David Thomas Moore

This collection of Sherlock Holmes stories just didn't work out for me. As a long-time Sherlock Holmes fan did I look forward reading a collection of stories that places the detective in situations one usually doesn't find him in. I love science fiction and the idea of the famous detective tackling more supernatural crimes sounded very interesting.

However, I just didn't find the stories in the collection to be especially memorable or interesting to read. too many of them was just frankly boring to read, with very few of them catching my interest.

So, in the end, this was just not a collection that suited me, there were some stories that were a bit better than the rest, but not really any fantastic stories.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!… (meer)

This is a really interesting collection of stories that subvert and play with Kipling's "Just So Stories," from the point of view of the people colonised by Britain. As in any collection with multiple authors, some stories are stronger than others, but overall the quality is very high, and the approaches are mixed, from faux fairy tales to realistic stories to a couple of really good and creepy ghost stories. My favorites were "How the Spider Got Her Legs" by Cassandra Khaw, "Best Beloved" by Wayne Santos, "How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic" by Jeannette Ng, "How the Ants Got Their Queen" by Stewart Hotston, and "There is No Such Thing as a Whizzy-Gang" by Raymond Gates.… (meer)

As I made my way through David Thomas Moore's anthology "Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets: An Anthology of Holmesian Tales Across Time and Space" I couldn't help but think 'I wish I had edited this book'. Not because I think it's poorly edited, needed work, or anything like that, but because I'm bloody envious of how good it is while being so far off the beaten track of a typical Sherlock Holmes anthology. Of the 14 stories presented, all of which are more or less 'alternate universe' takes on Holmes and Watson, there is only one clunker, which is mighty impressive given the ease with which most stories could have gone wildly off the rails. Be aware, in some stories you will not find anyone named Sherlock Holmes. This antho isn't about mimicry of ACD's writing style, or structure of stories; it's about characters, iconic characters whose bundle of traits are 'universal' in a literary, not literal, sense, and work in any place or time. I like this book. Its smart. It's challenging. It's an exploration. The concept behind it and the various ideas that drive it, work for me. Easily the best book of Sherlock Holmes related fiction I've read this year.… (meer)