The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall by Ali Standish
Genre: historical fantasy/YA
I read it as a(n): ARC
Length: 336 pp
Her Grace’s rating: 2 out of 5 stars
The Improbable Tales of Baskerville Hall by Ali Standish mingles elements of the historical Arthur Conan Doyle and his most famous series, Sherlock Holmes into a steampunk-influenced adventure that’s reminiscent of a jaunt through Hogwart’s. A young Arthur Conan Doyle, living hand to mouth with his sisters, mother, and alcoholic father in Edinburgh, jumps at the chance to improve his family’s fortunes when he is offered a spot at an exclusive boarding school, Baskerville Hall. When he arrives – by airship! – Doyle settles in and quickly establishes himself as one of the most promising students currently in residence. When a series of break-ins, thefts, and threatening appearances by shadowy figures occur, events conspire to put Doyle’s education and life at risk.
This book will surely appeal to many young readers, but adult readers will wonder how the fuck Sherlock Holmes ended up in Hogwarts. At times, it felt as though the author were merely replacing names from Harry Potter with ones from Sherlock Holmes and dusting her hands off afterward. While that Potteresque aspect of the book might be forgiven since a lot of fantasy is pretty derivative anyway, it is harder to overlook the fantasy aspects as a whole. “Fantasy” isn’t usually what readers expect from anyone with the name Sherlock Holmes attached to it, so this book felt very out of alignment. The Sherlock Holmes series lends itself well to steampunk, no argument with that at all, and author Ali Standish does a good job incorporating components of that genre into this novel. However, I was expecting a logic book. Where’s my damn logic book? In other words, it lacks the investigative style and logic that is associated with Sherlock Holmes and expected in any retelling of the great detective’s stories.
To give credit where it is due, the story is filled with interesting and well-crafted characters. Real people such as Doyle himself mingle with his fictional characters such as Dr. Watson, creating an intriguing cast. I loved the diversity in the people the best. They’re not all homogenous and bland; they are vivid and have personalities that are deeply developed, given the relative shortness of the book and its targeted age level.
Younger readers will no doubt be thrilled with this story, but I don’t think it would appeal very much to many well-read adults.
This was originally published on the Historical Novels Review website. That review was nicer, though it said basically the same thing as here.
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