tale in which a man disappears from the face of the earth after returning home to fetch an umbrella." ( Publishers Weekly)

Improbable and Incredible.

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.

Very Enjoyable

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.

A mixed bag: with agonising introductions!

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!

Good when good, bad when bad

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.

Save your money

They tried. They failed. Save your Audible credits for the real thing by Arthur Conan Doyle

Terrific Entertainment

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.

Not impressed by these improbable stories

I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes, and find many of these stories to be surreal, disturbing and even silly. If you're a die-hard fan looking for well-planned, believable, enjoyable stories to add to your library, pass on this one.

The Case of the Missing Author

"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.

You'll not forget these stories!

I'm coming back to write this review several months after finishing this book. The narration is superb in almost all places, and the stories by some of today's top writers are just stunning. I can truly say that now, many months after finishing the book, I find myself driving along in my car and suddenly unable to think about anything except one or another of these highly original and inventive tales. Even a knowledgeable Holmes fan will find fresh insights and weird alarums and diversions that you never could have imagined. Outstanding merger of a classic foundation and brilliant new imaginations.

EDITING where is it?

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.

I've really enjoyed these stories.

It took me a long time to decide whether or not to download this book of stories. I love Sherlock Holmes' amazing and logical powers of deduction and didn't know if I liked the sound of some of the tales in this selection.
Some of the stories are better than others but they all have the feel of Conan Doyle's Sherlock and Watson and I've really enjoyed this audio download.
One downside is the American who explains a little about the author of each story before each story begins. I don't like his voice, especially his pronunciation of "Moriarty".... but this is a small niggle.
If you like Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock and Watson there's a good chance you'll enjoy this book.

A Mixed Bag, but an Enjoyable One

Perhaps unsurprisingly,the quality here varies wildly. Some stories evoke Doyle brilliantly, while others demonstrate the poorer instincts of fanfiction: Watson's American nephew will turn up as a Mary Sue for the (US) author or dialogue will be peppered with Americanisms followed by "-as our American cousins would say".



Enjoyment depends a bit on familiarity with the Doyle stories. Some authors seem to use crib-sheets of clichés, rather than canon. Thus Irene Adler is the *only* thing able to coax Holmes out of retirement (to America, naturally), and Watson still reels in surprise at basic deductions, despite decades of friendship with Holmes. Comically, a third of the stories make painstaking reference to Holmes filling his pipe from a Persian slipper - a detail only actually mentioned once by Doyle.



Yet other stories are wonderful, a superb melding of Doyle's style with the weird. Most fall into the format of "Holmes+": Holmes+Lovecraft, Holmes+Time Travel, etc. The best work both as satisfying detective stories as well as genre tales, and the worst at least maintain your interest for the genre-mashing. A highlight combines Holmes with psychic detective Flaxman Low: they investigate in tandem, providing parallel solutions (one natural, one supernatural) and the listener must make his/her mind up.



The only sour note is the continual presence of the Editor, who introduces each story... often badly. "This story involves parallel universes," he says. Well that's the solution to that one then.



Simon Vance is on excellent form, with a very traditional Holmes and Watson that grounds the pastiches nicely before they fly off into stranger realms. Flosnik, though able, is less successful. She reads those stories with female narrators (good plan), but then parades through Italian, Scottish, and Somerset accents with little success.



At 22 hours and over 30 stories, treat this as a lucky dip. Variable quality, but worth it for the highlights.

Some good, some bad

What did you like best about The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes? What did you like least?

There are some excellent stories in this collection, especially those that occupy the more improbable or impossible reimaginings of Sherlock's world, as suggested by the title. There are unfortunately also many duller offerings, which don't seem to fit the brief at all and leave the listener wondering why they are part of the collection. The same can be said for the narration: Simon Vance does a great job of producing voices for both Watson and Holmes which are uncannily like the ones I have in my head when reading Holmes stories. Anne Flosnik, on the other hand, has no business reading audio books, least of all those which require any kind of regional accent.

What three words best describe Simon Vance and Anne Flosnik ’s voice?

Vance > Flosnik

Improbable is right.

The stories are improbable, but some of them are also very entertaining and in the style of Conan Doyle. What is difficult to take is the reading of the link man between the first few stories, who seems to have never read Sherlock Holmes and persists in calling Moriaty, Holmes arch enemy ' Morierity' Surely someone doing such a job should at least get the pronunciation of a charector right.!!! On the whole a good listen, if in places a tad too improbable.

OK stories irritating commentary between

What would have made The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes better?

The correct pronunciation of Profession MORIATY would help

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

Stories are OK but the commentary in-between is distracting and irritating.

Would you be willing to try another one of Simon Vance and Anne Flosnik ’s performances?

NO - The constant mispronunciation of Profession MORIATY is extremely annoying

What character would you cut from The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?

The bits in-between the stories

Any additional comments?

FFS pronounce Profession MORIATY properly

A different light on Holmes.

Great stories and great production. Each one was well told and chapters were not too long.

Short story collection

This is a fun collection of alternative detective stories set in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Would recommend it.

Not for me

What would have made The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes better?

Better stories and more importantly better narration.

What was most disappointing about the authors’s story?

This was a series of short stories, to be honest I gave up half way through as they were all so bad.

Would you be willing to try another one of Simon Vance and Anne Flosnik ’s performances?

No

What character would you cut from The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes?

That would probably not help but I suppose the fictionalised Conan Doyle was pretty cringe worthy

Any additional comments?

The "Scottish Accent" was in my opinion as bad as it gets.

Fantastic collection

If, like me, you love Sherlock Holmes (and Dr Watson!) but have heard all of the stories, you will love this collection of new ones. The intros to each book are done by an American who cannot say Moriarty (Mor-e-are-it-ee!) but the narrotors of the main stories are excellent. Plus its 22 hours, so it represents great value!

Arrgh

The stories are good but that bloody American talking between them is like nails on a chalkboard who the hell is Morierty its MoriArty you clod.