Review: Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets: An Anthology of Holmesian Tales Across Time and Space by Kasey Lansdale, Glen Mehn, Guy Adams

SUMMARY FROM NETGALLEY.COM:

The world's most famous detective, as you’ve never seen him before! This is a collection of orginal short stories finding Holmes and Watson in times and places you would never have expected!
A dozen established and up-and-coming authors invite you to view Doyle’s greatest creation through a decidedly cracked lens.
Read about Holmes and Watson through time and space, as they tackle a witch-trial in seventeenthcentury Scotland, bandy words with Andy Warhol in 1970s New York, travel the Wild Frontier in the Old West, solve future crimes in a world of robots and even cross paths with a young Elvis Presley...
Set to include stories by Kasey Lansdale, Guy Adams, Jamie Wyman, J E Cohen, Gini Koch, Glen Mehn, Kelly Hale, Kaaron Warren, Emma Newman and more.

MY TAKE:
If you like all (or most) things Sherlock like I do, then you'll want to read this book.

In Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets: An Anthology of Holmesian Tales Across Time and Space, each of the stories introduce readers to Sherlock and Watson versions that are found in settings/time/situations that are much different to how we are used to reading about them.

I enjoyed this book a lot. With most anthologies, you usually find a few stories you hate, a few you find boring and maybe one or two favorites. With this book, I didn't find a story I hated or was bored by. There were a couple of stories, namely The Lantern Man by Kaaron Warren and A Study in Scarsborough by Guy Adams that creeped me out a little bit. Strangely, though, while the subject matter of The Rich Man's Hand by Joan de la Haye was scary, I was more interested than scared. I think it would make a good Supernatural-Elementary crossover episode.

My two favorite stories, on the other hand, were The Innocent Icarus by James Lovegrove and All the Single Ladies by Gini Koch. The Innocent Icarus is set in a world where most people have supernatural abilities of some sort. It's more of like in the 2009 movie Push than the X-men movies, though, as the abilities are accepted in this society. In All the Single Ladies, while I was able to correctly solve the mystery right away, I still enjoyed the story because I liked the Sherlock in this tale. Here, Sherlock is a woman. Of course, I immediately imagined Lucy Liu saying whatever the character said. Which probably contributed to me liking the character here, since I think Lucy Liu is a fantastic Watson.

Thanks to NetGalley and Abaddon for the e-ARC. Publication date of Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets: An Anthology of Holmesian Tales Across Time and Space is on October 7, 2014.

THE GOOD:

1. There's something for everyone.
2. Some of the stories suggest or outright show a romantic relationship between Sherlock and Watson (if that's your sort of thing).
3. Sherlock or Watson are portrayed as strong female characters in some of the stories. 

THE BAD:

1. There are some stories that may be too creepy for you if you are scared easily. 

READ IT IF:

1. You are a Sherlock Holmes fans. 
2. You like reading fanfiction.
3. You like the idea of reading different versions of Sherlock Holmes and other characters in the Holmes universe.

RATING:


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