Rocambole in London

For now I decided to skip Volume 2 of Basil Balian's abridged Rocambole translations and go right to volume 3 with his London adventures.

The first story in the Volume was really the epilogue to Rocambole's India adventure.  It was amusing.

The summery of the Rocambole saga on CoolFrenchComics is sometimes misleading. Part of it may be how abridged this Translation is.  But I take notice that Jeon-Marc seems to want to encourage people to compare these characters to Iconic Modern characters, in ways that may or may not be accurate.  In the case of this first story, they describe The Beautiful Gardiner (Romia) in a way makes her sound kind of like Poison Ivy.

I did my post that talked about the Strong Female characters of Ponson and Feval.  Now that I've read this there are more I could add.  Vanda, Romia, but most of all Ellen Palmure.  At least in the first book of the London trilogy she is a really intriguing character.  The way her character completely changes at the end is kind of hard to swallow.  A problem that faces many female villains when they make a Heel-Face turn.

One of the main things I was looking forward to reading about was Reverend Peters Town.  Who's called Bishop Towne in this translation.  He's been called a sort of Protestant counterpart to Eugene Sue's Father Rodin.  Thing is, he's not actually clever enough to fit that analogy I feel.  It's always a different Villain who actually seems to be a match for Rocambole's ingenuity.  Towne is maybe more comparable to Father D'Aigrigny, Rodin's superior.

Rocambole was a character who started out a villain.  What's interesting here is that while operating as part of this Irish Resistance in London he kind of seems effectively like he's a Supervillain again in terms of his tactics.  Comparable to Anime characters like Lelouch Vi Britannia.

Feval and Ponson both wanted to play on French reader's tendency to sympathize with the Irish under British occupation, but Ponson was willing to go much further.  Because Feval still had Fergus O'Breanne and Henri Belcamp as villains rather then heroes.

There are flaws, but overall I recommend it.

My Review of The Vampire Countess by Paul Feval

 My Review of The Vampire Countess by Paul Feval translated by Brian Stableford for BlackCoatPress

Written in the 1850s, it's surprisingly modern in that it blends being a Vampire tale and other genres. It's set in 1804, as Napoleon is about to make himself Emperor. It has a Film Noir vibe to it with the titular Vampire (Often described as an Enchantress) serving as The Femme Fatale.

From here on the review may contain spoilers, but I'll try not to spoil to much.

The Vamp in question is involved in (And at times seemingly the leader of) a secret society plotting to Assassinate Napoleon. But she also latter secretly helps the police trying to thwart them. Her true agenda seems to be simply to obtain wealth for her master Count Szandor.

Some dialogue scenes drag to a great deal, but when we see the Vampiress in action it's one of the most powerful Seduction scenes I've seen written, rivaling even Carmilla (My favorite Vampire Tale).

I recommend this, for all avid fans both of Vampires and of Crime/Pulp Fiction.