Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection

Brilliant audio book, shame about the navigation.

Sherlock Holmes has deserved an audiobook of this standard for a long time. Fry's narration is superb, his skills as an actor giving depth to all of the different characters that crop up in Conan Doyle's work. It's just such a shame that Audible don't seem to be able to divide the various books and parts that make up this epic book in a sensible way. The first part, consisting of 21 chapters, contains all of A Study in Scarlet, but only half of The Sign of Four. Why not just bundle both books into the first part, or have them in their own separate parts? It makes navigation very confusing, and the lack of a viewable guide in the audible app makes navigation extremely annoying. To find a favourite story, you either have to adopt a tiring method of trial and error, or look up the chapter divisions on the website. It's a shame that something so avoidable has let down what will become the definitive narration of Conan Doyle's masterpiece.

Update: Audible have created and sent out a brilliant chapter guide to accompany this audition, so it is now much easier to navigate. Thank you audible.

382 of 409 people found this review helpful

Location Location Location....

Love Stephen Frys narration
Loved the books for 50 years
Very good marketing by Audible, I bought it immediately and listened to Mr Frys introductions. He rightly points out that you can start anywhere but this isn't quite the case with the audiobook version. Whilst there is a chapter list on the website and on each download part the chapter numbers restart with each volume so the chapter numbers don't correlate. Also chapter numbers don't assist in finding a particular or favourite story. This is a terrible weakness for any compilation so I'd request audible to give it some thought and come up with a PDF file at leat to assist in. Avocation

311 of 345 people found this review helpful

Dreadful organization of stories

Is there anything you would change about this book?

There is no way to see the order of the books, no chapter headings, no named books...it seems to be a start at the beginning and go all the way through..The book is divided into 9 parts, fair enough...it's a lot to download at one time, but the order is impossible to follow...for example Section 3, Chapter 3 was Silver Blaze Chapter 13 is the adventure of the Naval Treaty Chapter 19 is called Chapter 4 of Hound of the Baskervilles Chapter 7 of Hound of the baskervilles is the first part of section 4....and so it goes on

74 of 82 people found this review helpful

Irritating beyond belief

I love this collection of stories. But the badly curated and non titled chapters makes it so irritating to listen to. Sort it out Audible...

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Layout is an issue

Any additional comments?

This would have been an undoubtable 5-star review. Sherlock Holmes read by Stephen Fry - of course - 5 star! However it is very difficult to navigate to individual books let alone stories and practically impossible on Alexa.

102 of 116 people found this review helpful

Navigation Navigation Navigation...

What disappointed you about Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection?

This is an amazing work with a great performance from Stephen Fry - HOWEVER... The chapter navigation is impossible to use - try scanning through 71+hours of audio to find the beginning of the short stories....

143 of 163 people found this review helpful

NAVIGARTION, NAVIGATION, NAVIGATION, TERRIBLE

Any additional comments?

Excellent stories, brilliantly read. HOWEVER YOU CANNOT FIND YOUR WAY ROUND OVER 70 HOURS OF RECORDING. AUDIBLE YOU MUST SORT THIS. The whole production is RUINED by poor navigation because it is IMPOSSIBLE to find any particular book or short story unless you search the whole 70 hours of recording.

108 of 123 people found this review helpful

Over 70 hours of pure brilliance.

Would you consider the audio edition of Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection to be better than the print version?

100%. Stephen Fry brings such love to the writings.

What other book might you compare Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection to, and why?

No other

Which character – as performed by Stephen Fry – was your favourite?

The works. You cannot pick a winner here.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes.

Any additional comments?

If you are reading this you are already interested in the writings of SACD. Let me tell you now, when you listen to this you will be truly blown away. The story telling genius of Mr Fry excels anything you have heard before and he raises the bar very high, very high indeed.I too like Stephen Fry enjoyed reading the stories as a child, but this performance blew me away! Let me explain. I am a 47 year old who listens to audio books whilst travelling the length and breadth of the UK with my job whilst driving. This reading was paused after the first 5 minutes of the introduction because I wanted to indulge on every word. From the opening gambit the listener is drawn into Victorian London, you can almost taste the vile stench of poverty and feel almost embarrassed about sitting in the opulence of 221b Baker Street watching the unraveling of peoples lives. John Watson takes you through the memoirs of the worlds greatest "consulting" detective with such realism, the performance is immense. I won't write anymore as I do not wish to be branded a reviewer for Amazon. Just take my word for it, if you are a fan, or even a passing visitor to the world of Sherlock Holmes, just buy it.

58 of 66 people found this review helpful

Navigation

The design for navigating many chapters and for bookmarking needs revision, it is difficult to know where Titles as opposed to chapters begin, this becomes significant in large works encompassing multiple books

134 of 158 people found this review helpful

Surely the definitive narration..?

Would you listen to Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection again? Why?

Without a doubt. I've read the books and have another audio version of the oeuvre, but Stephen Fry's narration is superb.

What does Stephen Fry bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you had only read the book?

His voice has the right timbre; it's mellifluous and just wonderful to listen to. He's added a new dimension to stories I'm familiar with and can now hear with a different voice to the one that comes through whilst reading.

Any additional comments?

As a child in the 1950's, Doyle was one of my favourite authors. I loved his books which took me into different worlds. I was transfixed by Holmes who could deduce from seemingly little. He taught me the value of quiet observation and deduction. But aside from that, these are belting good stories which stand the test of time. This edition, narrated by Fry is, to my mind, definitive. I'm only part way through, but absolutely engrossed and I'll listen to these stories again. Outstanding value.

53 of 62 people found this review helpful