In reading Black Coat Press‘s Tales of the Shadowmen series, there are several authors who appear almost regularly. One of those is John Peel.
Two recent books collect his stories from Tales, up through volume #16, along with works from other sources and some new ones. So even if you’re been reading Tales, there are some new stories.
The first collection up is Return to the Center of the Earth, and Other Tales of Steam & Shadows. In this one, we get the following:
- “Return to the Center of the Earth,” from Tales #10 and 11, is clearly a sequel to Jules Verne‘s story. Bismarck has Professor Lindenbrook and his assistant head back to the Center of the Earth, and they are soon joined by others, such as Ned Land and Von Horst. But instead of visiting Verne’s world, they come upon Burrough’s Pellucidar!
- “The Kind-Hearted Torturer,” from Tales #1, has Edgar Allan Poe‘s Auguste Dupin teaming up with the Count of Monte-Cristo to rescue a damsel from the sinister Black Coats, a classic group of criminals from French pulp fiction that I’ve covered in my reviews of Tales.
- “The Incomplete Assassin,” from Tales #2, has Michel Strogoff (from the Verne novel of the same name) and French reporter and detective Rouletabille stopping an assassin.
- “The Successful Failure,” from Tales #3, has amateur detective Isidore Beautrelet (who nearly outsmarted both Arsene Lupin and Sherlock Holmes in a classic tale) teaming up with British adventurer Biggles.
- “The Dynamics of an Asteroid,” from Tales #5, finds Doctor Omega (an early French sf character who is very similar to the first Doctor) dealing with Professor Moriarty.
- “The Biggest Guns,” from Tales #6, is set in WWI and has Doc Ardan (an early French adventurer who is used as an alias/pastiche for Doc Savage) on a mission that has him involved with The Gun Club (from Jules Verne) and Lord Roxton (from Conan Doyle). Doc fans should enjoy the ending of this piece.
- “The Cemetery Plant,” from Book of Dead Things, is a strange tale about a strange flower called a “cemetery plant,” and how it got its name.
- “The Loaned Ranger,” from History Is Dead, is a different take on the origin of The Lone Ranger.
Next, we have Twenty Thousand Years Under the Sea, and Other Tales of Steel & Sorrows. In this one, we get the following:
- “Twenty Thousand Years Under the Sea,” from Tales #4, has Captain Nemo finding sunken city of R’lyeh (from the works of H.P. Lovecraft).
- “More Imaginative Sins,” from Tales #8, stars Carnacki (William Hope Hodgson‘s early occult detective) going up against Madame Palmyre, from the occult novel Baal (translated by Black Coat Press).
- “The Benevolent Burglar,” from Tales #9, has several classic thieves (including The Saint) and detectives (including Maigret, the classic French detective) going after the “treasure” of the Black Coats.
- “Time to Kill,” from Tales #13, gives us Bob Morane (a ’50s and ’60s French adventurer that I wish BCP would translate into English) looking into a locked-room mystery. Thankfully, Doctor Omega shows up to help him out.
- “The Gutter God,” from Tales #15, provides another new story of Carnacki the ghost breaker. This story deals with Jack the Ripper (or if you will, the real story about who and what he was), and also the Les Vampires gang.
- “The Eye of the Hawk,” from Tales #16, has Doc Ardan in the Congo of the early 1930s, where he teams up with Jane Clayton to find several missing scientists, such as Doctor Omega, among others. This story could be a good set-up for a sequel, as they deal with the son of Robur the Conquerer.
- “Blood Calls for Blood,” from Vampire Almanac #2, from BCP takes its inspiration from The Virgin Vampire (1825, and available from BCP), the first tale of a female vampire, Alinska. Here she helps a young girl in vengenace, but at a price she did not expect.
- “Franklinstein,” from Dark Moon Digest #1, is a strange, little tale built around the idea that Benjamin Franklin‘s experimentation in electricity took a little different path. One could turn this into a very different alternate-history series of works.
- “To Protect and Serve,” from Strife & Harmony, is a story with the Arthurian knight Bedivere, who must confront an evil in the deep woods.
- “Long Time Dead,” from Unearthered, is about a pair of graverobbers who dig up the wrong body.
- “Now Departing…,” from Dark Tales From Elder Regions: New York, is another strange tale were our heroine meets death (or actually Death) on the New York subway.
- “Pink Samurai,” from Midnight Rose, is a story that doesn’t take inspiration from the pulps, but from anime. In particular, one called Dirty Pair, about a pair of government agents who in doing their job wind up causing greater destruction. Here we have two female samurai with a similar style.
- “Doctor Omega and the Silent Planet” is a previously unpublished Dr. Omega story that has him and companion Borel landing on a planet that has been ravaged by war machines.
- “The Wrath of Grapes,” from More Tales of Zorro, has Zorro deal with a corrupt Don in Old California.
Overall, these are two good collections of stories. While I’ve read the works from Tales, there are enought new stories for me to get them.
