Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets
Edited by David Thomas Moore.
From under the mirror balls of Studio 54 to the heart of a bloody Wizard war, this is Holmes and Watson as you’ve never, ever seen them before. In Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets Abaddon Books editor David Moore has brought together the finest celebrated and new talent in SF and Fantasy writing to create a new generation of Holmes stories that will confound everything you ever thought you knew about Doyle’s most famous characters.
Featuring witch trials, fanfiction and a host of grisly murders Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets is a contemporary look at the world of Sherlock Holmes that will go far beyond just delighting fans of the books, television shows and films, and provide a challenging new world for genre lovers to explore.
Editor David Moore on the collection:
“As a Victorian, Sherlock Holmes is more Wilde than Disraeli. He’s not the stuffy, pompous, superior gentleman of the public imagination, but a fey, brooding, dangerous Hob, a mad genius bent on his own destruction, whose passion for the hunt is as much a mark of his unsteady mind as his cocaine abuse. Taking him out of Doyle’s time – Doyle’s world – allows you to showcase the real Holmes, to audiences that might never find him otherwise. This was my chance to do that.”
The authors
Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets consists of 14 original stories by 9 women and 5 men, including NYT bestsellers, award winning writers and exciting new talents.
Adrian Tchaikovsky // Emma Newman //Gini Koch // Glen Mehn // Guy Adam // Ian Edginton // James Lovegrove // Jamie Wyman // JE Cohen // Jennie Hill // Joan de la Haye // Kaaron Warren // Kasey Lansdale // Kelly Hale
Contents:
- “All the Single Ladies,” by Gini Koch. A college in the hills above Los Angeles is in a frenzy as filming for a new reality show begins. Until girls targeted by the show – girls who had all been to see the college doctor, John Watson – begin turning up dead...
- “Half There/All There,” by Glen Mehn. 1968: at New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel, it’s time to Turn On, Tune In and Drop Out. But under the twenty-four-hour party, darker things are afoot, as new friends John and Sherlock are about to discover.
- “The Lantern Men,” by Kaaron Warren. The sleepy rural town of Peppertree is somewhere you come back to, to reflect – as architect Sherlock Holmes is – on what might have been. Is the old museum haunted, or is just the dreams and regrets of years gone by?
- “Black Alice,” by Kelly Hale. In the enlightened days of the late 1600s, a charge of murder by witchcraft seems equal parts folly and fantasy. But unless Holmes can prove one poor Worcestershire housemaid’s innocence, it could spell death.
- “The Patchwork Killer,” by Kasey Lansdale. A string of grisly murders and bizarre mutilations, the victims’ skin cut up into squares like a patchwork. For the great-grandnephew of the famous John Watson and his mysterious assistant, it’s just another day.
- “The Innocent Icarus,” by James Lovegrove. In a world of extraordinary men and women, where the power of flight, or skin strong as steel, are commonplace – in this world, in short – perhaps only a lowly Typical, like Sherlock Holmes, can truly excel...
- “The Final Conjuration,” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Seven great wizards rule the world, and have for time out of mind. When one is murdered, war – a war that could destroy all – seems certain. Unless Wu Tsen can once more recruit the aid of his pet demon, the Sherlock.
- “The Adventure of the Speckled Bandana,” by JE Cohen. A robbery from a waxworks seems straightforward enough, except for the culprit leaving payment, but to Sherlock Holmes – solver of the Puzzle of the Grassy Knoll and the Scandal at Watergate – there’s always more to it.
- “A Woman’s Place,” by Emma Newman. A hundred years into Britain’s future, a dubiously benign DotGov watches us all through our very brains – all, that is, bar the extraordinary Sherlock Holmes – while Mrs. Hudson watches her charge solve the ultimate mystery: his own.
- “The Rich Man’s Hand,” by Joan de la Haye. Pretoria can be dangerous, as Holmes’ latest case – a murdered and eviscerated businessman, his hand severed at the wrist – attests. The townships are rife with superstitions, and the death seems likely to be linked to the occult...
- “A Scandal in Hobohemia,” by Jamie Wyman. In the heart of the Dust Bowl, in the grips of the Great Depression, the Soggiorno Brothers’ Traveling Wonder Show is home to more than just freaks and carnies. Sanford Haus, the legendary investigator, is on the case!
- “Parallels,” by Jenni Hill. Secondary school can be tough, especially if – like Charlotte and Jane – you refuse to fit in. But when Jane’s ex-boyfriend steals her notebook, where she scribbles endless Sherlock Holmes alternate-universe fanfic, it threatens to get much worse...
- “The Small World of 221B,” by Ian Edginton. John Watson is a fictional character. It was the invitation to a wedding in the oddly anachronistic Longbourn in Meryton that roused his suspicions; when Sherlock started fiddling around with the neighbour’s time machine, he was sure of it.
- “A Study in Scarborough,” by Guy Adams. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are household names, two of the greats of the ‘golden age’ of British radio comedy. To young Arthur Doyle, they’re legends. He’s visiting Watson to research his book; but he may yet learn more than he’d like.
Book Reviews
It really is a shame that this anthology didn't contain Two Hundred and Twenty-One stories; I would have liked to read on and on because most of the stories were so inventive, creepy, peculiar and - above all - written with loving details. It wasn't much important which case Holmes and Watson had to investigate (although the cases too were sometimes quite weird), it was the surrounding what mattered. Also quite cheerful and genial were the comments of Mr Moore at the beginning of each new chapter which point the reader in the right direction already without telling too much. I hope that Mr Moore will go on with a search for authors who have already written or intend to write more of such stories. I'd love to continue reading!