Gaslight Arcanum: Uncanny Tales of Sherlock Holmes (2011, Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing), is the third anthology of tales of Sherlock Holmes and the supernatural edited by J. R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec. In this anthology, twelve authors contribute their own stories of the great detective and the crimes he must solve. His foes include aliens, Aztecs, and even Death itself.
Three of the stories stood out for me as particularly well written pieces of Sherlock Holmes fiction. “Sherlock Holmes and the Diving Bell” by Simon Clark, was a superbly creepy tale of eerie sounds coming from a diving bell that had been lost to the depths five years previous. As Holmes and Watson set out to solve this case, they themselves must visit the watery resting place of a man who may or may not have survived for five years in the diving bell. The villain in this tale is possibly the one closest to the sort of villains that Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes would have encountered, and the entire story read as a fairly traditional but quite creative Holmes piece.
In Paul Kane’s “The Greatest Mystery,” Holmes and Watson confront a much less traditional villain as they investigate a string of murders that appear to have been committed by individuals who swear that they did not murder their loved ones. The suspected murderers inevitably commit suicide afterwards, thus eliminating the only witnesses to the murders. Despite the highly unusual villain, Kane’s writing style was such that even a villain that seemed preposterous in theory could fit into the Holmes universe without difficulty. While Doyle’s fans may not agree that the tale is the greatest mystery that Holmes ever solved, it is a fine story that fit well into the theme of the anthology.
My favorite story of the anthology, however, was the last. “The Adventure of the Six Maledictions” by Kim Newman is not a Sherlock Holmes story–instead, it tells the story of an adventure of Professor Moriarty and his associate, Sebastian Moran. After being hired to protect a thief from the Nepalese cultists that he stole from, Moran helps Professor Moriarty to collect five additional vaunted artifacts. The story is highly entertaining, and features the sort of twists and turns that any fan of Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes is likely to greatly enjoy.
One of the problems with the stories in the book is that while they are all using the same basis of Holmes stories by Doyle, they are not consistent within this volume. One story has Holmes working alongside Count Dracula, while another story has Holmes insisting that vampires do not exist. Some stories may also bother Doyle aficionados because only a few of the stories were told from Watson’s perspective. Other stories were written in the third person, from Holmes’ own perspective, or, in the case of “The Adventure of the Six Maledictions,” from the perspective of Moriarty’s associate, Moran.
As is the case with any anthology, most readers are likely to find stories that they enjoy as well as stories that don’t work as well for them. Overall, however, I found Gaslight Arcanum a generally enjoyable read. The other two anthologies by the same editors, Gaslight Grimoire (2008) and Gaslight Grotesque (2009), seem as though they would also be of interest to anyone who enjoys this volume, and it is likely that Campbell and Prepolec will continue publishing additional anthologies of the same sort, particularly in the wake of the popularity of the recent Sherlock Holmes films starring Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law and the BBC’s TV series featuring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
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