I Read Books: Shadows Over Baker Street
An anthology of Sherlock Holmes stories that riff off the work of H P Lovecraft, especially his Cthulhu mythos stuff. Holmes stories are quite varied even if we accept only A.Conan Doyle’s works as canon, and Lovecraft even more so. In general these are presented as secret history, usually Holmes adventures that could not be published due to weirdness etc. (One notable exception is Neil Gaiman’s A Study In Emerald, which is explicitly alternate history). Others take various supporting characters and take them in new directions (not Mrs Hudson I’m afraid).
There’s some good ones, I enjoyed Elizabeth Bear’s Tiger! Tiger! very much, and Tim Lebbon’s The Horror Of Many Faces has a beautiful take on the Holmes and Watson relationship. There are several that use unusual styles or formats (recordings on wax cylinders etc.) mostly to good effect. There’s the classic-for-Holmes-anthologies of the case-Holmes-solves-without-leaving-the-consulting-room, though for some reason he is in a hotel room in New York which somewhat detracts from the effect.
Read This: For some fun spooky Sherlock Holmes stories that occasionally turn full horror.
Don’t Read This: If turning up the weirdness on Sherlock Holmes sounds bad, or you don’t like half a dozen versions of eliminating the impossible.
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