For over ten years, Black Coat Press has supplied lovers of genre and classic pulp fiction with its annual Tales of the Shadowmen anthology series, the only ongoing series devoted to showcasing international heroes and villains of pulp literature. The end of every year brings a new volume, and I'm proud to have yet another story included in the latest volume, Tales of the Shadowmen 13: Sang Froid. My story this time out might just be my favorite yet, a tale of swinging spies, master thieves and miniskirts entitled "From Paris with Hate." The story sees that immortal avatar of evil Fantomas (based on his gargoyle-like appearance from the wonderful Jean Marais films of the sixties) kidnapping a French official and holding the entire country at ransom. Jean Bruce's indelible creation OSS 117 (Hubert Bonissuer de la Bath, for those in the know) is tasked with the rescue operation, and decides to "recruit" a team of specialists to help in his endeavor, the type of masked men and super-criminals who were directly inspired by Fantomas in the first place: Kriminal, Eva Kant and her heavily-eyebrowed lover Diabolik. As you've likely guessed by visiting this very blog, Diabolik and Eva Kant are amongst my favorite fictional characters, so getting the opportunity to play with them (in the era of the mod sixties spy films from which they were birthed, no less) was an incredible honor.
All of that, plus eighteen other tales of pulpy, genre goodness, spanning from medieval times to the wild, wild west and beyond and featuring all of the Shadowmen standbys, such as Sar Dubnotal, Dr. Omega, Rouletabille and a dozen others.
Make sure to order a copy here or here for you or a loved one this Christmas season!
No comments:
Post a Comment