Shadows of Sherlock Holmes

I've been dipping into this book on and off for a while, and finally finished it today. It's a collection of short stories by different authors, all writen in the late 1800's - the same time as the Sherlock Holmes stories. I have to confess I found it hard to finsih this book: while most of the stories were good (though sometimes very much of their time), the quality seemed to drop off towards the end: or maybe after a while all the stories seemed very similar.

It was interesting to see how the detective story has developed - I found some of the endings fantastic but that was viewing them through my 'modern day' expectation of crime stories. I expect that when they were written the sensationalism of some of the stories was very much enjoyed by their readers! These days I think we require a bit more realism, or a better explanation of physics or science, than the readers of the day. Many of the stories did contain clever puzzles which the detectived worked out: much less evidence based than crime stories these days, but none the less enjoyable.

The wind from the sun

I ordered this book from bibliophile, which is surprising as I usually order non-fiction titles from there. But I spotted this book, just after the death of Arthur C. Clarke was announced, and decided it was just my cup of tea. I enjoy science fiction, especially that from the late 50's and early 60's, and especially short stories. This is a collection of Clarke's stories from the 60's and 70's so seemed a good book to buy.

The stories were varied, both in length and content. Some of them were designed to be very amusing, which was good to see - so often science fiction can be a bit too earnest, so it was nice to see an author having lots of fun with it. My favourite two stories were the title story, 'The Wind from the sun' which was about a sailing race in space, and the final story, 'A Meeting with Medusa', about a manned mission to Jupiter and the weather and creatures they find there. Given the interest I had in Jupiter for my PhD it's a shame I didn't find this story years ago!

So will I keep this book? A tricky decision this. Although I enjoyed the stories I'm sure I'll want to read enough of them again to justify making room on the book shelves for it. I'll put it on bookmooch and see if someone else wants to give it a home...