At the end of 2018, we got another volume of Tales of the Shadowmen. The Black Coat Press series is now up to 15 volumes, which is pretty incredible. I don’t think any other New Pulp publisher has done a series for 15 years. This one is subtitled Trompe l’Oeil, which translates as “to cheat the eye” (to create an illusion, to deceive, etc.).
As noted previously, this annual series makes use of Philip José Farmer‘s “Wold Newton” concept, mixing in a variety of literary characters, with a focus on the various pulp and pulpish characters of France and Europe, such as Arsene Lupin, Fantômas, The Nyctalope, Rouletabille, and many others, as well as those from other countries. Several authors will come back with further stories of the same characters, creating loose series within the volumes.
The latest volume gives us:
• Daniel Alhadeff: “The Vertigo” is a new story using Isidore Beautrelet, the young college student who thwarted Arsen Lupin in The Hollow Needle. Here he is involved with a strange group of folks in Crete.
• Matthew Baugh: “High Noon of the Living Dead” is set in the old west, and has Jed Puma, a character from the Hexagon Comics (reprinted in English by Black Cost Press under an associated name) who uses martial arts instead of a gun or knife, teaming up with Doc Holliday to stop a group of vampires.
• Adam Mudman Bezecny: In his “Bug’s Life,” we have another story with the giant, intelligent ant, Spiridon, from the 1907 novel of the same novel reprinted by Black Coat Press. Here he investigates and tries to stop the giant mutant ants of the desert from Them!, helped by the character from The Ant With a Human Soul from the 1930s, recently reprinted by Armchair Fiction.
• Thierry Bosch: “A Waltz in Norbury” gives us a new Professor Challenger story written by a real scientist. Here he re-purposes the disintegration machine from a prior original story, with The Nyctalope along for the ride.
• Matthew Dennion: “The Crater of the Dead” is a zombie story, crossing over the Night of the Living Dead, with characters from the Hexagon Comics’ CLASH, along with a cameo appearance by another Shadowman. While I’m not that familiar with these characters, other than from the CLASH volume, this should still be enjoyable to others.
• David Friend: “Doctor Omega and the Future Museum” has another story of Doctor Omega, the early French SF character who is used as a kind of stand-in for Doctor Who, due to looking and acting like the First Doctor. This story more expressly makes use of characters from Doctor Who, but also mixing in Fantômas.
• Brian Gallagher: “The Skull of Boris Liatoukine” is the next in the series of stories with Boris Liatoukine, Captain Vampire. Each story has moved forward in time, and we are now in the period when the Soviet Union has collapsed, and so the Captain is no longer working for the KGB, and is one of the few vampires still in existence. As I’ve said before, I am interested in seeing where this series is going as we move closer and closer to present day and if they will be collecting all of these stories (hopefully with some extras) as a book.
• Martin Gately: “Rouletabille in the House of Despair” is another tale of the French journalist and somewhat detective, Rouletabille. Gately has written several of these, and this is actually a two-parter. Here he again works with Harry Dickson in dealing with some German spies, who take the two out of action briefly. Interesting are the brief appearances by the “other detectives” of Baker Street. I wonder if BCP will collect all of Gately’s Rouletabille stories?
• Travis Hiltz: “The Robots of Valencia” is yet another sequel to another early French SF story reprinted by Black Coat Press. This time it’s the 1923 Time Slip Troopers, a sort-of sequel to H.G. Well’s Time Machine, about a group of WWI French soldiers transported back to the Spanish Inquisition. Here, one of them is still living in the past and trying to figure out a mystery with a ghostly lady and a knight, with some help from the Wandering Jew.
• Paul Hugli: “Night of the Craven Raven” is an interesting story that mixes in The Nyctalope and Henry West, Honey West‘s father (both have appeared in past volumes), the Philadelphia Experiment, and Edgar Allan Poe. I thought it was a pretty creative use of the facts of Poe’s life, ideas of alternate timelines, and more.
• Gulzar Joby: Gives us “Science Outraged, Science Murdered!,” a tale with Arsene Lupin teaming up with his nemesis, Chief Inspector Ganimard, in stopping a series of crimes against French scientists.
• Vincent Jounieaux: “The Necropolis of Silence” is a story set in WWII that has RAF pilot Bob Morane, star of a long-running Belgian-French adventure series that I’d love to see English translations, picking up Indiana Jones after finding an important artifact. But they are captured by the Nazis.
• Jean-Guillaume Lanuque: “Lucretius’ Maze” has time-traveling Titus Crow in ancient Rome to deal with a problem and meeting another time-traveling agent, Setni, who appeared in a series of French SF novels, a couple of which were translated in the U.S.
• Nigel Malcolm: Another new story of The Nyctalope, “Enemies of the People,” continues his adventures after the story from the previous volume. He is an agent for SNIF in a future fascist France, but decides to team up with Judex to take it all down. There are dangerous foes lurking behind the scenes. Hopefully we’ll see a continuation of this storyline.
• Christofer Nigro: He provides us a new story with characters he’s used in prior volumes, “The Anti-Adonis Alliance.” He’s been doing new stories of Felifax the Tigerman, some with his half-brother Felanthus. In a direct sequel to the story in the previous volume, this one brings together Quasimodo (actually a descendant) and The Phantom of the Opera who are trying to kill Felifax, but fail in part due to Judex.
• John Peel: Here we get another new story of Carnacki the ghost breaker, in “The Gutter God.” This story deals with Jack the Ripper (or if you will, the real story about who & what he is), and also the Les Vampires gang.
• Frank Schildiner: “Irma Vep and the Cottage of Doom” is another story of Irma Vep, from Les Vampires, that ties in with his new novel using her that just came out. This story, like that novel, is set in an alternate timeline.
• Michel Stephan: “Madame Atomos Likes Her Music” is a strange story about John Lennon and Madame Atomos, the vengeful Japanese villain. Stephan has been providing us with new Madame Atomos tales, of which this is the latest.
• David L. Vineyard: “The Theft of the Golden Asp” is an interesting short tale with Arsene Lupin stealing from Fu Manchu, a sequel of sorts to the author’s tale in the previous volume. Here there is a more direct meeting of the two. However as interesting as this part is, I thought the ending of the tale was just as interesting and creative.
• Jean-Marc Lofficier: “Bertie of the Jungle” is a very short tale of Tarzan, but with Bertie Wooster instead of John Clayton.
All these volumes are great, and as I’ve said, it’s incredible they’ve kept this up for 15 years! They have already got next year’s volume up with subtitle (Voir Dire) and cover. If you’re not getting these works, and hopefully going after other stories with these characters, you are missing out.
