Another freebie: "Selections From the Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"

[Fumesucker]

I'm about halfway through this little collection at the moment (only ten of them are available online), a couple of the stories are a trifle bizarre and perhaps Lovecraftian but some of them are really interesting and fun for the SF fan who also digs Holmes (and I think most of us do) and at least one gave me several good chuckles.

http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/F1597801607/F1597801607.htm

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Which leads us to the focus of this anthology and to another of Holmes's famous quotes: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

As a rationalist, I agree wholeheartedly with Holmes's assessment of the world. But as a science fiction and fantasy reader, I enjoy wondering what if. So that's the question: If Holmes investigates a crime scene and has all of his deduction techniques at his disposal, but one variable has changed—Holmes can't eliminate the impossible—what then?

Well, dear reader, you're about to find out. In the pages that follow you'll find twenty-eight different mystery scenarios, but when you investigate the crimes alongside Holmes you will not be able to eliminate the impossible, for in some of these stories the impossible does happen.

That's the idea behind this volume—to showcase the best Holmes pastiches of the last thirty years, mixing the best straight-up mystery stories with the best of those tales tinged with the fantastic. Meaning that some of the cases you'll read about have prosaic solutions, while others will have a decidedly more fantastic resolution.

[Beetwasher]

1. I Bought This Book, But Haven't Read It Yet