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Shadows over Baker Street
 
 
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Shadows over Baker Street (Hardcover)

by Michael Reaves (Author), John Pelan (Editor) "It is the immensity, I believe ..." (more)
3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Ballantine Books Inc.; 1 edition (30 Jul 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0345455282
  • ISBN-13: 978-0345455284
  • Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 14.8 x 3.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 868,126 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Synopsis

Sherlock Holmes enters the macabre and nightmarish world of H.P. Lovecraft to solve a series of bizarre cases in a collection of short fiction by such authors as Neil Gaiman, Steve Perry, Brian Stableford, and Poppy Z. Brite.
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Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
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3.3 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing literary games, 11 Jan 2006
By S. Bentley "stuarthoratiobentley" (North Yorkshire) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror! (Paperback)
At first blush, mixing the eminently logical Sherlock Holmes with the obviously inexplicable (and importantly so) Cthulu mythos is either a brave idea or a stupid one. However, it has been done before and very well by Andy Lane in the Doctor Who novel All-Consuming Fire so I was interested to see what this collection of short stories would offer.

The stories are definitely divided into two types, with one possible exception. In the first the story features characters from the Holmes stories, though not necessarily Holmes and Watson. Thus we have tales of Irene Adler, Sebastian Moran and teamings of Holmes with other partners. On the whole I would say these are the more interesting tales, probably because the authors have a greater latitude than when producing pastiches of Conan Doyle. This leads to the second variety which are straight forward clashes of Holmes and Watson and Lovecraftian Elder Gods and their minions. Most are servicable and some are most enjoyable. However there are elements that are a little too repetitive, such as Watson never being able to forget the inexplicable events of that ghastly evening at the start of each such story. In a way this is a fault of the editors if the stories were commissioned for the volume, as there is little sense that they are building on each other, despite claims that the stories should fit Holmes' canonical timeline. This is especially so with the absolute standout story of this collection, Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald, which is undoubtedly an alternate literary history story (in that it cannot really take place in the accepted Holmes' reality without it veering very heavily from our own history).

As said, the stories are on the whole solidly written, although there are few that really spark the two concepts off each other. An attempt is made in Brian Stableford's Art in the Blood, which does point to the innate incompatibility of the two but also features a near-deification of Holmes that doesn't quite fit. Elizabeth Bear's tale of colonial India is vey enjoyable and works all the better for not featuring the Great Detective. There are a couple of duffers as you would expect. Steve Perry's tale of Holmes receiving a midnight visitor trots out the show of deductive reasoning, but goes nowhere.

That said, on the whole the book is good fun. Many of the writers are talented enough to carry off what they intend and if you've read all the Holmes stories by Doyle and crave more, this might well hit the spot.

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A mixture..., 22 Nov 2006
By S. Larner (Edinburgh, Lothian United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Firstly I'd like to say that this is a fantastic premise for an anthology! Being a fan of both Conan Doyle and Lovecraft, I couldn't resist getting my hands on this.

The stories themselves, as in many of these anthologies, contains a roughly equal number of hits and misses and a fair few near hits that are entertaining enough without being brilliant. In my opinion, the weakest stories are those that attempt to write a Conan Doyle story with Lovecraftian horror elements and succeed on neither front.

There are a few noteworthies, though, and these are the ones that attempt to go on a completely different tack to a "typical" Holmes or Lovecraft story. "Tiger! Tiger!" is an interesting tale featuring Sebastion Moran and Irene Adler in India (no sign of Holmes or Watson!) more in the style of a Rider Haggard action yarn than ACD or HPL. The Weeping Masks is another good-un set during Watson's army days in Afghanistan and Art in The Blood is a very successful "true" horror story.

The icing on the cake, however, is Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald". It's fantastic and, in my opinion, worth the price of the book alone. I won't give the plot away, but it shows great respect and understanding to Conan Doyle and Lovecraft's creations while at the same time turning the whole thing on it's head.

So there you have it - although the anthology as a whole is pretty much a 3-star book, I personally was willing to go through the mediocre works to uncover the real gems (which adds another star on!). And, lets face it, even a mediocre story has got to be worth reading if it pits Holmes and Watson against the Cthulhu mythos!
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Nice idea........, 25 Nov 2006
By M. Marshall - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror! (Paperback)
The idea of pitting Holmes against Lovecraft is inspired and, in theory, should produce equally inspired results. But........

The problem with this anthology is that many of the stories are formulaic - Holmes and Watson are enticed to some forbidding location, find themselves confronted with some Lovecraftian nasty, defeat/escape said nasty and go home. Individually, none of the stories are terrible (although some are rather pulpy) but taken as a whole they do rather lack distinction. There are exceptions of course, such as Neil Gaiman's opener "A Study In Emerald" but generally the stories follow a well-trodden path. If you do give this book a go my advice would be to dip into it rather than read it straight through.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Pure Lunacy Watson
As an admirer of both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and HP Lovecraft i was sufficiently curious enough to rush out and buy this book.

BIG MISTAKE... Read more
Published 23 months ago by alsmuse

4.0 out of 5 stars 3 1/2 stars for very good collection of Holmes/Cthulu mythos tales
Holmes continues to fascinate as a character. This brilliant detective who underneath his sharp intellect has all too human flaws has appeared in a number of novels over the years... Read more
Published on 21 May 2007 by Wayne Klein

4.0 out of 5 stars Nicely done
I could not fail to get this as an ardent Lovecraft reader and a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes.

The cover art does prepare you for a pulpy roam through a collection of... Read more
Published on 5 Jan 2007 by D. Hunt

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