I've been waiting for the episode that this title would fit.
A quote more famous for being quoted, but this context returns it to the original context, a deity taking the form of a God of Destruction.
This episode was awesome, tense and epic.
Monday, June 20, 2016
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Jurassic World still holds up on repeat viewing
I watched it again yesterday and I still love it.
The ruins of the original park are a nostalgic highlight, but they also serve a poetic purpose. That scene makes me think of "My name is Ozymandias King of Kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair". And it foreshadows how the new park is in the process of suffering the same fate.
A lot of people have been really hard on the film for being Sexist. I get the whole woman not wanting kids being told she does thing is problematic, but the fact remains the first film did the same story-line with a male lead, they're actually evening out the gender treatment here.
The female lead of this movie is brave and smart, she's the one who gets the idea to release the T-Rex.
A lot of other things come down to expected gender roles, I kinda wish the "guy who has the common sense all the more powerful people around him don't" trope that Chris Pratt plays out could be a woman character for a change.
But the fact that it's being held against this film more so then prior JP films or the MCU films I think is really unfair.
One thing some people complain about is the protagonists not being archaeologists this time. I think that's it's strength, the right way to do this movie differently, as in this setting these creatures being alive again isn't quite so new anymore.
In this movie the substance is new while the Nostalgia is Superficial, that's how it should be. In The Force Awaken, which I did love but hasn't yet proven as re-watchable, the differences are superficial while the substance is telling the same story. Again Star Wars should be repetitive, but the Prequels I feel got the balance better.
This movie is still ultimately inferior to the original, and probably even to The Lost World Jurassic Park. But I have a hunch it will in the long run hold up better then a lot of other current films critics are being less dismissive of.
The ruins of the original park are a nostalgic highlight, but they also serve a poetic purpose. That scene makes me think of "My name is Ozymandias King of Kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair". And it foreshadows how the new park is in the process of suffering the same fate.
A lot of people have been really hard on the film for being Sexist. I get the whole woman not wanting kids being told she does thing is problematic, but the fact remains the first film did the same story-line with a male lead, they're actually evening out the gender treatment here.
The female lead of this movie is brave and smart, she's the one who gets the idea to release the T-Rex.
A lot of other things come down to expected gender roles, I kinda wish the "guy who has the common sense all the more powerful people around him don't" trope that Chris Pratt plays out could be a woman character for a change.
But the fact that it's being held against this film more so then prior JP films or the MCU films I think is really unfair.
One thing some people complain about is the protagonists not being archaeologists this time. I think that's it's strength, the right way to do this movie differently, as in this setting these creatures being alive again isn't quite so new anymore.
In this movie the substance is new while the Nostalgia is Superficial, that's how it should be. In The Force Awaken, which I did love but hasn't yet proven as re-watchable, the differences are superficial while the substance is telling the same story. Again Star Wars should be repetitive, but the Prequels I feel got the balance better.
This movie is still ultimately inferior to the original, and probably even to The Lost World Jurassic Park. But I have a hunch it will in the long run hold up better then a lot of other current films critics are being less dismissive of.
Monday, June 13, 2016
Two Holy Grails
That was a pretty good episode. I apologies for skipping last week.
I kinda tend to have less to comment on as the action picks up and there are less fun character moments.
Early on I kinda thought "if I didn't know this was from a 90s comic I'd think there was a subtle 9/11 reference here". Later I started suspecting similarities to the Trigon story-line from the 80s Teen Titans comics.
In the 90s Anime it was the Inner Senshi who created the barrier if I remember right.
I kinda tend to have less to comment on as the action picks up and there are less fun character moments.
Early on I kinda thought "if I didn't know this was from a 90s comic I'd think there was a subtle 9/11 reference here". Later I started suspecting similarities to the Trigon story-line from the 80s Teen Titans comics.
In the 90s Anime it was the Inner Senshi who created the barrier if I remember right.
Sunday, June 12, 2016
1838 is the most eventful year in the fictional history of France
You might have noticed this if you've been studying 19th century French Popular fiction and the French WNU.
Since real life history doesn't seem to mention much happening in France in 1838 at all. I figure this is likely to have happened from later authors homageing the first who probably picked that year at random.
It begins with Eugene Sue who effectively founded several new genres when he wrote The Mysteries of Paris, originally serialized in 1842-43. It's events are all set in 1838, and it was wildly successful.
Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte-Cristo was a project that began when he was prompted by his publisher to write something to copy the success of Sue's Mysteries of Paris. While the Novel's story spans from 1815-1844, the bulk of the main narrative, Dantes actually carrying out his revenge plan, pretty much everything that the Anime Gankutsuou adapts, is set in 1838, (as well as all the scenes featuring Eugenie Danglers and Louis d'Armilly). So pretty much everything people actually want to see.
Much later Paul Feval would write his Blackcoats saga. The second half of Salem Street and the entirety of The Invisible Weapon are set in 1838.
In the introduction for his translation of The Invisible Weapon Brian Stableford talks about how that novel is perhaps the most Suesque of Feval's novels, echoing many things Sue did but also doing them very differently. Most of the parallels he mentions are to The Wandering Jew besides that it features a character locked up in the same Paris prison as The Mysteries of Paris. But I think that it's being set the same year as The Mysteries of Paris is not likely to be a coincidence.
Spoiler for The Blackcoats novels ahead
Especially since setting those events in that year caused one of the major continuity hiccups of the saga. What we're told about Saladin in the original novel and Heart of Steel (written before) and The Companions of The Treasure (written after) place Saladin's birth in 1840, this novel alone contradicts that by featuring him in 1838.
There's no major reason you couldn't move the events of the novel up two or three years to fix that issue. But it'd still be a problem that it effectively depicts the break up of Echolat and Simolor before we ever meet them in the original novel. And makes one wonder why Maman Leo is completely absent for their story-lines in the events set in 1842 and early 43 in the first two novels.
Sue's second major novel was mostly set in 1832, that year was also of interest to later writers. But it has more real life historical significance due to the June Rebellion (fictionalized in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo) and other lingering aftermaths of the July Revolution. Dumas's novel set then (She-Wolves of Machecoul; The Last Vendée) was also based on real history of that year, and for Feval's secret history it's only the extended prologue of Heart of Steel, Marguerite's origin story, that is set during 1832, and is early in the year during Lent.
Since real life history doesn't seem to mention much happening in France in 1838 at all. I figure this is likely to have happened from later authors homageing the first who probably picked that year at random.
It begins with Eugene Sue who effectively founded several new genres when he wrote The Mysteries of Paris, originally serialized in 1842-43. It's events are all set in 1838, and it was wildly successful.
Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte-Cristo was a project that began when he was prompted by his publisher to write something to copy the success of Sue's Mysteries of Paris. While the Novel's story spans from 1815-1844, the bulk of the main narrative, Dantes actually carrying out his revenge plan, pretty much everything that the Anime Gankutsuou adapts, is set in 1838, (as well as all the scenes featuring Eugenie Danglers and Louis d'Armilly). So pretty much everything people actually want to see.
Much later Paul Feval would write his Blackcoats saga. The second half of Salem Street and the entirety of The Invisible Weapon are set in 1838.
In the introduction for his translation of The Invisible Weapon Brian Stableford talks about how that novel is perhaps the most Suesque of Feval's novels, echoing many things Sue did but also doing them very differently. Most of the parallels he mentions are to The Wandering Jew besides that it features a character locked up in the same Paris prison as The Mysteries of Paris. But I think that it's being set the same year as The Mysteries of Paris is not likely to be a coincidence.
Spoiler for The Blackcoats novels ahead
Especially since setting those events in that year caused one of the major continuity hiccups of the saga. What we're told about Saladin in the original novel and Heart of Steel (written before) and The Companions of The Treasure (written after) place Saladin's birth in 1840, this novel alone contradicts that by featuring him in 1838.
There's no major reason you couldn't move the events of the novel up two or three years to fix that issue. But it'd still be a problem that it effectively depicts the break up of Echolat and Simolor before we ever meet them in the original novel. And makes one wonder why Maman Leo is completely absent for their story-lines in the events set in 1842 and early 43 in the first two novels.
Sue's second major novel was mostly set in 1832, that year was also of interest to later writers. But it has more real life historical significance due to the June Rebellion (fictionalized in Les Miserables by Victor Hugo) and other lingering aftermaths of the July Revolution. Dumas's novel set then (She-Wolves of Machecoul; The Last Vendée) was also based on real history of that year, and for Feval's secret history it's only the extended prologue of Heart of Steel, Marguerite's origin story, that is set during 1832, and is early in the year during Lent.
Thursday, June 9, 2016
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
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.
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.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
I am guilty of an Anachronism in my story The Piano Maidens.
Published in Tales of The Shadowmen Volume 12. But that I've also made available online.
The anachronism is that the story is set in 1839, yet I refereed to the existence of Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew, which didn't begin serialization till 1843. My mind I guess just focused on that when that Novel takes place was in 1832 so it's already part of Father Rodin's history. I made this mistake and I'm amazed how long it took me to notice it, I proof read it several times before sending it to Jean-Marc.
I should have known better, I wrote this as I was obsessing over every minutia of the development of French Popular fiction in the mid 19th-early 20th centuries.
In the past I have felt annoyed at other writers making such mistakes. Now I've made one myself that I should have known better and thus forfeited my right to complain.
I am of course free to re-write the story in a way that corrects the problem, it would be perfectly intellectually and morally consistent as I defend George Lucas by pointing to the precedent of Tolkien and Mary Shelly. But I'm unsure how.
One option is I could change when it's set to a later date. I don't want to do that because I wrote this story imagining Eugenie and Louise as teenagers or very early 20s, my ambition here is to write a YA Lesbian Romance in a Shadowmen setting, But more directly important the Blakccoats lore tie in depends on The Colonel being alive and were made with it being the same year as Coriolani's rebellion as a subtle backdrop (the character of Gian-Paolo dies before the end of 1839).
And I also want the lead Heroines to have not aged much since they left the narrative of TCoMC in 1838.
The second option is to remove the reference. Problem there is first that it's a decent chuck of the conversation with Rodin though not what's important to the direct plot-line I'm setting up. And I was particular on how I handled the topic changes in the conversions.
But also thematically I wanted to set up that in this fictional universe some fictional novels exist even though events they depict also happened. So that the references to the Jane Austen novels do not rule out those characters also existing. I realize that's already a given for the TOTS fan-base, but I also want to this to work as a possible introduction for my own fictional shared universe.
Thing is I will probably be least faithful to Eugene Sue's among all the Public Domain characters I use. His moral outlook was often to simplistic and did not usually do well by female characters. My Rodin I intend to have be a more nuanced character, even though I do share Sue's anti-Catholic sentiment for a different reason.
Which is why I was deliberately ambiguous about if we should view Sue's novel as a reliable account of the events in question (but equally on how reliable a source of info Rodin himself is). I kind of don't want the title character to be real since that myth is Aniti-Semitic in origin.
I've been meaning to look into exactly when Father Rodin would have been born, Sue also had him pop up already during the French Revolution.
I'll probably decide in favor of the second option, but I'll need to work on that, and I'm trying to write this story's sequel (might not be a direct one, but it'll also star Eugenie and Louise) right now. I will remember to ignore the discussion in question.
The anachronism is that the story is set in 1839, yet I refereed to the existence of Eugene Sue's The Wandering Jew, which didn't begin serialization till 1843. My mind I guess just focused on that when that Novel takes place was in 1832 so it's already part of Father Rodin's history. I made this mistake and I'm amazed how long it took me to notice it, I proof read it several times before sending it to Jean-Marc.
I should have known better, I wrote this as I was obsessing over every minutia of the development of French Popular fiction in the mid 19th-early 20th centuries.
In the past I have felt annoyed at other writers making such mistakes. Now I've made one myself that I should have known better and thus forfeited my right to complain.
I am of course free to re-write the story in a way that corrects the problem, it would be perfectly intellectually and morally consistent as I defend George Lucas by pointing to the precedent of Tolkien and Mary Shelly. But I'm unsure how.
One option is I could change when it's set to a later date. I don't want to do that because I wrote this story imagining Eugenie and Louise as teenagers or very early 20s, my ambition here is to write a YA Lesbian Romance in a Shadowmen setting, But more directly important the Blakccoats lore tie in depends on The Colonel being alive and were made with it being the same year as Coriolani's rebellion as a subtle backdrop (the character of Gian-Paolo dies before the end of 1839).
And I also want the lead Heroines to have not aged much since they left the narrative of TCoMC in 1838.
The second option is to remove the reference. Problem there is first that it's a decent chuck of the conversation with Rodin though not what's important to the direct plot-line I'm setting up. And I was particular on how I handled the topic changes in the conversions.
But also thematically I wanted to set up that in this fictional universe some fictional novels exist even though events they depict also happened. So that the references to the Jane Austen novels do not rule out those characters also existing. I realize that's already a given for the TOTS fan-base, but I also want to this to work as a possible introduction for my own fictional shared universe.
Thing is I will probably be least faithful to Eugene Sue's among all the Public Domain characters I use. His moral outlook was often to simplistic and did not usually do well by female characters. My Rodin I intend to have be a more nuanced character, even though I do share Sue's anti-Catholic sentiment for a different reason.
Which is why I was deliberately ambiguous about if we should view Sue's novel as a reliable account of the events in question (but equally on how reliable a source of info Rodin himself is). I kind of don't want the title character to be real since that myth is Aniti-Semitic in origin.
I've been meaning to look into exactly when Father Rodin would have been born, Sue also had him pop up already during the French Revolution.
I'll probably decide in favor of the second option, but I'll need to work on that, and I'm trying to write this story's sequel (might not be a direct one, but it'll also star Eugenie and Louise) right now. I will remember to ignore the discussion in question.
Friday, June 3, 2016
Alexandre Dumas novel La Tulipe Noire
In the history of adaptations being done "in name only", the Alexandre Dumas novel called La Tulipe Noire (The Black Tulip) sparks an interesting chain.
The original novel is not what we most stereotypically associate with Dumas, even for those of us who are familiar with more then just his big two. It is neither a Swashbuckler or a Revenge Fantasy. It is also not set during the French Revolution but about a century before, and it doesn't seem to feature a masked vigilante or any other actiony elements. It basically seems from the description like the modern definition of a romance novel.
In 1964 a French-Italian-Spanish film was produced with the same name. It's plot is not actually based on the novel at all, but definitely seems like a homage to Dumas over all legacy. It is set during the French Revolution, and involved a masked Vigilante called The Black Tulip fighting on behalf of the peasantry against the Nobles.
Alexandre Dumas did write a novel about a Vigilante operating during the French Revolution, in Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge. A Novel most well known for being a key inspiration for The Scarlet Pimpernel, and for the Prequels Dumas wrote for it that are more well known for their villains then heroes. But the thing is both the Redhouse Knight and the Pimpernel were more operating on the Royalist side. Ironically however The Black Tulip's politics more reflect Dumas own views, he was not a Royalist in-spite of how many Royalty aligned heroes he wrote.
Dumas was not the only influence on this film, it's Zorro connection is clear, in fact the lead actor went on to play Zorro. And the Twin aspect interestingly enough makes me think of Paul Feval's Le Fils du Diable (The Three Red Knights) which was a masked vigilante swashbuckling novel that involved triplets.
This film went on to inspire an Anime, the full title of which is La Tulipe Noire: La Seine no Hoshi, which tends to just be called by the subtitle, because the character refereed to there is the real main character. It predates The Rose of Versailles as an Anime set during the French Revolution. At the beginning a male Masked Vigilante called The Black Tulip is already active, but it is the young girl who decides to become one herself the story follows. And once again this time the vigilantes are on the rebel side.
This Black Tulip has a different real name then in the movie, since I haven't watched all of either I don't know if their canons can be reconcilable.
This Anime is super rare, I have gotten to view only the first episode. I'm pretty sure there is no official Sub much less a Dub. Once I can view all of it, I may write my own Crossover Fan Fiction with the main character. I think someone should consider doing an MCU style shared universe bringing the various fictional characters of the French Revolution together, the classic ones are all Public Domain so the copyright wrangling would just have to be with certain Anime studios in Japan and whoever owns the above film which could easily have become one of those ambiguous ones.
As a final anecdote, in the Pokemon made for TV movie Mewtwo Returns (a direct sequel to Mewtwo Strikes Back) the character known as Domino is also known as The Black Tulip, I wonder now if a direct homage was intended?
The original novel is not what we most stereotypically associate with Dumas, even for those of us who are familiar with more then just his big two. It is neither a Swashbuckler or a Revenge Fantasy. It is also not set during the French Revolution but about a century before, and it doesn't seem to feature a masked vigilante or any other actiony elements. It basically seems from the description like the modern definition of a romance novel.
In 1964 a French-Italian-Spanish film was produced with the same name. It's plot is not actually based on the novel at all, but definitely seems like a homage to Dumas over all legacy. It is set during the French Revolution, and involved a masked Vigilante called The Black Tulip fighting on behalf of the peasantry against the Nobles.
Alexandre Dumas did write a novel about a Vigilante operating during the French Revolution, in Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge. A Novel most well known for being a key inspiration for The Scarlet Pimpernel, and for the Prequels Dumas wrote for it that are more well known for their villains then heroes. But the thing is both the Redhouse Knight and the Pimpernel were more operating on the Royalist side. Ironically however The Black Tulip's politics more reflect Dumas own views, he was not a Royalist in-spite of how many Royalty aligned heroes he wrote.
Dumas was not the only influence on this film, it's Zorro connection is clear, in fact the lead actor went on to play Zorro. And the Twin aspect interestingly enough makes me think of Paul Feval's Le Fils du Diable (The Three Red Knights) which was a masked vigilante swashbuckling novel that involved triplets.
This film went on to inspire an Anime, the full title of which is La Tulipe Noire: La Seine no Hoshi, which tends to just be called by the subtitle, because the character refereed to there is the real main character. It predates The Rose of Versailles as an Anime set during the French Revolution. At the beginning a male Masked Vigilante called The Black Tulip is already active, but it is the young girl who decides to become one herself the story follows. And once again this time the vigilantes are on the rebel side.
This Black Tulip has a different real name then in the movie, since I haven't watched all of either I don't know if their canons can be reconcilable.
This Anime is super rare, I have gotten to view only the first episode. I'm pretty sure there is no official Sub much less a Dub. Once I can view all of it, I may write my own Crossover Fan Fiction with the main character. I think someone should consider doing an MCU style shared universe bringing the various fictional characters of the French Revolution together, the classic ones are all Public Domain so the copyright wrangling would just have to be with certain Anime studios in Japan and whoever owns the above film which could easily have become one of those ambiguous ones.
As a final anecdote, in the Pokemon made for TV movie Mewtwo Returns (a direct sequel to Mewtwo Strikes Back) the character known as Domino is also known as The Black Tulip, I wonder now if a direct homage was intended?
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