BookTuber reviewing classic Fantasy Novels.

The name of the YouTube Channel is The Everyman Reads.

The idea is he's going to review 500 major Fantasy Novels in the order they were written.  He's still very early in the project having just reviewed George MacDonald's Lilith.  And it's a very good video everyone should watch it. 

In this video he defines how he divides Fantasy into 6 Eras. He's probably about right in what his divisions are, but the Pedantic in me can't help but be annoyed by the labels he chose, the point of naming eras after precious Metals is to repeat the Greek Mythological format, Gold then Silver then Bronze and then Iron.  His timeline goes Bronze, Silver, Classic, Golden, Modern and the current recently started but not definitively named era.  Which is the other pedantic complaint, Modern is by definition current, if we aren't in the same era as 2005-2020 anymore then that era needs a new name. 

Now as I said when talking about Eras of Anime The Golden Age is the first full era of greatness, but there can be a proto or pre history. So I would call his Bronze Age the formative years, then his Silver Age The Golden Age, then his Classic age the Silver Age and his Golden Age the Bronze Age and his Modern Age the Iron Age.

The 500 books he's selected are naturally biased towards the English speaking canon. And that's fine actually, there is a lot to cover just there. I just want to use this framing as a jumping off point for mentioning some foreign works I feel deserve more credit and attention.  Because what foreign language country's fiction I'm interested in changes depending on the era. 

The first two eras line up well with my Froncophilic interests I hold thanks to CoolFrenchComics.com and BlackCoatPress.

Paul Feval wrote only one book I'm confident can be considered Fantasy enough to definitely count, La Ville Vampire translated into English by the late Brian Stableford as Vampire City, first serialized in the 1860s.  Stuff straddling that early transitional line would include some of the works in Anne of The Isles. Some of his books set in modern Paris I would draw inspiration from when writing Urban Fantasy though they wouldn't actually count since the Supernatural element is always left ambiguous if present at all, The Vampire Countess, Revenants, Knightshade and The Blackcoats saga whose 6th volume The Companions of The Treasure is in my view the most Tolkienesque thing written before Tolkien. 

The Angel and The Sphinx from 1889 by Eduard Schure and translated by Brian Stableford.

The Enchanted City by Eugene Hennebert from 1893 including in BlackCoatPress's upcoming French Tales of Lost Worlds anthology.

In 1908 and 1909 Gustave Le Rouge wrote two novels that directly anticipate the Barsoom series, these were Translated and published together as Vampires of Mars. 

1919's L'Atlantide is like She in some ways but not in others, the author Pierre Beniot had not read She. It has had a similar if more forgotten cultural impact, for awhile being directly adapted every decade but also in the name of it's Femme Fatale Antinea influencing even more films.

As far as arguing that 1990-2004 was the best era of Fantasy Prose Novels, this wouldn't be the only time where what I call The Bronze Age is also the age I would argue is the best, that's certainly the case with Anime and kind of is for some DC characters. And that is where my Weeb interests come in.  

I haven't read these books, I haven't even seen all the Anime based on them, but I know a lot about their cultural importance.  And these are only stories that were originally prose novels which Light Novels count as, I won't be including anything that started as a Manga, Anime, Video Games or Visual Novels though they certainly have plenty of their own contributions to making this an exciting decade and a half for the Fantasy genre.  

The Heroic Legend of Arslan series started in 1987 but continued all through this era. 

Majuu Senshi Luna Varga is referred to as being based on a Light Novel but I can't find any publication dates for it, it's probably the most randomly obscure thing I'm going to list here.  The OVAs came out in 91 so it could turn out to be too soon for this era. 

Slayers started in 1990.

The Twelve Kingdoms started in 1992 and is one of the many GRRMs of Anime source materials in that it's still unfinished. 

On the subject of Urban Fantasy I'm unsure what does and doesn't count but I feel 1998 started a peak era for Japanese Urban Fantasy with Boogiepop and Others in February and the first Kara No Kyoukai in October.  I also recall Trixie The Golden Witch mentioning an anthology book of Light Novels like these from this era called Faust. 

Maybe a short story shouldn't be considered eligible for this but Kinoko Nasu's Angel Notes from 99 is pretty important. 

Scrapped Princess was from 1999 to 2003.

Legend of The Legendary Heroes started in 2002. 

2002 is also the same year as the original Web Novel for Sword Art Online, which isn't a Fantasy novel but has become undeniably important to the history of Fantasy in Japanese media.

Baccano! started in 2003 as did The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya if you count either as Urban Fantasy.

The year 2004 was the start of at least three important Light Novel sagas. 

The Familiar of Zero was very popular and a website that started as a fan site for it would go on to be the main incubation chamber for modern Isekai.

And then two more where I'm unsure if they count as Urban Fantasy for now.  Durarara!! and A Certain Magical Index.

And in December of 2004 Hakubō no Dendōshi by Gen Urobuchi was published. 

I've been thinking about my French Pulp Fiction interests again.

I did a post recently on how Anime still isn't Mainstream, but the thing is Anime isn't even the most Niche thing I'm into.  Anime at least has enough of an active online fandom presence that I can Tweet about it and find lots of interesting YouTube videos and Tumblr posts and Fan Fiction.

What I'm talking about in this post I'm not even sure what to call it, it's way more specific then what most people who'd call themselves a Francophile mean.  I often use Shadowmen as a short hand after the anthology series Tales of The Shadowmen or the nonfiction book Shadowmen: Heroes and Villains of French Pulp Fiction.  

The main fan-site is CoolFrenchComics.com and the main modern publisher of relevant content is Black Coat Press.  They publish lots of English Translations of 19th and early 20th Century Pulp Fiction, but also some books that contain new stories using these characters or related themes.  The Editors who run BCP are Jean-Marc & Randy Loffcier and some of the books they Translate themselves.  However a lot of their flagship books are translated by Brian Stableford.  A number of them, including some that may benefit from a Female perspective were translated by Nina Cooper.  It seems everything that's a Stage Play rather then Prose is translated by Frank Morlock.  Another notable contributor is Rick Lai who I'll talk more about later.

BlackCoatPress has made some marketing decisions I consider unfortunate.  Starting with their decision to say "Adapted by" rather then "Translated by" on the covers of all their translations. Now they have an explanation for this on their website on a page called Adapted vs Translated, where it's basically because they're trying to distinguish themselves from old Public Domain translations that are little better then what we in the Anime Community would call Machine Generated Translations, they want to give their translators credit for the skill they provide in making their translations actually pleasing to read, it's not because they are actually changing or rewriting anything.

The problem is that explanation isn't on the back of the every book.  And so for example when I'm trying to convince fellow Anime fans to try one of them out, a Translation openly branding itself as an "Adaptation" is going to make them think of 90s Hack Dubs where the names are all Americanized, and Croissants are called Jelly Donuts, and Death is euphemized as "leaving this world", and Eugenie Danglars & Louis d'Armilly are referred to as "cousins".

Rest assured BCP's Translations are the opposite of that, preserving the French cultural characteristics in ways modern Anime Dubs and even Subs still struggle with, like keeping rather then translating French nicknames and Honorifics.  I watched a YouTube video once where someone talking more about Manga translations actually said that Honorifics should be translated or dropped entirely, that they simply don't work in English and only pretentious Weaboos want to keep them.  And I've come to realize that's just plain Racist, only when talking about East Asian media is it at all controversial to preserve their Honorifics, no modern respectable translation of Les Misérables for example would dare change Monsieur to Mister or Mademoiselle to Miss, some of those old PD translation that BCP wants to distinguish themselves from so badly did, but everyone today agrees that's stupid.  No one considers it jarring in the Musical when these French honorifics are spoken by the Cockney accented Thenardiers, it actually works just fine.  Japanese honorifics are way more different from English honorifics then French ones are, what they communicate about the culture is even more important to preserve and any attempted 1 to 1 equivocation of them to English words will be way less accurate in their connotations.

Another marketing mistake is that a few books will on their back cover blurbs describe aspects of what happens in ways that might feel a bit like a bait and switch once you've read them.  So for example don't read The Wandering Jew's Daughter expecting The Wandering Jew to be Superman.  The Wandering Jew's Daughter is itself not one of the best of Paul Feval's novels, but the BCP translation is worth buying just for the information Stableford provides in the Introduction for cultural context, so much history of how the Wandering Jew legend was used in French literature and melodrama that you won't find on Wikipedia.

Stableford's translations always have very in-depth educational Introductions, extensive Footnotes, and more often then not an insightful Afterward as well.  With both John Devil and The Vampire and The Devil's Son I definitely agree with Stableford's Afterward provided interpretations of what actually happened in the story. Companions of The Treasure is another one where Stbaleford's interpretation is basically Canon to me.

The Phantom of The Opera is such a classic of literature and pop culture in general not just in France that you would probably think surely a good faithful and complete English Translation existed before Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier published theirs in the 2000s, but you'd be wrong.  Multiple reviews of their translation affirm that no one before even kept the basic format of how the story is told.  But because theirs came so late and most people assume that "certainly a Penguin Classics edition can be trusted" their English version remains rarely read even by younger readers.  Half the Phantom of The Opera content on YouTube is from Lindsay Elis, and one thing you learn in those is how pervasive is the opinion that Andrew Lyod Webber's musical is better then the original novel, and I can't help but blame the fact that most of these Musical Theater Kids have never read the real novel.

Speaking of Lindsay Ellis she did a video on The Persian, lamenting the constant either White Washing or Demonizing of that character.  So it's a shame she never read Rick Lai's Shadows of The Opera, in that series The Persian is not exactly a main character but they are from what I recall faithfully preserved as both a Persian and a good person.

Speaking of which, now is a good time to mention that there is some relevant material published by other publishers.  A number of Frank Molock's stage play translations were published by Borgo Press, and the first volume of Rick Lai's Shadows of The Opera was from Wild Cat Books, but BlackCoatPress took over for the follow ups.  BCP hasn't published any Rocmabole stuff besides two Stage Plays in one volume, Basil Balian has made a very abridged translation of the entire Rocambole saga, and Jean De Ponson du Terrail has made complete translations of the first two volumes.

I did mention above my desire to sell this stuff specifically to fellow Anime fans.  Rick Lai's Shadows of The Opera and Sisters of The Shadows series is a good place to start.  It began with Rick Lai making a female version of The Shadow, and then things get increasingly implausible with how nearly all the major players in this epic saga are female.  It's a series waiting to be made into an Anime. 

But as interesting as I find Rick Lai's work, some of the characters he uses I really don't want his takes on to be people's introductions to them.  Chiefly Paul Feval's The Blackcoats saga and Maurice Leblanc's The Countess Cagliostro, both have been translated by BlackCoatPress.

The Countess Cagliostro is however the Prequel of the Arsene Lupin saga, and not the only book of that saga to take place before some books already published when it was written.  So is the Lupin Saga one where it's appropriate to read in Chronological rather then Publication order?  Well I still haven't read all of them, but for the essentials of what I have I'd say go ahead.  Basically the essential Arsene Lupin works are the ones translated by Jean-Marc & Randy Lofficier and the original short stories included in Arsene Lupin: Gentleman Burglar which basically all take place between Countess Cagliostro and The Blond Lady aka The Blond Phantom.

Paul Feval's works are the most interesting to me.  My introduction to him began as part of my prior Vampire phase, it was The Vampire Countess and Vampire City which caught my attention first and which I read in that order.  Both are great and so are Knightshade and Revanants.  Countess and Revanants are from an earlier phase of Feval's career when he hadn't gotten as ultra Meta yet.  

There is something said in a few reviews of Vampire City I consider misguided, and that's making it sound like Polly Bird is in any way Trans representation, she was simply the subject of supernatural gender bending and it isn't even emphasized all that much, and in the end it would certainly be problematic to read her as Trans representation.

John Devil is the best of Feval's novels, but also the longest at least of what BCP has translated.  I think the best entry point to The Blackcoats saga would be either Salem Street or The Invisible Weapon, but 6 out of 7 of them are worth reading and fairly capable of standing on their own, The Cadet Gang is the one that he clearly was forcing himself to write after losing all passion for the topic so I'd say don't bother with it.  

Thing is while a good deal of the Prose content relevant to this interest is available in English now (there are some still untranslated I want to see get translated), most of the French Movies and TV shows about these characters have no English Subtitled release I can watch.  It's in this area where fans of Japanese entertainment media are lucky, even the most obscure stuff can usually be found Subbed in some capacity.  But for French stuff I wanna watch, the 60s Fantomas trilogy, the 63 Judex, the 96/97 film version of Paul Feval's Le Bossu titled on Amazon as On Gaurd, and the 2004 Arsene Lupin have Subs I can watch, but that's it.  However I also wanna see some of the films based on Eugene Sue's The Mysteries of Paris, or Rocambole, or all of the other Le Bossu adaptations (it seems one gets made about once a decade), or the TV adaptations of Les Habits Noirs and Le Loup Blanc.

Update: I forgot to talk about something important.

If I have piqued anyone's interest in buying stuff from BlackCoarPress, I know from talking with them that buying the book using their website directly gives a larger percentage of what you spend to the Author or Translator then they would get when using a site like Amazon as the middle man.  However that also costs the consumer more on shipping and handling.  And more often then not I get the book faster when I use Amazon, but that's because of the same circumstances that force their delivery drivers to piss in bottles.

It's another unfortunate symptom of Capitalism that what's more affordable for the consumer results in less of the money spent going to who actually deserves that money.  I am in a financially difficult situation right now.  But anyone who is in a fairly comfortable situation financially I would ask to be willing to spend the extra money necessary to support BlackCoatPress directly.

Frankenstein is a lot older then Dracula

Because of their Iconic Universal Films both coming out in 1931, and then Hammer doing their versions close to each other, then the 90s 'put name of book Author in film title' versions (and as a Weeb I should add their Toei Anime TV movies).  We tend to think of their histories as being parallel.  But they weren't always.

In 1931 Dracula was in the grand scheme of things still a fairly new addition to popular culture.  The same age Harry Potter and Pokémon will be in 2031, and about the same age Late 80s stuff is now, or Star Wars a decade ago when the Disney buyout first happened.  There were people alive in 1931 who remembered when the original book came out, who remembered a time before Dracula existed, in fact Bela Lugosi himself was a teenager then but not in the right region to have likely read it that early.  Also Stoker's wife was still alive when it's sorta sequel was made.

For Frankenstein however, 1931 was the same year as the Centennial of the Novel's THIRD edition.  There is still less time separating us from the Universal Film then separated the Universal Film from the original novel's publication in 1818.  The Creature being popularly thought of as a tall green skinned flat headed monster with bolts in his neck has been the case for less then half his existence thus far.

This fact is technically well known, but I don't think we often process the implications of that, we think of the Universal Film as still close to the beginning of Frankenstein's cultural legacy, even though it's very much not.

Between the novel's 1st and 3rd edition was a Stage version in 1823 called Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein.  A lot of the pop culture Frankenstein mythology not in the book which many assume began with the 1931 film is actually already in that 1823 play, like the Creature being created in a Castle.  Mary Shelly's own comments on the play cite a memorable moment being the Doctor shouting "IT LIVES!!!!!".  The actor who played The Creature in that version passed away 20 years before Boris Karloff was born.

Ya know the not in the Book trope of Dr. Frankenstein having a Hunchbacked assistant named Igor?  Well Igor being the name originated with Ygor played by Bela Lugosi in 1939's Son of Frankenstein.  In the 1931 Universal film that character was named Fritz and played by Dwight Frye, and that was also his name in the 1823 stage play.  Fritz was the name of this character for longer then Igor has been, it was Fritz for over a century but one Bela Lugosi performance changed it forever.

An 1826 French Play by Charles Nodier called Le Monstre et le Magicien (The Monster and the Magician) is considered an unofficial adaptation of Frankenstein by the people at BlackCoatPress.  Frank Morlock wrote an English translation and they published it alongside Hugo's own Notre-Dame de Paris stage version (the same one Lindsay Ellis talked about) in a volume called Frankenstein Meets The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, the title being justified by a thrown in original short story by Morlock himself.

But guess what, Frankenstein and his Creature had even already encountered a Vampire a decade before Dracula was published in the 1887 musical burlesque Frankenstein, or The Vampire's Victim.  This YT video features a song from it.

That of course brings us to how if you defined Dracula by more then just the name and consider him him an evolution of Lord Ruthven, he can be considered exactly as old as Frankenstein being born from the same legendary Ghost Story competition in 1817, and did get a lot more Stage versions in between.  For more on that subject I recommend the book Stage Blood: Vampires of the 19th-Century Stage by Roxana Stuart, and also the translations of French Ruthven stories published by BlackCoatPress, the plays translated by Frank Morlock and a Novel by Brian Stableford.

Palpatine did NOT know Darth Plagueis secret

Everyone remembers that iconic scene in Revenge of The Sith where Palpatine tells the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis The Wise.  However there is a later scene people keep forgetting.

After Anakin formally turns and is christened Darth Vader Plapatine admits that only one ever learned the secret to cheating death.  In other words he LIED when he said the Apprentice of Plagueis was taught everything.

I have always liked this nuance of ROTS.  

When in 2012 I started getting into Paul Feval and BlackCoatPress and reading material on CoolFrenchComics about Joseph Balsamo as written by Alexandre Dumas I noticed how Balsamo killed his mentor Althotas before ever learning the secret of his Alchemical Elixir of immortality.  And that made me like ROTS even more, another very old mythical/literary concept echoed in Star Wars.

Because of this there was never any doubt in my mind that it was Plagueis who caused the conception of Anakin.  The idea that it was Sidious who did it never even crossed my mind.

And I always wanted to maintain the theory that the existence of this ability was a lie to begin with, something Plagueis said he could do but really couldn't.  Maybe he somehow knew about Anakin's conception on Tatooine and simply claimed credit for it.  Thus maintaining that only the Light Side can truly lead to immortality.

However fan theories have a long history of ignoring this. Like the theory that Padme really died because Palpatine was sucking the life force out of her.

Then Disney came along, and one of their Comics literally confirmed that it was Sidious who caused the conception of Anakin.  And now Rise of Skywalker is entirely predicated on that whole force life sucking idea.

So no, I'm not gonna be okay with RoS simply because it ticked off TLJ's fans.  Even the way it goes about saving Kylo is lame and meaningless to me.

The thing is I don't have to acknowledge the new movies.  I can still pretend in my Headcanon that they lived Happily Ever After at the end of ROTJ so there is no reason for me to carry on a grudge.

Update January 2020: Apparently that scene from that comic was misinterpreted, they never intended to confirm or deny anything about Vader's conception.  And if you pay attention Shimi is already pregnant when the scene starts.

An update on my Black Coat Press and Tales of The Shadowmen interests

Been a while since I said much specifically on that subject.  It'll be awhile before I can contribute to the Tales of The Shadowmen anthology series since the story ideas I've been having lately haven't been on that subject, Anime has taken over my imagination.  And of course I always have trouble getting my stories actually written down anyway, having an explicit deadline helped motivate me when I was writing TOTS stories.

I also feel bad that I still haven't finished The Companions of Silence, I bought the book early this year and started it, I like it as much as I do most Paul Feval stuff, but my mind has been fixating on other things.  This February The White Wolf is being released, it has had English versions before but they're rare and hard to find.  I hope they follow that up with The She Wolf.

I spent a good deal of time last year recommending Princess Principal to fellow Shadowmen fans.  It's set in an alternate Steam Punk version of Victorian England, but a lot of it's themes feel more appropriate for post-Revolutionary France.  But regardless plenty of the French novels we like used Britain as a setting, from The Mysteries of London to the last three Rocambole novels to John Devil.

I bring it up again now because it's Dub has finally dropped.  Now I haven't watched said Dub yet, I know from the trailer they actually went with British Accents which is a decision I'm actually rather skeptical of.  Noir's Dub worked great without any accents, I love Anime dub VAs but accents aren't their strong suite.  Still I will give a shot eventually.

The show is legally streaming on both HIDIVE and Amazon Prime, I think only HIDIVE has the Dub but I'm unsure, it may be you need to buy the DVDs for the full Dub.  Either way neither can be streamed for free, they are not making it easy for me to show this show to outsiders.

Something else about Princess Principal is I feel the episodes should be watched in Chronological order.
2, 3, 5, 4, 9, 1, 7, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12

A lot happens in Anime that reminds me of my Francophilic tendencies.  This coming Fall Season will have yet another Anime version of Jeanne d'Arc in a show that's also about Alchemy.  We also had more Lupin III Anime this year, I won't be watching Part V till it's Dub airs however, which based on the time-frame for Part IV I suspect will be next year.  All the main Lupin III shows are on Crunchyroll Subbed right now, but suddenly The Woman Called Fujiko Mine isn't streaming anywhere.

Thanks to Hulu dropping most of what it had, Rose of Versailles and Revolutionary Girl Utena can't be legally streamed anywhere now either. That's really frustrating.

Lastly I want to talk about an observation I made about Pokemon Heroes: Latios & Latias, the Fifth Pokemon movie.  This observation can only be fully understood by others who have read Knightshade (Brian Stableford's translation of Paul Feval's Le Chevalier Ténèbre), including it's introduction and afterward material.

I feel that Annie and Oakley can be thematically compared to the Ténèbre Brothers.  They are called sisters in material I've read though I don't recall that being explicitly stated in the Dub.  Oakley is definitely Avarice.  Calling Annie "Lust" may be a bit more of a stretch since it's a kid's movie and all, but she is very vain and likes pretty shiny things, and is officially described as the prettier one.  This parallel is most likely a coincidence, but I enjoy making parallels between the works of this semi forgotten author and modern Nerd media.

I've read some more Arsene Lupin

I've read The Hollow Needle and 813 over the last couple days and placed reviews on Amazon for them.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R18U0IXDPHZEXJ/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

https://www.amazon.com/review/R2YZJI5LFFUH0Y/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

I'm not gonna repeat anything from the reviews here, I'll just say that a comment in the 813 review is why I tagged this as a Pretty Little Liars post.

As of these I feel I've read the essentials of the original Arsene Lupin.   I've read the first few short stories and The Woman with the Green Eyes (Super Sleuth) online, and I've read BlackCoatPress's translations of the Holmes stories, the Caligostro stories, and now these two.

I've mentioned before how unfortunate I think it is that (English Speaking)Anime fans who are into Lupin III don't seem too motivated to read up on the original.  But their adventures are very different.  Lupin III arguably draws more directly on James Bond and Indiana Jones, both those owe their own debt to Arsene Lupin of course, directly or not, but are still distinct.  Arsene Lupin's adventures are not particularly action heavy, the focus on characters trying to out think each other makes me think of Code Geass and Death Note as closer Anime analogues, but neither of them have a character I'd compare too directly to Lupin. [Update: now that I've finished it I could also say ACCA in a sense.]

The Castle of Cagliostro draws on the classic Lupin more then most.  But the connection to the Cagliostro novel is mostly just in name.  It's really The Woman with the Green Eyes that seems to have been the major inspiration.

A while ago I talked on Tumblr about Aria the Scarlet Ammo.  I also just watched the first two episodes of it's sequel/spin off season, AA, now that their Dub is available.  It has a very different vibe, one that appeals to me much more overall.  No longer a male MC and so far no egregious fan service.  And it's got Yuri.  And fortunately Riko Mine will be back.

John Devil Expanded Universe

I want to talk here a bit about my personal plans for expanding on the John Devil universe in future writings.  

Star Wars is about Fascism, but is it so in a way that is actually useful in opposing Fascism?

So my fellow SJWs at TheMarySue and LadyGeekGirl and on Tumblr have been going on and on about how Star Wars is obviously political.  What they mainly mean by that is it's obviously on their side, and want to use that George Lucas and the new directors are all mostly on the Left side of modern American politics as proof of that.  But the Author Is Dead and George Lucas especially was like Tolkien in that he wanted his stories to have a universal appeal beyond his own personal views or context.

But I'm not making this to talk about any intentional room for interpretation.  But rather a far deeper issue of how society responds to the fiction they watch.  And to start with you should watch this video from KyleKallgrenBHH on YouTube.

From Caligari to Hitler: Imagining the Tyrant - Between the Lines

This premise goes back decades. But this particular video on it was made in November of 2016, after the U.S. presidential Election of that month but before Rogue One came out.  I had watched it when it was still pretty new and bookmarked it on YouTube.

Rogue One is a movie I loved and enjoyed.  But as I looked at a certain segment of Star Wars fans not so impressed with it, expressing how bothered they were by people in their theater openly cheering on Darth Vader at the end.  I was reminded of the above video.

Because this thesis was not mainly about heroes of German cinema who could be viewed as unintentional proto-Nazis, though that was a small factor.  It mostly came down to the tendency of the masses to be fascinated by Villains.  Star Wars has always had that factor, it is the TVTropes Trope Namer for Rooting For The Empire.  And recently The Fanboy Perspective did an editorial about how annoyed he is by movies who's villains are not sufficiently charismatic and Bad@$$ enough to satisfy him.

Now don't get me wrong.  That Vader scene is one you are supposed to "enjoy".  You are supposed to "enjoy" it the same way you "enjoy" a Slasher film.  But of course the fandom of Slasher films has this same problem, I keep seeing people try to say the Final Girl archetype is Feminist, but they don't sell action figures of Laurie Strode, they sell action figures of Michael Myers.

Now I was planning on making this post and saying what I am about to say before Carrie Fisher was even hospitalized.  But naturally I now find it even more important to say that the character people should have been standing up and cheering at the end of Rogue One was Princess Leia.

And of course I can't help but notice the clear correlation between this kind of Star Wars fan, and the Prequel Haters.  People who resent the Prequels for emasculating Darth Vader, and are oh so thankful now to Rogue One for restoring his Manhood, quite literally symbolized by the extending of his Lightsaber.

And we see that in the new Trilogy's haters also to an extent, not liking how whiny and pathetic Kylo Ren seems, they wanted a new Vader, not a Vader wannabe.

Now before you go "great Job invoking Godwin's Law in your ongoing Crusade against Prequel Haters".  I want to say, don't oversimplify my premise.  I'm not saying you can identify Trump voters by tallying who cheered on Darth Vader, or who hated the Prequels.  On Tumblr I certainly know many Prequel haters who are Anti-Trump, and the most Conservative Star Wars fan I know is a relative who's pretty okay with the Prequels.  My point is that there is a basic cultural overlap between the mentality that leads to thinking the Villains are the best parts of Comic Book films, and finding Trump's style appealing.

And I know full well The Prequels also give us a Villain to be fascinated by, as they finally gave The Emperor an actual character.  Yet at the same time so much Prequel hate is tied to feeling Darth Maul and Count Dooku were under utilized.  And complaining about Anakin killing the Younglings.

Yes, that is an important comparison to the Rogue One scene.  Undeniably that should show the character's Evilness far more.  In Rogue One he's killing enemy combatants, not even a War Crime much less one against civilians, it's wrong only to the extent he is on the wrong side.  But it's not so easy to cheer on Vader massacring Younglings, which Lucas kept off-screen anyway.  More importantly then that though, is how it doesn't make him seem Bad@$$, it makes him seem Pathetic.  Sidious had basically just told him he needed to do some Evil for the Evuls to grow more powerful with The Dark Side, and so he did just that.  Reminds me of how Utena fans who hate the movie are so upset by Akio now being made to look pathetic, Ikuhara did that deliberately.

The massacre of the Seperatists leaders could have been far easier to cheer on.  But the way it's scored and shot, and how it's inter-cut with Palpatine's speech (Lucas cited this as his one Godfather Baptism moment) discourages the audience from doing so.  Topped off by seeing how even this killing of people who narratively had it coming had Anakin crying, showing he still has further to fall, and is certainly as Yoda predicted "Suffering".

I also noticed recently a problem in how all the universally praised Star Wars films, are ones where the "War" in question is unquestioningly a just one, for our Heroes side at least.  And in TFA and Rogue One even more so then the Original Trilogy, hesitancy to go all in on fighting it is presented as weakness.  While The Prequels which send the message that fighting an unjust war, one where our Heroes were the aggressors, is what created The Empire in the first place, get decried for not being simple enough.

2002 saw the release of both Attack of The Clones and The Two Towers.  That was also the year the Bush Administration was beating the War Drums on Iraq, so much so my mind still affiliates that War with 2002 more so then 2003.   Both films happen to have a theme of a War about to break out, which it does at the end.  Bizarre coincidence since it couldn't have been pre-planned.

The sad Irony is that Tolkien would certainly despise the Bush Doctrine as someone traumatized by WWI.  Yet the timing of when the Two Towers movie came out allowed many Bush voters in the theater to take Aragorn's "Open War is upon you, whether you would have it or not" as a take that to Anti-War liberals.  I know this because way back then I was one, a fact I'm deeply ashamed of.  Meanwhile AOTC clearly presents the decision to go to War as a mistake.  The Empire was truly Born in Episode II, and the score beautifully tells you that at the end.  It was just formalized in Episode III.  I wonder to what extent the Prequels are a factor in my ceasing to be Pro-War by 2006.

Going back to Lucas intent, yes he wanted to cosmetically reference the Nazis like everyone was doing at that time.  But in the Audio Commentaries the real meat when he's talking about Historical influences lie in his talking about Ancient Rome and of all people Napoleon III.  Julius and Augustus Caesar, and both Napoleons presented themselves as the Left Wing of the politics of their times, however odd that may seem to us looking at it now.  Lucas message in the prequels was about how Democracy can be subverted, regardless of the ideology of the one subverting it.

That he cited Napoleon III is interesting to me.  Years after I'd first enjoyed those Audio Commentaries, I started developing an interest in 19th Century French Popular fiction, the genesis of which was discovering Paul Feval and BlackCoatPress.  Brain Stableford talks much about the historical contexts of all these novels in his Introductions, Afterwards and Footnotes of his Translations, (interestingly in The Invisible Weapon he theorized Feval become personally disturbed by his own ability to write such compelling villains, that he became like Mliton, unknowingly of The Devil's Party).  And there too Napoleon III is unavoidable.  He may be a nearly forgotten figure today, but to his contemporaries he was very important.

And of course the shadow of Napoleon Classic Version is vital to that.  Especially since censorship meant any negative commentary on him had to veiled.  And he had critics from both progressives and old fashioned conservatives.  Seemingly any novel mentioning the original Napoleon in the 1850s, 60s or even to an extent 70s had Napoleon III in mind.  But not using OG Napoleon himself as the allegory, no they didn't want to grant him that.

The thing about the real Napoleon was that he managed to earn the respect even of those who most harshly opposed him Politically, from both the Royalists and Republicans, from Alexandre Dumas to Paul Feval.  Napoleon III couldn't do that.  And thus the contemporary fictional allegories for him lie in the Napoleon wannabes.  Like Henri Belcamp of Paul Feval's John Devil, or The Blackcoats: Companions of The Treasure, where Julian Bozzo-Corona disguised himself as his far more iconic Corsican Grandfather, Colonel Bozzo-Corona.

Of course it is this failed wannabe nature of how Napoleon III was fictionalized by his contemporaries that makes someone in the know like me a little disappointed in Palapatine as a character partly inspired by him.  And this informs what I in-spite of my issues with TFA love about Kylo Ren.  It is Kylo Ren's failure to be Darth Vader that reminds me of Napleon III's failure to be Napoleon.  And I now kinda hope Snoke is equally a wannabe Sidious, overcompensating in his hologram so no one questions the size of his.... hands.

I realize I kinda left the original topic a bit there.  But I wanted to show I'm not just being a hater who's now completely cynical to seeing useful Politics in Star Wars.  Because Donald Trump also wants to be something he is not.  The Alt-Right sees this as a second American Revolution, but Trump is no George Washington.

Some people might find it offensive to see any French Figure as a proto-Fascist when France was a nation victimized by 1940s Fascists.  But in their current Political Climate they should know they're no more immune to it then America is.

June 20th 2017 Update: Triumph of The Will

I just watched a YouTube video by Folding Ideas about Triumph of The Will. It didn't exist yet when I first made this post.

It was informative on a few levels, the key thing is the closing, that this film that defines how we think of the Nazis, is how the Nazis wanted people to think of them.  It really makes you rethink things.

Because the imagery of that infamous Propaganda film is also core to how fictional evil Empires and Tyrants are compared to the Nazis to demonize them.  Including in Star Wars.  And yet paradoxically I've also seen it observed that it influenced the Rebellion's award ceremony at the end of ANH.  You know, the one where the Blond White Male heroes get Medals but the hairy alien who can't talk properly doesn't.

Tales of the Shadowmen 13: Sang Froid is now availible to order

http://www.blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-the-shadowmen-13-sang-froid.html

Tales of the Shadowmen 13: Sang Froid

Price

$23.95  

Reference

DEC16

Availability

In stock

 

 TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN 13: SANG FROID
edited by J-M. & R. Lofficier
cover by Michel Borderie
stories by Jason Scott Aiken, Matthew Baugh, Adam Mudman Bezecny, Nicholas Boving, Nathan Cabaniss, Matthew Dennion, Brian Gallagher, Martin Gately, Travis Hiltz, Paul Hugli, Rick Lai, Nigel Malcolm, Christofer Nigro, John Peel, Frank Schildiner, Sam Shook, Michel Stéphan, David L. Vineyard and Jared Welch.

US$23.95/GBP 15.99 - 6x9 tpb, 300 p. - ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-578-9
Sang Froid, i.e. Cold Blood! The ability to stay calm in difficult or even dangerous situations... as exhibited by French sleuth Joseph Rouletabille aboard the transiberian "Horror Express"... Or martial arts master Caine and Jed Puma confronted by an insane plan to seize the Wild Wild West... Not to forget the great warlock Quentin Moretus Cassave coming face to face with the Dark Gods, Doctor Omega determined to solve a most enigmatic temporal murder, Sâr Dubnotal battling Dracula, and Sir Wilfred Ivanhoe sworn to defeat the evil Bishop of Aquila...

All this, plus the return of Fantômas, the People of the Pole and the Enchanted City of Africa, Vampires in Berlin and Los Angeles, and a host of Frankenstein Monsters!

In this thirteenth volume of Tales of the Shadowmen, the only anthology dedicated to international heroes and villains of pulp literature, writers from Canada, England, France and the United States, pay homage to those great champions and master criminals who enchanted our adolescence.

Contents:
Jason Scott Aiken: Galazi in the Enchanted City starring Galazi, Queen Toulommia
Matthew Baugh: A Dollar’s Worth of Fists starring Kwai Chang Caine, the Black Coats, Jed Puma
Adam Mudman Bezecny: Harry’s Homecoming starring Harry Dickson, Doctor Ox
Nicholas Boving: The Aquila Curse starring Renaud the Montauban, Ivanhoe, Etienne de Navarre
Nathan Cabaniss: From Paris with Hate starring OSS 117, Fantômas, Diabolik
Matthew Dennion: A Purpose in Life starring Micharl Myers, the Black Coats
Brian Gallagher: The Berlin Vampire starring Captain Vampire, The Vampire Countess, Von Bork
Martin Gately: Rouletabille Rides the Horror Express starring Rouletabille, Sir Alexander Saxton, James Wells
Micah Harris: The Goat of Saint Elster starring Quentin Moretus Cassave
Travis Hiltz: The Island of Exodus starring The People of the Pole, The Wandering Jew
Paul Hugli: As Easy as 1, 2, 3... starring John Carter, Jean Saint-Clair, Nikola Tesla
Rick Lai: Eve of Destruction starring Dr. Mabuse, Fantômas, the Black Coats
Nigel Malcolm: Maximum Speed starring M. Lecoq, Loveday Brooke, Simon Carne
Christofer Nigro: Bad Alchemy starring the Frankenstein Monsters
John Peel: Time to Kill starring Doctor Omega, Bob Morane
Frank Schildiner: The Taking of Frankenstein starring Gouroull, Wu Fang, Dr. Xavier
Sam Shook: Bringer of the Outer Dark starring Hareton Ironcastle, Sâr Dubnotal, Chandu, El Borak
Michel Stéphan: One Summer Night at Holy Cross starring Bob Morane, Harry Callahan
David L. Vineyard: The Moon of the White Wolf starring Arsène Lupin, John Silence, Bulldog Drummond
Jared Welch: Styrian Rhapsody starring Eugenie Danglars, Louise d'Armilly, Mircalla Karnstein
Credits

As usual my story is last.

The BlackCoatPress website was revamped a couple months ago

So I realized I should provide some new linked to the Tales of The Shadowmen volumes I have stories published in, since the old Links don't work anymore.

I've had Three Published already in Volumes 10, 11 and 12.  So far my story has always been last thanks to my surname.

http://blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-the-shadowmen-10-esprit-de-corps.html

http://blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-the-shadowmen-11-force-majeure.html

http://blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-the-shadowmen-12-carte-blanche.html

And it seems likely my new story will be in Volume 13 which comes out this December.

http://blackcoatpress.com/forthcoming-tales-of-the-shadowmen-13-sang-froid.html

TALES OF THE SHADOWMEN 13. Sang Froid

edited by J-M. & R. Lofficier
cover by Michel Borderie

US$23.95/GBP 15.99 - 6x9 tpb, 300 p. - ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-578-9

Contents:
Jason Scott Aiken: Galazi in the Enchanted City
Matthew Baugh: A Dollar’s Worth of Fists
Adam Mudman Bezecny: Harry’s Homecoming
Nicholas Boving: The Aquila Curse
Nathan Cabaniss: From Paris with Hate
Matthew Dennion: A Purpose in Life
Brian Gallagher: The Berlin Vampire
Martin Gately: Rouletabille Rides the Horror Express
Micah Harris: The Goat of Saint Elster
Travis Hiltz: The Island of Exodus
Paul Hugli: As Easy as 1, 2, 3...
Rick Lai: Eve of Destruction
Nigel Malcolm: Maximum Speed
Christofer Nigro: Bad Alchemy
John Peel: Time to Kill
Frank Schildiner: The Taking of Frankenstein
Sam Shook: Bringer of the Outer Dark
Michel Stéphan: One Summer Night at Holy Cross
David L. Vineyard: The Moon of the White Wolf
Jared Welch: Styrian Rhapsody
Credits

Sang Froid, i.e. Cold Blood!

Doctor Ardan meet the People of the Pole! Doctor Omega teams up with Ki-Gor to find the secret of the Yeti! Maigret, Father Brown and Dr. Watson face a terrifying supernatural threat! Felifax ends up on Dr. Moreau's island. Sâr Dubnotal and the Werewolf of Paris fight the vampires! Arsene Lupin duels with Raffles! Captain Vampire defies the Reds! Rouletabille is trapped on the Mysterious Island! Spiridon investigates a vampire murder in Paris! The Phantom of the Opera finds death in Persia! Sherlock Holmes meets Lecoq and Mephista Leonox!

In this thirteenth volume of Tales of the Shadowmen, the only anthology dedicated to international heroes and villains of pulp literature, writers from Canada, England, France and the United States, pay homage to those great champions and master criminals who enchanted our adolescence.

This one again stars Eugenie Danglars and Louise d'Armilly, this time they encounter Carmilla, The Lesbian Vampire.

I wish Internet Fandom communities would discover Paul Feval

The opportunities that could come from doing Fan Fiction and Fan Art and Cosplay and so on inspired by Paul Feval's characters is quite rich.  And other writers of interest to BlackCoatPress as well.  Including the lesser known works of well known authors like Alexandre Dumas.

Now of course everything written in Tales of the Shadowmen fits the basic definition of Fan Fiction,  Crossover Fics to be exact.  (I don't how many TOTS writers would be the kind of writer to be offended by that comparison, I would hope none and I'm optimistic in that regard.)  But they're distinct from what we generally think of as fan fiction, in terms of the concerns that drive the Authors, besides arguably myself.

Nearly all TOTS contributors have been male so far, but anyone who'd like to contribute is free to take a shot at it.  There is contact info at their Website.  For my first contribution I just emailed a description of the basic idea to see if it would fit and we went from there.  Also if anyone multilingual is interested in helping Translate more Public Domain French poplar fiction novels and plays not yet available in English.  They are the ideal Publisher I'd recommend for submitting your translation to.

Of Feval novels still not yet available in English, the one I largely most want to see done next is La Louve (The White Wolf), the first Female Maksed Vigilante in all of literature, that I'm aware currently and I'm aware of some pretty obscure stuff.  Written in the late 1850s, it was a prequel to Le Loup Blanc (The White Wolf) but it wouldn't be the first time BlackCoatPress started a series with prequels (Salem Street and The Invisible Weapon) and I'm a Star Wars Prequel Evangelist so I'm all for doing them first, I'd bet Feval likely meant it to be able to work as a stand alone.  Besides three Public Domains translations of The White Wolf exist, they are impossible for an average person to find right now but since Libraries have them I suspect they'll wind up online eventually.

But back to the subject of Fan Fiction.

Warning, Spoilers for various Feval novels will occur, though generally not more then what CoolFrenchComics spoils, which is a website ran by BlackCoatPress.

1. Fan Reinterpretation.

Dawn Felagund's survey showed that

only 21.5% of participants chose Agree or Strongly Agree for the statement, “It is important to keep my stories consistent with Tolkien’s moral beliefs.” Just about twice as many writers, on the other hand (52.1%), agreed or strongly agree with the statement, “Writing fan fiction lets me challenge Tolkien’s worldview.”

Thing about Feval is, he may very well be even more Conservative then Tolkien.  None the less he unwittingly contributed a lot to the history of Popular Fiction for Liberals including Feminists to be interested in.  And he probably does do better by his female characters overall then Tolkien, he certainly created far more.  But he's also not without problems.

Brian Stableford's Afterward for Revenants shows how Death of The Author is quite applicable to that story.  And in his Afterward for Heart of Steel he calls that book "unintentionally Proto-Feminist", and he also laments the fact that that story's real Hero has to be married off at the end, that subject I'll return to later.

But there is one opinion Stableford expressed in that Afterward I disagree with, when he says Marguerite isn't as strong a character as Lecoq.  As someone who read quite a bit about The Blackcoats online before I was able to buy the books myself.  Lecoq is the character I considered the most disappointing.  My post comparing him to PLL's Wilden shows the value I see in the character, but I feel he pales in comparison to most Super Villains that Feval created.  For The Blackcoats, The Colonel is definitely number 1, but the real number 2 to me is Marguerite Sadoulas.

Lecoq also ultimately never actually moved against The Colonel, even when he was on his death bed he refused to act till The Colonel was dead.  That tells potentially interesting things about his character, but it's also a missed opportunity.  And I think in-spite of himself Feval too may have like Marguerite more, since he never retconed Lecoq's demise as he did for others (it would have been easy, just say the ending of the first novel was changed for a more conventional ending and Lecoq's fate was in fact what Mayoneta originally planned, for him to go to prison).  And it was Marguerite who gets to confront The Colonel (officially not the same character but really it is) in the high council's ultimate rebellion in The Companions of The Treasure.

In the end Heart of Steel may not even be the most female driven Blackcoats novel, that honor may well go to The Invisible Weapon.

2. Shipping, including Slash.

Not all Fan Fiction is shipping, and not all Shipping in fan communities is Slash.  But those trends are common and important and Feval gave us plenty to ship.

Any discussion of slash potential in Feval I feel must begin with Echolat and Similor.  In at least this case, I feel confident Feval himself intended us to consider a Homoerotic subtext to their long (chronologically confusing) and complicated relationship.  The fact that in almsot every book they appear in (which is 6 our of 7 Blackcoats novels, they are almost the R2-D2 and C-3PO of that saga) they are compared to Orestes and Pylades, plus that they're raising a son together.

Now in Feval's canon this relationship is not the most positive one, Echolat is ultimately good but Similor is the opposite, and Echolat's redemption tends to correlate to marrying a woman (though a not traditionally feminine one).  But I feel to modern readers they have the potential to come off as the Harley and Ivy of the 19th Century.

Now to return to The Heart of Steel.  The most difficult thing to interpreting the book in a Feminist fashion is how everyone has to be hetero-normatively married off in the end.  Especially since Feval intentionally portrayed the three male romantic leads weak and ineffectual (as he often does).  I suggest the fan community should screw that and make Rose and Nina a couple.

If you're hoping for a Femslash option for Marguerite, in The Companions of The Treasure in the second half, she has a three chapter long conversation with Irene Carpentier all about her talking her into letting her stay in her room.  I've intentionally misled the context there, but regardless it's an intense scene.  While there is really no real interaction between them in the books to use as a starting point, I like to consider Marguerite and Fanchette possible, I've written Fanchette to be Pansexual in The Piano Maidens.

The 1996/7 film version of Le Bossu very heavily encourages the audience to read a subtext into Lagardere and Nevers.  And we get to see Aurore dressed as a guy briefly, if you're one of the many women or men into a Bifauxnen looking women, that sequence will be fun.

Fandom does do Het pairings and even sometimes supports canon pairings.  In which case not quite all of Feval's canon pairings are boring. John Devil and the first Blackcoats novel both have some fun Love Dodecahedrons going on.  Of course some of the not boring ones have other potential issues going on.

Incestuous ships are sometimes popular.  (And I don't think enjoyment of such a thing in fiction in anyway tells us if a person would do it in real life).  And in this context Sarah O'Niel and Robert Surrisy in John Devil have potential, I personally feel it more then the pairings that were the endgame.  And since some people still insist on thinking of Cousins as taboo Feval has a quite few Cousin relationships.

One thing that is sometimes a problem for a modern reader in enjoying a work of 19th Century literature is the 19th Century's tendency to be okay with relationships with significant age gaps (usually the Man is older) including a relationship that starts out as quasi father-daughter and then becomes romantic.  This makes Vrai uncomfortable with the relationship between Edmund and Haybee in the Count of Monte-Cristo and why Vrai supports the romantic aspect being removed in Gankutsuou.  I for one think Edmund/Haydee is very important, and didn't even notice on my own that the Anime had deromanticized it.

However such relationships are not without supporters in the modern world, and sometimes they become popular for Fan Fiction writers even if it was never canon.  From Spike and Dawn in the Buffy Fandom to Sansa and Sandor for GoT.  Well there is nothing Father-Daughter like about either of those, but they're what pops in my head.

That I know of Feval has only two books (and only one is yet among those BlackCoatPress has translated) where he expects the reader to root for such a relationship.   I have a problem with neither, but others might so I shall mention them here.

One is Lagardere and Aurore in Le Bossu, Rick Lai has suggested that the potential problems with this relationship is why Hollywood has never adabted this novel that the French Film industry takes a crack at every decade.  And suggests The Mask of Zorro was an attempt to repackage the plot with that issue removed (and with the more marketable to English speaking Zorro brand).  (I think an equally likely factor is that the novel doesn't have an English translation that doesn't suck.)

Salem Street was the first Blackcoats book Stableford translated.  In the Afterward for The Sword Swallower both Stableford and Jean-Marc express that regardless of their publication order the books should ideally be read in the order Feval wrote them.  I don't necessarily agree, though I would recommend saving Cadet Gang for last simply because it's the only one I don't recommend reading at all, and is certainly dependent on Companions of The Treasure and Heart of Steel being known to the reader.  But I would save Sword Swallower for after the other 5 good ones.

Parisian Jungle can work as an introduction to Blackcoats, but neither it or John Devil I would recommend for introducing one to Feval in general, they're the longest Feval books BCP has done and that's because Feval meanders more in them, not the way Ponson tended to but he does.  Both are great Books, but I feel you need to be used to Feval a bit when you read them.

I started with The Vampire Countess and that worked out well, Knightshade is also pretty good, both are really more Crime Novels in-spite of their Vampire aspect.  For The Blackcoats, The Invisible Weapon is absolutely the best, and not truly dependent on any prior knowledge.  Though I read it second following Salem Street.

Salem Street was designed to be an introduction to the world essentially, it was a Reboot of sorts.  And as a shorter novel is a better intro to Feval in general then the original first book.  But it's atypical of the other books in a few ways, including lacking Echolat and Similor.  Pistolet is Feval's most successful attempt at writing a Detective type character while also being Genre Savvy and willing to Crossdress, and so to many he'd be this book's greatest strength.  It's the only book where The Colonel, Lecoq and Marguerite are all 3 featured and all as more then just Cameos, but none of those three is quite the central villain of this one, that would be the false Prince.

But now to finally return to what I was talking about before diverging to what order to read a non chronologically written book series in.  The one downside to starting with Salem Street is if you're the kind of reader who'd be turned off by the relationship between Suavita and Paul Labre, where she is younger and he at first views her as a daughter.  From her standpoint the relationship was always romantic however, and is definitely a bit of a coming of age story for her.

I haven't talked about Fan Art or Cosplay yet, which I also mentioned at the top.  Much of what you do with them overlaps, for Cosplay I'll just say if you have a Quaker Hat you have the first step to being John Devil The Quaker.

It is only Fan Fiction I can myself contribute to, and I shall try to do just that, while mostly saving my Crossover Fics for TOTS, I'll try to get to writing more restrained stories I can put on more traditional Fan Fiction sites.

My story The Piano Maidens is now online

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11852987/1/The-Piano-Maidens

http://archiveofourown.org/works/6333346

http://shadowmenfrench.livejournal.com/1029.html

http://theshadowmenlounge.tumblr.com/post/141439984006/the-piano-maidens

http://jaredmithrandir.tumblr.com/post/141440240198/the-piano-maidens

I have now made my story The Piano Maidens available online for free.

If you like it even mildly I ask you to still buy the Anthology, Tales of The Shadowmen Volume 12, to show support for BlackCoatPress, they are doing very important work and not yet had nearly the success they deserve.  

I’m planning to write more stories with these characters in the future, any constructive criticism I wold greatly appreciate.

Tales of the Shadowmen 12 is now available to order. Including my story The Piano Maidens

Tales of the Shadowmen 12 is now available to order.  Including my story The Piano Maidens, this is the most important story I’ve written thus far.
http://blackcoatpress.com/talesshadowmen12.htm 

Majora's Mask speculation

I figure October is a good month to do a Majora's Mask post.

I watched Gaijin Goomba's 3 part video about Majora's Mask and Africa.  The first two parts were very good, like most of his videos.  But the third one about Majora himself felt like much more of a stretch, I'm afraid I don't really buy it.  I think a connection between Majora and Dionysus/Bacchus could make sense, Dionysus is frequently affiliated with such chaotic behavior, and via his connection to the stage with mask wearing as well.

I also enjoyed the Game Theory video about Link being Dead in Majora's Mask.  There is also a good counter video to that, which I lean towards.  But what interests me is while the Game Theory video was doing it in terms of Termina as a sort of Purgatory world, one could also argue it's all in Link's head during his dying moments.  Which is a genre I know a little bit about from what Brian Stableford discuses in his Afterward for The Vampire and The Devil's Son, published by BlackCoatPress.  His English Translation of Alexis Ponson du Terrail's La Baronne trépassée (1852).

I also can't help but be intrigued by the Stone Tower of Babel theory.

There are a lot of mythical themes in Majora's Mask.  The whole having 4 divine or semi divine beings at the four corners of the Earth is a common mythological motif.  One arguably included in The Bible in Revelation chapter 7 (which leads into Flat Earther arguments).

In Clock Town an annual festival is approaching.  I decided that since festivals are frequently based on the cycles of either the Sun or Moon, and Termina's Moon clearly isn't running on a normal cycle, to speculate on if this festival could be seen as linked to a Solstice or Equinox.

The three days over which the game takes place are days during which the daylight and nighttime hours are exactly even.  Now it's done that way for game play convenience, but still it does effectively make it very likely that these events are happening at an Equinox.

So next question is, is it Spring or Fall?  After you end the unnaturally prolonged winter on the Goron's Mountain there are clear references to it being spring there.  That doesn't necessarily prove anything about the seasons of the rest of the world, but thematically it does link the story of the game to Springtime.

The Roman Bacchanalia was in the Spring, as was the Athenian Urban Dionysia.

The speculation below is not at all stuff I think the designers had in mind, it's purely my own fun head canon.

As a Christian, Springtime festivals make me think of Passover, Purim and Easter.  A period of 3 days being relevant fits that even better.  And with there indeed being a theme of Death and rebirth involved, I figured why not have some fun with it.

After you beat the game is the Dawn of a New Day.  Which works very well in my mind to see as correlating to when Jesus Tomb was found empty early Sunday morning.

I believe that Sunday was April 9th, agreeing the traditional date of the early Eastern Church.  But the Western Church often believed that Sunday was March 25th, which is indeed about 3 days after the Spring Equinox.  Or some speculate originally that day was the Equinox but then somehow things got moved by a few days.

I support a Thursday Crucifixion model.  Which would place Jesus Death on The Cross at 3:00 in the Afternoon on the first day.  6:00 AM in the morning is when Pilate sentenced Jesus according to John 19:4.   However the theories of Wednesday proponents are perhaps most interesting here.  People who are Wednesday proponent while also believing days should start at Sunrise could easily see these three days as matching when Jesus was in the Tomb.

For traditional Catholics this makes the first day Holy Thursday, the second day Good Friday and the third day Holy Saturday.  But of course on Hebrew reckoning the days begin and end at Sunset not Sunrise. 

My Eugenie Danglars story will be in TOTS 12

Tales of The Shadowmen Volume 12

12. CARTE BLANCHE edited by J-M. & R. Lofficier READ AN EXCERPT

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US$22.95/GBP 14.99 - 6x9 tpb, 304 p. - ISBN-13: 978-1-61227-447-8

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Contents:
Jason Scott Aiken: Ardan at the Pole starring Doc Ardan, The People of the Pole
Matthew Baugh: The Lament of the Duke and the King starring Doctor Omega
Adam Mudman Bezecny: The Revelation of the Yeti starring Doctor Omega, Nora, Ki-Gor
Nicholas Boving: The Evil Among Us starring Dr. Watson, Maigret, Father Brown
Nathan Cabaniss: House of El Hombre Loco starring Count Waldemar Daninsky, Dr. Génessier
Christophe Colin : Of Beasts and Men starring Felifax, Dr. Moreau
Matthew Dennion: Turning Point starring Sâr Dubnotal, Werewolf of Paris
Peter Gabbani: A Bond between Gentlemen starring Arsène Lupin, Raffles
Brian Gallagher: The Stake and the Sickle starring Captain Vampire, Von Bork
Martin Gately: Rouletabille on Mysterious Island starring Rouletabille
Travis Hiltz: The Case of the Curious Cadaver starring Spiridon, Van Helsing, Doctor Omega
Rick Lai: The Tomb of the Veiled Prophet starring The Phantom of the Opera,
Nigel Malcolm: The Adventure of the Orcival Rain starring Lecoq, Sherlock Holmes, Gourroull
Jean-Marc Mouiller: Behind the Mask of the Ripper starring Sherlock Holmes, Harry Dickson
Christofer Nigro: Justice and the Beast starring Judex, Doctor Cornelius, Professor Tornada
Pierrick Rival: The Inn of the First Voyage starring Long John Silver, Surcouf
Frank Schildiner: Ancient Space Lizards and Other Visitors starring Jean Kariven, Gussie Fink-Nottle
Sam Shook: The Eldritch Stones starring Sar Dubnotal, Chandu, El Borak
Michel Stéphan: The Submarine "Gustave Le Rouge" starring William Boltyn, Dr. Moreau
Artikel Unbekannt : Leonox Meets Mephista starring Mephista, Leonox
David L. Vineyard: The White Star of Atlantis starring Arsène Lupin, Terence O'Rourke
Jared Welch: The Piano Maidens starring Eugenie Danglars, The Black Coats

Once again I am last by virtue of the Alphabet.

The Piano Maidens is much more like the kinds of stories I generally like to write then my prior two TOTS contributions.  Because I generally like to write female leads/POV characters, and also really like including LGBT representation in my stories.  This story is also a dialogue driven one, no action.

The story stars Eugenia Danglars and Louise d'Armilly from Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte-Cristo.  They are Lesbians who were removed from the oldest English Translation of the Novel as well as most adaptations.  But they are fully restored in the Penguin Classics translation.  And in Matthew Baugh's The Vampire Count of Monte-Cristo.

I am depicting both of these characters as exclusively Monosexually Homosexual.  In my Headcanon for these characters, and actual Canon of any stories I write, neither ever has or ever will be intimate with a man.

Like all TOTS stories it's also a crossover, It features and mentions a lot of both fictional and historical figures.  It's a very Nerdy story.

I include a number of little Easter eggs only fellow PLL will get.

I hope actual Lesbians will be able to enjoy how I write these characters.  So if any LGBT people read this story and has any criticism of it, please feel free to let me know.  I'd really, really appreciate it if by some off chance Heather Hogan did a review of it.

The Book will come out this December, please buy the book, BlackCoatPress does a lot of important work, they deserve more success.

Other works from the same Publisher that should interest those of us who want more Female representation in Genre Fiction include Rick Lai's Shadows of The Opera and Sisters of The Shadows series.  And Nina Cooper's translations of some early female lead detective and spy stories.  And I of course always recommend Paul Feval as translated by Brian Stableford.