Awesome Tales #07: The Strange Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Awesome Tales #7 (Winter 2018) is out from Bold Venture Press and Black Cat Media, fairly shortly after the prior issue. This issue’s theme is “The Strange Tales of Sherlock Holmes.” We get five short stories and an interesting historical article. “The Incident of the Wild West Witch” by R. Allen Leider, is the longest story in the volume, takes Holmes and Watson to the USA on tour, which includes going to Tombstone, Ariz., where they get involved with a crime. Read the intro to the volume to understand the true genesis behind this story. I thought that was pretty interesting. “The Long September Night” by Robert E. Waters is another story where Holmes goes up against Jack the Ripper, but many years later! “A Pardonable Offense” by John L. French, who created characters like the Gray Monk and Nightmare, gives us a tale of Holmes meeting A.J. Raffles, amateur cracksman. “A Study in Evil” by Gary Lovisi, who has written quite a few Holmes stories, gives us one where Holmes is arrested for murder! “The Yellow Thread” by Dan Tyrer has Holmes working to stop a man wanting to spread madness, by distributing copies of The King in Yellow. Finally, we get “The Man in Sherlock’s Castle” by Audrey Parente, which is a non-fiction piece on American actor William Gillette who portrayed Holmes on stage, pretty much setting the tone for the character. And he built his own castle worthy of the Baskervilles in Connecticut, which is still maintained today. It’s another great issue.

A very uneven collection. Some (A Pardonable offense, A Study in Evil) are good. The others are a mixture: an article about Gillette Castle, an out-right pulp story (The Yellow Thread), a failed movie script that misses Holmes, and an oddity that seems to be totally confused (The Long September Night.)