Tales Of The Shadowmen 19 - Demi-Monde

What They Did
In The Shadows

Tales Of The Shadowmen
19 - Demi-Monde
edited by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier
Black Coat Press
ISBN: 9781649321770

Just a very quick mini review of what is, alas, the penultimate collection of stories in the much loved Tales Of The Shadowmen series, Volume 19 (of 20), Demi-Monde.

For those unfamiliar with these collections or with any of my previous reviews of those in the series, the two editors Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier have created, for Black Coat Press, a series of collected stories all of which mix up famous genre characters of pulp literature and film (including lots of French pulp characters, of course, these are French collections translated into English) and written by various writers... some famous and some not.

Now, a quick note about the editors, both of whom, once again, have a written story each in this collection... I’ve known about these two for years since first spying Jean-Marc’s name on the original editions of the two volumes making up The Doctor Who Programme Guide in the early 1980s. I’d always assumed from their names that they were brothers but, it turns out (the clue came, less than subtly, in the Rick Lai introduction to this tome) that they are, in fact, husband and wife. So I assume a very happy and long marriage steeped in creating and organising genre concoctions.

As in pretty much any portmanteau of collected stories, the tales in here are a bit hit and miss (and all very differtent hits and misses to each individual reader, I’m sure) but this one has the usual mix of genre mash-ups and a fair bit of intrigue. The Brasher Bat by Tim Newton Adenrson which opens the volume, for example, tells of what happens when Billy Bunter’s cricket team are taken over by vampires and various future detectives and others, as schoolboys, are there to investigate.

Another very interesting tale by Matthew Dennion, The Worthiness of the Wielder had Dumas’ Milady DeWinter, in her usual nefarious manner, hiring the blade of Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane in order to stop D’Artagnan and Constance from finding various accoutrements once belonging to Thor, including his hammer Mjölnir... she's, of course, acting on the orders of Cardinal Richelieu... this was easily one of my favourite tales in the book.

Other genre interpenetrations include a bunch of Spaghetti Western characters, one teamed up with Josephine Balsamo of The Black Coats and another tale of The Phantom Angel teamed up with... Hopkirk (Deceased). Other attractions include a story where Jules Verne pits his wits against Professor Moriarty and a wonderful account where John Buchan’s Richard Hannay is teamed up with Arsene Lupin against the Germans during the First World War, that I found quite entertaining.

My favourite story in the tome was Matthew Baugh’s Hercules and Samson VS The Russian Vampire and the Zombies of Frankenstein... a title which is as partially accurate as the internationally marketed versions of the Mexican Lucahdore movies it’s inspired by and which features such characters as Maciste, Santo, Blue Demon, Mils Mascaras, The Bat Woman and even mention of Satanico Pandemonium... so this one was easily worth the ‘price of admission’ for me.

And that’s me done with, as I said, another short review of a book in this series. Tales Of The Shadowmen 19 - Demi-Monde is another fascinating and diverse read for those who are smitten by the legacy of international pulp fiction and it is with a bitter-sweet feeling that I look forward to the final, double sized tome in this well regarded series (which was, alas, also twice the price but I picked it up pretty quickly because, I fear, these books might now be an endangered species in terms of availability in the not so distant future).

Tales Of The Shadowmen

The Shadows Know...

Tales Of The Shadowmen
Edited by Jean-Marc and Randy Lofficier

Okay, so it’s time I try to finally make right something which has been on my mind since not too long after I started this blog review site. Long term, regular readers will probably know of my two Christmas book rituals, which have been celebrated in reviews on this blog every year apart from the last two, when the two authors concerned didn’t write any new books in their respective series. I’m talking about my annual Christmas week tradition of reading first, the newest release from Patricia Cornwell of her latest Scarpetta story, followed by the latest Temperance Brennan mystery, as written by Kathy Reichs. However, there’s actually a third Christmas book reading ritual I have every year and, each year I put off reviewing it because I’m always exactly one book behind in the order of the releases and I always figure I’ll start off with an overview review of the current volumes to date. The reason being that the newest volume in this specific series, which is an annual short story collection called Tales Of The Shadowmen plus whatever the latest volume’s subtitle is, are released in December each year. Shipping being what it is, I always ask for the previous year’s volume the following Christmas. This is still the case and I need to break that cycle soon, I guess.

And this is my way of doing it... by getting the overview out of the way so I can start reviewing the individual volumes as I receive them each year without having to reintroduce the concept of this series in such a detailed way each time.

So, yeah, here we go.

 I discovered these books around about 11 or 12 years ago, I think it was. I’d heard the names of Jean-Marc Lofficier and his wife Randy before because they used to be associated with some Doctor Who guides I used to read back in the 1980s. I think they have handled a lot of different franchised and individual science-fiction and fantasy projects over the years and Black Coat Press, a French imprint with an English translated equivalent, is one of those projects.

So what, or who, are The Shadowmen... well the term originally derives as a collective name for various French characters from past literature who are revived by a number of various writers for these collections... except it’s more than that. So initially, we’re talking about famous characters, some of whom are more familiar to French readers than British ones I suspect... and we’re talking about The Black Coats, Fantomas, Judex, Arsene Lupin, Irma Vep, Josephine Balsamo, The Musketeers, various Jules Verne characters, The Nyctalope, Rouletabille and so on and so forth. However, these characters are, in the parlance of the youngsters of today, mashed up by the various contributing writers of these collections... not just with each other but with many other fictional characters from around the world. So you will have two or more characters from various completely different literature sources, often a lot of heroes or villains and their supporting characters, mixed together in brand new stories.

So yeah, add in to the mix characters like Batman, Sherlock Holmes, Madame Atomos, Harry Dickson, Sâr Dubnotal, Sexton Blake, Bulldog Drummond, Fu Manchu, The Green Hornet, The Shadow (an inspiration for young Bruce Wayne in one tale), Hercule Poirot, King Kong, Solomon Kane, John Carter, the Frankenstein Monster, Nosferatu, various Bond villains, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Babar the Elephant... the list goes on and on. They’re up to volume 15 now already (I just finished reading volume 14) and  there are many different heroes crossing over with each other. Heck, there's even a very short story where Barbarella abducts Captain Kirk in order to have sex with him, if memory serves.

And there’s quite a few writers involved in these... sometimes very famous ones such as Michael Moorcock or Kim Newman. Heck, Kim Newman’s Angels Of Music, which are a kind of 19th Century group of female characters operating as the ‘Charlies Angels’ of their time and run by Eric, The Phantom of The Opera as their Charlie figure, was originally instigated in the pages of a couple of stories from these collections (I believe Mr. Newman’s novel from a year or so ago, detailing their adventures, is an expansion and continuation of these original tales).

Now the possible disappointing thing about these, if you’re new to them, is that these characters don’t all link up in a single continuity like Philip Jose Farmer’s Wold-Newton family tree. So story consequences in one won’t often, unless it’s a continuation of a previous story, spill over into other stories involving some of the same characters. For the most part these are stand alone stories with the odd serialised story (some book length serials are published in sections in consecutive volumes) and mostly should be enjoyed for the flights of fancy they are. Many times a family tree connection is established by a writer but it won’t always hold true for another story. So, for instance, in volume 14 there is a Honey West adventure where she takes on the main arch nemesis from The Wild, Wild West. This makes sense within that tale (where she also meets Gene Roddenberry and Julius Schwartz) because in that particular continuity the writer establishes that both James West from The Wild, Wild West and, also, Herbert West (Lovecraft’s re-animator!) are descendants of hers. That lineage probably won’t be present in any future Honey West tales in the series however, unless it’s one written by the same writer. So, if you can forget the possibility of a bigger, over reaching continuity within the collections, you can get a lot of enjoyment out of them.

Of course, by their very nature, depending on whether the reader finds each writer’s style entertaining or not, all the volumes are a bit hit and miss in their overall make up but, for me at least, they have become more hit than miss as the series of volumes has grown over time.

Actually, a big part of the enjoyment of these things is that the various references and character identities are not always given away up front, from either the writers themselves or from the Lofficier’s, who usually write a brief intro to each story. So it does also become a game of reference spotting a lot of the time and sometimes the amount of references can be quite dense... I remember a story from one of the early volumes mixing up various Spaghetti Western characters with Shaw Brother’s style kung fu action references and it’s sometimes a bit difficult to spot all the different props and people in these tales. Luckily for anybody reading along and playing that kind of game with the text, there is usually a ‘cast list’ for each story given at the end of the book, listing the main characters, supporting characters and references plus the original creator they are credited too. Very useful if you miss out on any. So, for example, I may have realised that the Roger Delgado incarnation of The Master from Doctor Who was taking on Professor Quatermass in one story but, there was probably a lot more going on than at first met the eye and the post story ‘dramatis personae’ can sometimes help clear up the odd references that litter these tales.

So there you have it, you’ve probably got more of a flavour of this ongoing series of books now and, frankly, if you are a fan of period set fantasy, science fiction, horror or crime fiction (or preferably all of those genres) then you’ll probably find at least a few tales in each volume that you’ll have a good time with. I’ve never seen these books sold in even specialist shops like, for instance, Forbidden Planet but you can usually get them from places like Amazon and, of course, the Black Coat Press themselves at http://www.blackcoatpress.com, which is a website which really is worth checking out. If you click on their catalogue link you’ll find a list of intriguing titles (not just Tales Of The Shadow men) where you can get English translations of hitherto rare or out of print science fiction, horror, crime and fantasy which you just can’t get form anywhere else, plus a load of new stuff too. Their new releases are always a bit of an eye opener (and often of stuff I’ve never heard of) so just reading about their release schedule and existing back catalogue can be an education in itself, sometimes.

So there you have it... Tales Of The Shadowmen and Black Coat Press... something you may want to get into if interpenetrating, famous and not so famous characters are your thing. Definitely worth a recommendation and definitely worth a look. And now this ghost of a review is finally committed to reality (at least in the digital realm), I can maybe review Volume 15 with a clear conscience when I get around to reading it. Maybe even before Christmas this time.

I, Frankenstein

Shelley Babies

I, Frankenstein
2014 USA/Australia
Directed by Stuart Beattie
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Mary Shelley’s famous creation has had a lot of make-overs and facelifts over the nearly 200 years since she penned the original Frankenstein novel and its subsequent revisions and variations (published not long after the original version and revised by Shelley herself). The comic book on which this movie is based, I, Frankenstein, is not one I’ve read but I’m more than familiar with the concept of the Frankenstein monster surviving for decades and becoming embroiled in various adventures involving raising an army or tapped in service to another cause etc... a concept which has been done many times in books and which I read at least one variation of almost every year in the annual Tales Of The Shadowmen volumes.

Being as I was unfamiliar with the specific source material for this adaptation, you might wonder why I was so looking forward to seeing this one.... especially after a fairly uninspiring trailer? Well, two reasons actually...

One is that I really think Aaron Eckhart is one of the great, modern actors. Very underrated and someone who I feel is more than talented enough to be able to carry a movie on his own, if needed. I wanted to see how he performed in the iconic role of the Frankenstein monster and, having now seen that performance, all I can say is he acquitted himself very well with a script that, to be fair, could have been a lot better. He plays this role as convincingly and seriously as he does all his others and you really do have to admire this geezah.

The other reason I wanted to see this is because there’s a line in a trailer which is an iconic reference to the old Hammer film studio. The Gargoyle Queen (yeah, really, don’t ask) proclaims on the promo, “Frankenstein must be destroyed!” Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed was, of course, the fifth in the Hammer Films Frankenstein series, starring Peter Cushing as the titular scientist, from 1969. This got me interested because I thought this film would be a post-modernistic, eclectic ride through the history of the Frankenstein monster in film... alas, I was wrong.

Although the film does contain a fair few audio and visual references to a couple of the 1930s Universal incarnations of the character, this is pretty much the only real nods on show (as far as I could make out) and the Hammer line doesn’t seem to be in the actual film proper. Either an alternate version of the scene was used or quite possibly, two different sound bites were used to create the dialogue in the trailer... either way, it’s not in there and that’s a shame because I was waiting to hear this iconic line throughout the course of the whole picture.

There I was, sitting in the cinema with my 3D glasses on, drumming my fingers all through the movie, thinking to myself... she’s going to say it soon. Any minute now. She’s going to say it... and then the credits rolled. Which says something very basic about my experience of the movie as a whole I think... the fact that the on screen shenanigans weren’t enough to distract me from the anticipation in the sound bite on the trailer probably speaks volumes.

Now, it’s not a terrible movie by a long shot. Most of the performances are good and the mise-en-scene during certain parts of the movie does shine, usually noticeable when there’s less CGI on display... which is unfortunately often the case in an effects heavy film like this. The music is serviceable and the action choreography, while not brilliant, is as competent as the rest of the thing. But the film does feel rather flat and I wasn’t really that invested in any of the characters in the piece. I think the thing that really lets it down is the writing...

The film is mostly set in the present and we’re expected to believe in a world where stone gargoyle angels battle demonic forces and the death of either of the species send them either returning to heaven (in the case of the ludicrously silly looking gargoyles) or back to hell. The world is just something we’re expected to believe in without any real set-up or stakes and, frankly, the whole thing feels ridiculous. People behave in ways which display a lack of intelligence and a blinding acceptance of things as they are and even the little details like the creation of the monster via current supplied by electrical eels seems a little off when you consider the creation scene in the original novel which, if I remember correctly (it’s been many decades since I read it), doesn’t once mention the harnessing of electrical current in relation to the creation of the monster. Yeah, okay, we can only blame iconic Universal horror versions of the thirties and forties for this “character echo” through the years but, well, it just felt a little like the writer was not showing any respect for the original material. Electric eels as a solution is both credible and imaginitive but... besides the point.

Now the general tone of the story arc is good, and it’s a tale about redemption and the unsought journey of Adam (as the Frankenstein monster is named in this) to find a soul... but the horrible gargoyles VS demons backdrop just seems astonishingly bad and, because of this and the fact that sometimes the actors seem to be a bit like they’re trying to find their gravitas and failing miserably, the film didn’t really engage me... at least not in the way I hoped it would. It’s a B-movie, for sure, but not one I will revisit any time soon... although I suspect the passage of time will do wonders for it in terms of nostalgic re-appreciation for future generations. Not a terrible movie but certainly not a great one either and not nearly as much fun as it should have been, to be honest. Only see it if you are a keen 'Frankenstein’s monster' enthusiast.