Sherlock Holmes and the Round Table Adventure

By: Joseph W Svec III

Narrated by: Anthony LeRoy Lovato

"Merlin predicted you would say that." When a knight from the Round Table of Camelot bursts into 221B Baker Street demanding the help of Sherlock Holmes, there begins the oddest, most mystical adventure Holmes and Watson have ever experienced. Merlin himself, has called the great detective and his scribe back through time, to solve a vexing problem. England's greatest poet laureate is missing! A unicorn leads the way through the portal in the standing stones, and waiting for them are a series of challenges unlike anything they have ever encountered before, as well as pixies, gnomes, hobgoblins, a dragon, an enchanted mirror, a very odd chess match, an underground labyrinth, King Arthur, and his Round Table, and the most infamous sorceress of history and myth, Morgan le Fey! Plot twists abound as logic and rational thinking collide head on with myth and magic, resulting in Sherlock crafting a masterful scheme that echoes all the way down through history. Brace your selves for a most fascinating and enjoyable tale.

©2016 Joseph Svec (P)2017 MX Publishing

Holmes, Watson, Merlin, a Unicorn, and more

Okay, I knew going in to this that it was not one of pastiches that tries to be Canonical as possible. So I was expecting a wild and crazy ride, and boy, was it! Although this story can be enjoyed even if you haven't listened to the two previous ones, you will probably have more fun if you have.

So Holmes and Watson are requested by Sir Bedivere to come to Camelot by Unicorn, through a secret portal at Stonehenge, to help Merlin locate Lord Tennyson. Along the way, they have adventures in Camelot, and in the land of Faerie. Do they ultimately succeed? Of course!

One of the things this writer does that makes me grin is when Holmes will make a reference to a bizarre monograph. For example, and nota bene that this is made up by me, but captures the spirit of the references in the story: "Ah, Watson. If only you had read my monograph on Unearthly Beasts, Particularly With Respect To Safely Riding Them, you would not be having such difficulty being carried by the Unicorn."

However, I did have to dock the author a point for vocabulary. He sometimes used words that context told me were the wrong words, or words that had to have their definition stretched quite far to mean what they were intended to mean. Still and all, well done on him.

As for the narrator, he did a bang-up job! His vocal characterizations were outstanding, and I always knew immediately who was speaking. That really improves the experience bunches, for me at least. My only knock, and the reason I dinged him a star, was occasional mispronounciations. Mostly, I suspect it is not realizing that while, for example, compare is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable (PARE), incomparable is pronounced with accent on it's second syllable (COMP), not PARE as one might naively think. Unfortunately, this happened enough times that it jarred me out of my enjoyment.

However, on the whole this was a fun little romp. The author set my expectations from the beginning, and then met them. I can definitely recommend this audiobook to all and sundry!