Just the one story from this: The adventure of the Callous Colonel - excellent stuff, and will read more from these sheerluck pastiches.High 3*ETA - AUGUST Derleth also fits my personal seasonal challenge rather well*two thumbs up*

dnf @ 11% it really is just sherlock holmes with another name 🤷‍♀️

I'm not sure how the writer of tepid Lovecraft pastiches can be the same person who also created these excellent Holmes-inspired mysteries, but this is exactly the case. I could not have been more surprised. I enjoyed these stories so much that I actually had a hard time putting down this book to go and do other things such as sleep, work, etc.Derleth himself said, "Solar Pons is Sherlock Holmes," and the resemblance is obvious. The characters are identical. My only question is why he bothered t...

This collection of stories occupy a rather unique position in the eyes of lovers of Sherlock Holmes. On one hand, Solar Pons and his stories are unabashed successors of the Canon. They are gentle, breezy, mostly snobbish, and rather derivative of Doyle's works in all sense. On the other hand, Derleth's own vision of UK between the wars makes them much more interesting. Plus, he adds more dynamic female characters in tune with the changing times. As a result, the stories read almost like an updat...

First collection of Solar Pons stories, possibly the best Sherlock Holmes pastiche. He solves mysteries with deduction, and even has an arch villain.Great for the Sherlock Holmes fan.

Until I read this volume, I was never sure what to think about Solar Pons, August Derleth's "Schrodinger's Pastiche" of Sherlock Holmes[1]. On the surface, it seemed a more extreme case than even Derleth's pseudo-collaborations with Lovecraft[2]. Nearly every aspect of Solar Pons is Sherlock Holmes with the names merely changed and only slightly (the most jarring example has to be Bancroft Pons as a stand-in for Mycroft Holmes). You hear the story about how a younger Derleth wanted to fill in th...

First published in a this volume in 1945, the Adventures of Solar Pons is a collection of 12 short stories originally published in pulp fiction form from around 1929 onwards. The stories are a connected series, inspired by Sherlock Holmes and with enough similarities to cause some legal issues. The stories themselves are, in my opinion, and based on the evidence of the 12 collected here, is that they are inferior to the Conan Doyle originals, insomuch that the mystery element is often so transpa...

August Derleth was a great fan of Sherlock Holmes. At one point he wrote Doyle asking if there would be more Sherlock stories and also if Derleth could write more stories. Despite a negative response Derleth hit upon the plan of just renaming all the characters and setting it in a time after Sherlock's retirement. The stories are short and easy to read. For the most part they are a fine tribute to the aspects of the characters Doyle created. However, I think as mysteries they were at times obvio...

When teenage Derleth asked Arthur Conan Doyle if he could continue the Holmes stories and was denied, he created Solar Pons, an obvious knock-off of Holmes. Pons is more insufferable than Holmes in this first compilation, chiding his Boswell's (Dr. Parkers) denseness and reaching his conclusions much sooner than Holmes would, often before doing any sleuthing. It was fun to read aloud with my husband and try to guess the solution, especially if you know the Holmes canon, that is only sometimes ob...

Very good, though some stories were of course better than others. Oddly enough, I was able to figure out "whodunit" in every one pretty much right from the start. Could never do that with the Sherlock Holmes canon. Will definitely read the other books in this series, I think they're all on Kindle Unlimited (Canada).

Pons and Parker to the rescueSolid Pons and the good Doctor Parker not only come to the rescue of their clients but to the rescue of the readers of the time ... Holmes and Watson had retired and readers were at a loss but Derleth came to the rescue with theses great tales of Pons and Parker so criminals still beware ... All good stores ...

This is a collection of very well done Sherlock Holmes pastiches. Pons uses logic to solve the cases and Dr Parker is the Watson standin. They're mostly set in the 1920's, but otherwise follow the Holmes playbook.

A nice substituteWhile these aren’t as good as the original Sherlock Holmes canonical stories, it’s a nice pastiche fix to keep ua going.

Good Holmes inspired short stories. I’ve read that his later stories get better. I will certainly try some more.

An entertaining Holmesian hommage but could Derleth really not have come up with a better name for his protagonist?

read some time in 1984

Solar Pons (did he grab tiles out of a Scrabble bag to make up that name. I did that once and ended up with Gux Wuzaby). Still there are other weird sounding names in the book so he is not alone.The stories and characters are borrowed from Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books. I found them quite interesting on the whole but they are definitely not as good as the real thing.Pons and his doctor companion, who despite being the narrator contributes little, investigate various police baffling crimes....

Sherlockian talesIf you're a sucker for pastiches, this is for you. It's apparent that Derleth wrote these stories for fun. There are some typos but they won't ruin the reading pleasure. The printing of these stories are put there as sort of historical documents when researching August Derleth. He's not a bad writer contrary to written opinions on that matter.

I'd give it 6/5 stars if at all possible!! Gotta love some "underground" Sherlock stories!!

August Derleth was a voracious reader of the original Sherlock Holmes adventures, even writing to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, asking him if he was going to do any more. Unhappy with the response (or lack of one) he decided to create his own. This is the first of several books of short stories featuring his Sherlockian-knock-off detective Solar Pons. Quite good.