John Adams - The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

© 2009

"The Adventure of the Inertial Adjustor" by Stephen Baxter. © 1997 Stephen Baxter. Originally published in The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Murder to Music" by Anthony Burgess. © 1989 Anthony Burgess. Originally published in The Devil's Mode. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Anthony Burgess.

"A Study in Emerald" by Neil Gaiman. © 2003 Neil Gaiman. Originally published in Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Adventure of the Lost World" by Dominic Green. © 2004 Dominic Green. Originally published online in BBCi Cult Sherlock Holmes Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Adventure of the Antiquarian's Niece" by Barbara Hambly. © 2003 Barbara Hambly. Originally published in Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"A Scandal in Montreal " by Edward D. Hoch. © 2008 Edward D. Hoch. Originally published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Edward D. Hoch.

"The Adventure of the Mummy's Curse" by H. Paul Jeffers. © 2006 H. Paul Jeffers. Originally published in Ghosts in Baker Street (as "Sherlock Holmes and the Mummy's Curse"). Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Mrs Hudson's Case" by Laurie R. King. © 1997 Laurie R. King. Originally published in Crime Through Time. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Doctor's Case" by Stephen King. © 1987 Stephen King. Originally published in The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Shocking Affair of the Dutch Steamship Friesland by Mary Robinette Kowal. © 2005 Mary Robinette Kowal. Originally published in The First Line. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Singular Habits of Wasps" by Geoffrey A. Landis. © 1994 Geoffrey A. Landis. Originally published in Analog Science Fiction & Fact. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Horror of the Many Faces" by Tim Lebbon. © 2003 Tim Lebbon. Originally published in Shadows Over Baker Street: New Tales of Terror. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Human Mystery" by Tanith Lee. © 1999 Tanith Lee. Originally published in More Holmes for the Holidays. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Vale of the White Horse" by Sharyn McCrumb. © 2003 Sharyn McCrumb. Originally published in Murder, My Dear Watson. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Adventure of the Field Theorems" by Vonda N. McIntyre. © 1995 Vonda N. McIntyre. Originally published in Sherlock Holmes in Orbit. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Adventure of the Dorset Street Lodger" by Michael Moorcock. © 1993 Michael Moorcock. Originally privately published for David Shapiro and Joe Piggott, reprinted in Tales from the Texas Woods, 1995, and in The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures, 1997. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Affair of the 46th Birthday" by Amy Myers. © 2009 Amy Myers. Originally published in The Strand. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Commonplaces" by Naomi Novik. © 2008-2009 Naomi Novik.

"The Case of the Bloodless Sock," by Anne Perry. © 2001 Anne Perry. First published in Murder in Baker Street, edited by Martin H Greenberg, Jon Lellenberg and Daniel Stashower, Caroll & Graf. Reprinted by permission of the author and her agents, the Donald Maass Literary Agency, 121 West 27 thStreet, New York, NY, 10001, USA, in association with MBA Literary Agents Ltd., London.

"Dynamics of a Hanging" by Tony Pi. © 2005 Tony Pi. Originally published in Shred of Evidence. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"Merridew of Abominable Memory" by Chris Roberson. © 2008 Monkeybrain, Inc. Originally published in Gaslight Grimoire. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Things That Shall Come Upon Them" by Barbara Roden. © 2008 Barbara Roden. Originally published in Gaslight Grimoire. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"A Sherlockiana Primer" by Christopher Roden. © 2009 Christopher Roden. Original to this volume.

"The Adventure of the Pirates of Devil's Cape " by Rob Rogers. © 2009 Rob Rogers. Original to this volume.

"You See But You Do Not Observe" by Robert J. Sawyer. © 1995 Robert J. Sawyer. Originally published in Sherlock Holmes in Orbit. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Adventure of the Death-Fetch" by Darrell Schweitzer. © 1994 Darrell Schweitzer. Originally published in The Game is Afoot. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Adventure of the Other Detective" by Bradley H. Sinor. © 2003 Bradley H. Sinor. Originally published in Dark and Stormy Nights. Reprinted by permission of the author.

"The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey" by Peter Tremayne. © 2001 Peter Tremayne. Originally published in Villains Victorious. Reprinted by permission of Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents, Inc.

"The Adventure of the Green Skull" by Mark Valentine. © 2008 Mark Valentine. Originally published in Sherlock Holmes: The Game's Afoot. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Sherlock Holmes. The name is ubiquitous, familiar to everyone in the world whether or not they've read of his exploits. Pretty impressive for a fictional character created more than 120 years ago.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created Holmes in the late-nineteenth century, with the first adventure, A Study in Scarlet, appearing in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. Conan Doyle's entire output of fiction featuring Holmes consists of only four novels and fifty-six stories [1]-a staggeringly small body of work considering the tremendous influence Holmes has had-but something about the detective captured the reading public's imagination like no other character of his era, and he has continued to delight and captivate readers ever since.

Holmes, the world's first (and most famous) consulting detective, was one of the first great literary action-adventure heroes whose defining qualities were his intelligence and deductive reasoning rather than bravery or brawn. Which is not to say that Holmes is a coward or a weakling; being well-versed in the art of boxing and the martial art of Bartitsu [2], he is capable of besting almost anyone in a fight-he'd just rather outwit you than beat you up.

Holmes's devotion to evidence and observation were quite revolutionary in his day, and to Conan Doyle's Victorian readers his methods must have seemed a bit like science fiction. To the modern reader, it's obvious that Holmes is employing rudimentary forensic science-a huge advantage in an age when many people still believed in fairies (as Conan Doyle did) and other supernatural phenomena.

Although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was keenly interested in the supernatural, Holmes eschewed such ideas and believed only in what he could prove. And while Conan Doyle did place Holmes into some situations in which a supernatural explanation seemed to be a possibility, in every instance, Holmes managed to find a prosaic solution. After all, as Holmes once said: "The world is big enough for us. No ghosts need apply." [3]