Shadows over Baker Street--Review

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Rating: ***1/2 (out of *****)
Summary: About twenty short stories that combine the world of Arthur Conan Doyle with the cosmos of H.P. Lovecraft.

Review: While a pleasant walk down nostalgia lane, revisiting two of the most frequented sites of my youth, still not a particularly strong anthology. As one would expect with pastiche or hommage stories, there is much here that is slick and superficial and that fails to get at the depth of the appeal of either author.

Possibly one of the reasons for this is that it wasn't particularly the world of the authors that was appealing in itself--it was that world and the language that created it. Thus, present the world without the language and there is much to be desired in the writing.

Still, if you enjoy both characters this is worth a look for a couple of stories, most particularly the final one in the anthology. Also there are a couple that elaborate on Watson's Afghanistan experience that are fairly interesting. Still and all, nothing that really recaptures the sense of awe and dread of H.P. Lovecraft, and the usual slick Holmsian surface without the resonance of Doyle's presentation.

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This page contains a single entry by Steven Riddle published on January 12, 2004 8:29 AM.

Prayer Requests 1/12/04 was the previous entry in this blog.

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