Sunday, 8 November 2009

The Mammoth book of new Sherlock Holmes stories


EDITED BY Mike Ashley
Introduction by Richard Lancelyn Green
Robinson Books £7.99

Anyone new to the Sherlock Holmes stories who has been inspired to try them out after the Tainted Archive's Holmes weekend, could do a lot worse than pick up something like this. True the stories do not come from Doyle himself but they do fill in the gaps in the detective's chronology that were left blank or only hinted at.

The line up of writers, all Holmes fans, is impressive - Micheal Moorcock, Stephen Baxter, Guy N. Smith, Edward Hoch and many more. In all there are 26 stories here that all add something to the original canon.

There are stories here from Holmes' youth, some concentrating on cases Watson mentioned in the canon but never documented and others set during the detective's latter years.

There's an indepth introduction from well known Sherlockian Richard Lancelyn Green and a detailed chronology that attempts to put the original Holmes stories in order. For instance the book tells us that, from dates and clues in the original canon, Holmes must have been born in 1853. It then goes into great details and charts out the entire life from birth to death.

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