221B Baker Street

As much as I love/adore/passionately obsess about fantasy(books) I love me some real life, practical science.  I love it when a story can take something seemingly fantastical and show how it can be possible to me that is the best kind of magic.  Sherlock Holmes stories tend to sum this up for me, they take seemingly impossible issues and problems and make sense out it them.  Mr. Holmes is an extremely observant, learned fellow who can deduce the most amazing things from the most trivial, mundane piece of...well, almost nothing. Like in the story The Adventure of the Speckled Band  from the book The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes what seems like a supernatural curse, is really the victims father using a snake to commit his murders. Holmes figured it out with no more then a glimpse of a rope in the murderers room.  Another thing I love is that most of the stories are fairly short, 15-40 pages at most.  This gives just enough time to set up the scene, throw out some red herrings, but still enough clues that if you pay attention you just might get to solve the case before the end of the story.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did a fantastic job of not only creating a character that is now one of the most famous literary figures of all time, but he did it in a way that invited others to use this character in new and interesting ways.  Since there if very little linierness (is that a word?) to his works, it is open to various interpretations, new settings and lots of different characters.  The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is an incredible collection of short stories from modern writers that write new adventures in most diverse of places and situations, all in the style of the original tales (Thanks for suggesting this book Mamma)

When the movie Sherlock Holmes came out I wasn't sure what to expect.  I had seen various movies and TV series mostly on PBS that were done well, but a blockbuster with big name stars and a director who recently was best know for being married to Madonna...well I was a little skeptical.

As the movie progressed it seemed to lean toward a supernatural explanation, especially the part where Holmes appears to get high and locate things on a map based on oogie boogy work, which is most definitely NOT the way Sherlock Holmes does things!  But by the end of the movie they had wrapped it up in perfect Holmsian style with a logical scientific explanation for everything, and with great humor to boot.  Obviously this movie had been made with much love for the original story.
What is your favorite Homes story?  Do you find the cases baffling or is it "Elementary dear Watson?"