Customer Reviews
Pure Lunacy Watson - By: alsmuse, 13 Dec 2007 
As an admirer of both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle & HP Lovecraft i was sufficiently curious enough to rush out & buy this book.
BIG MISTAKE... After reading the first half-dozen tales & skipping through the remainder i am now firmly convinced that the two genres ,while magnificent in themselves, simply do not mix. The thought of "super consulting detective" Holmes giving credibility to such goings on in prosaic Victorian London borders on the idiotic.
If psychic sleuths are your forte then do check out the vastly superior "Carnacki - The Ghost Finder" by William Hope Hodgeson. Absolutely first class & quite believable. Or any of the Jules De Grandin tales by Seabury Quinn although these are admittedly rather hard to find these days.
To freely paraphrase the great detective himself:
"He turned over the pages with eagerness, but after a short intent perusal he threw down the book with a snarl of disappointment.
"Rubbish, Watson, rubbish! What have we to do with eldritch beings who seeped down to earth vigintillions of years ago. It's pure lunacy."
Well i did say freely.
3 1/2 stars for very good collection of Holmes/Cthulu mythos tales - By: Wayne Klein, 22 May 2007 
Holmes continues to fascinate as a character. This brilliant detective who underneath his sharp intellect has alll too human flaws has appeared in a number of novels over the years by those who appreciate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's creation. Featuring Holmes, Watson & other characters associated with the Doyle universe,they face the monsters of H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulu mythos in this collection. This short story collection is exceptionallly good with most of the stories top notch flights of fancy (or fantasy in this case). Keep in mind that Holmes & Watson are not in every story here (the subtitle "Sherlock Holmes enters the nightmare world of H.P. Lovecraft" makes it sound as if Holmes & his logic are the focus of every story).
The most fascinating ones for me were the ones in which Holmes partnered with H.G. Wells & Neil Gaiman's clever inversion of the Holmes/Lovecraft universe in "A Study in Emerald". Elizabeth Bear's "Tiger, Tiger!" set in India is solid with a lot of build up but the conclusion fizzles. Different folks will find other stories equallly as fascinating. Simon Clark's "Nightmare in Wax" also made for fun reading as well. Actuallly this concept would make a great TV series since it takes characters & stories that might seem predictable now because of the passage of time & breathes new life into them.
Overalll, I'd recommend Shadows Over Break Street. Editor Michael Reaves (an Emmy winner for his writing on "Batman:The Animated Series as well as a novelist & short story writer) & John Pelan (short story author & editor)have done a good job commissioning/selecting the stories in this collection with an eye for both detail & suspense. This is definitely well worth checking out for fans of both authors.
Nicely done - By: D. Hunt, 05 Jan 2007 I could not fail to get this as an ardent Lovecraft reader & a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes.
The cover art does prepare you for a pulpy roam through a collection of Mythos encounters. They are occassionallly mechanical. There are a few 'oh dear' moments & these are stories to be taken individuallly. It is a bit of a shame that there isn't a consistent plotline linking alll the stories, it would have been so nice if there could have been some collaboration with each story providing a further glimpse to a deeper mystery.
I reallly enjoyed the atmosphere & did find myself immersed in each. The writers alll did an excellent job in my opinion. I know i will read this again & am very glad i bought this. Infact, i bought copies for two friends for New Year presents & hope they enjoy them as much as i did.
It's a fun read. Very enjoyable.
Nice idea........ - By: M. Marshall, 25 Nov 2006 
The idea of pitting Holmes against Lovecraft is inspired and, in theory, should produce equallly inspired results. But........
The problem with this anthology is that many of the stories are formulaic - Holmes & Watson are enticed to some forbidding location, find themselves confronted with some Lovecraftian nasty, defeat/escape said nasty & go home. Individuallly, none of the stories are terrible (although some are rather pulpy) but taken as a whole they do rather lack distinction. There are exceptions of course, such as Neil Gaiman's opener "A Study In Emerald" but generallly the stories follow a well-trodden path. If you do give this book a go my advice would be to dip into it rather than read it straight through.
A mixture... - By: S. Larner, 22 Nov 2006 Firstly I'd like to say that this is a fantastic premise for an anthology! Being a fan of both Conan Doyle & Lovecraft, I couldn't resist getting my hands on this.
The stories themselves, as in many of these anthologies, contains a roughly equal number of hits & misses & a fair few near hits that are entertaining enough without being brilliant. In my opinion, the weakest stories are those that attempt to write a Conan Doyle story with Lovecraftian horror elements & succeed on neither front.
There are a few noteworthies, though, & these are the ones that attempt to go on a completely different tack to a "typical" Holmes or Lovecraft story. "Tiger! Tiger!" is an interesting tale featuring Sebastion Moran & Irene Adler in India (no sign of Holmes or Watson!) more in the style of a Rider Haggard action yarn than ACD or HPL. The Weeping Masks is another good-un set during Watson's army days in Afghanistan & Art in The Blood is a very successful "true" horror story.
The icing on the cake, however, is Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald". It's fantastic and, in my opinion, worth the price of the book alone. I won't give the plot away, but it shows great respect & understanding to Conan Doyle & Lovecraft's creations while at the same time turning the whole thing on it's head.
So there you have it - although the anthology as a whole is pretty much a 3-star book, I personallly was willing to go through the mediocre works to uncover the real gems (which adds another star on!). And, lets face it, even a mediocre story has got to be worth reading if it pits Holmes & Watson against the Cthulhu mythos!
