Sherlock Holmes suggestions?

[Kirkman1987]

I've been reading through my set of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes again, and have been wondering if there were any fans here who could reccomend some Holmes material, whether it be books, film etc.
I would love to read some more on the character, but am unsure where to proceed from what I know.

I've read all of the original canon Obviously, and also greatly enjoyed the three novels written by Nicholas Meyer.

In film and tv adaptations, I adore the Jeremy Brett series, but the Rathbone films didn't do much for me. I thought Rathbone was good as holmes, but the rest of the movie didn't greatly impress me. perhaps I've been spoiled by the Brett series. I don't have an aversion to older films (far from it), it just didn't click. I did however recently see Billy Wilder's Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and loved it.


what films and books am I missing, and what are some of you favorites? Do we have massive Holmes fans on this board?

 

[Captain Dago]

Well, if you're looking for "off-beat but satisfying," you should try Michael Chabon's book, The Final Solution, and the 1971 movie "They Might Be Giants" with George C. Scott & Joanne Woodward...

 

[auntiehill]

The Seven Percent Solution, a novel by Nicholas Meyer. The movie version is OK, but as usual, takes some liberties with the material.

 

[CmdrAJD]

If you haven't seen it, Without A Clue is a lot of fun, and, while it's basically Sherlock Holmes and the Temple of Doom, I kind of like Young Sherlock Holmes. It's not the best Holmes movie, but Murder By Decree is an older one with Holmes dealing with Jack the Ripper. I don't know if it's even available, but I also got a kick out of a TV movie from the 1980s called The Return of Sherlock Holmes, which has a frozen Holmes thawed out by Watson's granddaughter and going to Boston. It's incredibly silly, but, as I said, I liked it.

On the book side, there are several mysteries by Larry Millet that involve Holmes and Watson travelling to Minnesota. I liked Sherlock Holmes and the Red Demon from this series, but the others I read didn't do a lot for me. There are several pastiche collections out there. Adrian Conan Doyle wrote one called The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, and there are many other collections edited by Martin H. Greenberg. One, The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, has a story written by Steven King. Finally, if you can find it, there was a collection called Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space that I really enjoyed. As you can guess from the title, it's full of sci-fi Holmes stories.

 

[Mistral]

Fred Saberhagen wrote The Holmes-Dracula File, which was pretty good. And here's a second vote for the George C Scott movie! It was great.

There was a Sliders episode where John Rhys-Davies thought he was ol' Sherlock that was fairly well written, too.

 

[Harvey]

I've always wanted to read those Holmes novels by Nicholas Meyer, but can never seem to find them in stores--even used.

And in case it hasn't been mentioned, Robert Downey Jr. is playing the role in a film that will be released sometime in 2009.

 

[ClayinCA]

Fred Saberhagen wrote The Holmes-Dracula File, which was pretty good. And here's a second vote for the George C Scott movie! It was great.

There was a Sliders episode where John Rhys-Davies thought he was ol' Sherlock that was fairly well written, too.

The Holmes-Dracula File is OK, but far superior, I think, are Loren D. Estleman's take on the same pairing, Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula, or The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count, and its follow-up, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Holmes. Both books do a fantastic job of weaving Holmes and Watson in and around the edges of the respective original stories, as well as perfectly capturing all the characters.

I also recommend L.B. Greenwood's three Sherlock Holmes novels (now sadly out of print, I believe) and, on the dramatised side of things, the BBC radio versions with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams as Holmes and Watson are an absolute must; they did the entire canon, and have even gone on to do some original tales, with Andrew Sachs replacing the late Michael Williams.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

The best Sherlock Holmes films where done back in the 1940's (I think - might be late 30's but I can't remember) with Basil Rathbone as Holmes. You can get a bunch of them on DVD and they are fun flicks. They also come on TCM from time to time.

I've seen several and I really like them.

 

[auntiehill]

I've always wanted to read those Holmes novels by Nicholas Meyer, but can never seem to find them in stores--even used.

Amazon has it.

I read the book in college, because I was so enthralled with the Jeremy Brett series, that I couldn't get enough.

 

[ToddPence]

As far as books go, one really fun anthology is "The Resurrected Homes" edited by Marvin Kaye. The premise is that some of the most famous authors of the early twentieth century get a hold of some of Watson's unpublished notes and write up some of Holmes' stories. The book includes Holmes stories by the likes of H.G. Wells, Theodore Dreiser, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemmingway, C.S. Forrester, Mickey Spillane, Rex Stout, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Dashell Hammett.

The BBC radio presentation done in the 1990's starring Michael Williams is unique in that it is the only Holmes dramatic series that attempts to adapt ALL of the original 56 stories and four novels written by Doyle, and adapt them faithfully. The dramatizations are generally excellent, although the series is somewhat marred by a seriously wrong-headed decision made by the producers in the final epsiode ("The Retired Colourman.") However, probably the definitive Holmes dramatizations, superceding the Brett TV series.

Another really good Holmes TV show is the 1950's TV series starring Ronald Howard. DVDs of episodes of this enjoyable, well-done series can be found online cheap.

The old radio show with Rathbone and Bruce is also a highly enjoyable classic, even though some object to Bruce's portrayal of Watson as a half-senile buffoon. You can probably find mp3s of this online for free or for a minimal fee.

And if you ever find a collection of Robert Fish's magnificent parody saga "Schlock Holmes", grab it.

 

[Christopher]

There was a Sliders episode where John Rhys-Davies thought he was ol' Sherlock that was fairly well written, too.

Except the producers couldn't obtain the rights to the Holmes character, so the character names were changed and it was glossed as "this world's equivalent of Sherlock Holmes."

 

[Kail]

I am a massive Sherlock Holmes fan, I even wrote a screenplay and writers guide for a TV series based on Holmes' lost years. The annoted Holmes is awesome. I started on the Basil Rathbones, "The Scarlet Claw" is the best (some of the radio plays are even better than the movies), read all the original stories, then I watched and loved Brettts Holmes. I've read a lot of Holmes books, but my favorite is "the New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes". Original stories by eminent mystery writers. There's even one by Stephen King.

 

[diankra]

Fred Saberhagen wrote The Holmes-Dracula File, which was pretty good. And here's a second vote for the George C Scott movie! It was great.

There was a Sliders episode where John Rhys-Davies thought he was ol' Sherlock that was fairly well written, too.

The Holmes-Dracula File is OK, but far superior, I think, are Loren D. Estleman's take on the same pairing, Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula, or The Adventure of the Sanguinary Count, and its follow-up, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Holmes. Both books do a fantastic job of weaving Holmes and Watson in and around the edges of the respective original stories, as well as perfectly capturing all the characters.

I also recommend L.B. Greenwood's three Sherlock Holmes novels (now sadly out of print, I believe) and, on the dramatised side of things, the BBC radio versions with Clive Merrison and Michael Williams as Holmes and Watson are an absolute must; they did the entire canon, and have even gone on to do some original tales, with Andrew Sachs replacing the late Michael Williams.

The Radio 4 complete Holmes is superb, and the credit for that shoudl go to Bert Coules - a great writer and a great Sherlockian who's been in effective charge of them for 20 years.
In addition, the BBC's 1981 radio version of Sherlock Holmes vs Dracula, with Timothy West as Watson and Nicholas Courtney as Lestrade, was pretty much responsible for getting me to read the Conan Doyle originals in the first place.


Oh, a throwaway mention of a good, odd, non-Conan Holmes story: Neil Gaiman's A Study in emerald, in which Moriarty is working for the Cthulu...

 

[Icemizer]

Exit Sherlock Holmes is an interesting take on the man which you will either enjoy or hate. I dont think this one will generate any middle ground.

 

[S. Gomez]

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. A young American woman stumbles on an elderly, chauvinistic beekeeper in Sussex; she realizes he's Holmes, of course, and manages to impress him with her intelligence. He becomes her teacher in the art of deduction and crime-solving. It's the first book in a series, and I highly recommend all of them.

 

[Nathan_Heller]

There is an interesting collection entitled "Shadows Over Baker Street", edited by Michael Reaves. The stories have Holmes and Watson dealing with crimes with a Lovecraftian bent. Good stuff.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I've always wanted to read those Holmes novels by Nicholas Meyer, but can never seem to find them in stores--even used.

I'm a big fan of the 1st 2. The Seven Percent Solution & The West End Horror were the books that really got me into Sherlock Holmes in the first place. (It also gives an interesting insight to just how much Holmes influenced Meyer's Star Trek movies, particularly with Spock clearly playing Sherlock Holmes while trying to find Chancellor Gorkon's real assassin in The Undiscovered Country.)

Another really good Holmes TV show is the 1950's TV series starring Ronald Howard. DVDs of episodes of this enjoyable, well-done series can be found online cheap.

Agreed. I think the series is in the public domain, which is why there are so many cheapies out there. I recently got my hands on a set that crams all 39 half-hour episodes onto 3 discs. Personally, I prefer these far more than the Jeremy Brett TV show. (I think that Brett is too often overacting as Holmes, his Watson is too passive, and the episodes drag on for far too long.)

 

[RJDiogenes]

It's out of print, but I enjoyed this book by Manly Wade Wellman (author of the wonder John the Balladeer) stories.

Except the producers couldn't obtain the rights to the Holmes character, so the character names were changed and it was glossed as "this world's equivalent of Sherlock Holmes."

Who owns Holmes? I thought he was in the Public Domain?

 

[Christopher]

Who owns Holmes? I thought he was in the Public Domain?

The estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle holds the rights to Sherlock Holmes, and anyone else wishing to use the character needs to pay a license fee. ST:TNG producer Jeri Taylor described it as a "very reasonable" fee (in reference to licensing the holodeck Moriarty character), but TNG no doubt had a higher budget than Sliders did. So instead of Holmes, Arturo was programmed to believe he was the great detective "Reginald Doyle."

 

[Captaindemotion]

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. A young American woman stumbles on an elderly, chauvinistic beekeeper in Sussex; she realizes he's Holmes, of course, and manages to impress him with her intelligence. He becomes her teacher in the art of deduction and crime-solving. It's the first book in a series, and I highly recommend all of them.

Seconded. I couldn't claim to be anything more than a passing fan of Holmes (I read all the novels when much younger and watched many of the Rathbone movies and some of the Brett series as well as reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Holmes) but I did enjoy these novels a lot.

Anyone remember a tv series called Young Sherlock Holmes? It aired on ITV during a children's slot a few years before the Spielberg made movie. It was quite good, as I recall. It still airs occasionally on satellite channels.

Much as I like Robert Downey jr, I really can't see him as Holmes. I'd love to see Alan Rickman in the role or, failing that, Gabriel Byrne or Jeremy Irons. Had the studio wanted to cast a younger or sexier actor in the role, I can imagine Hugh Jackman - he has the sort of facial structure associated with the character. But RDJ? Just not seeing it ...