#Editions Fleuve noir

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Partageons mon rendez-vous lectures #23-2024 & critiques

Voici mes critiques littéraires sur Livres à profusion. Norferville de Franck Thilliez Norferville de Franck Thilliez – Editions Fleuve noir La punition qu’elle mérite d’Elizabeth George. La punition qu’elle mérite d’Elizabeth George – Editions Pocket L’appel du vide de Marin Ledun L’appel du vide de Marin Ledun – Editions Rageot En lecture, Hiver arctique d’Arnaldur Indridason Hiver arctique…

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Fleuve noir, 2018 François Visconti/Yan Ballaile

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French fantasy review: Les flammes de la nuit

I do wonder why I make these posts – about French novels that I do not think were translated in English, reviewing them in English on an English-speaking website… I do know that some French people are lurking around under a mask of Englishness, but still, most people here are those that I guess will never have access to the novels I review… But oh well, I’ll do what I’ll do, as bizarre as it may sound: and what I’ll do is talk about the French fantasy.

I already translated a long time ago some articles written about the French fantasy literature, but here I will share my personal thoughts and favorites when it comes to this genre of fantasy that is considered “foreign” and “exotic” by the simple virtue of… not being written in English. France is the land of literature, and has already bred, nursed and thoroughly exploited and theorized the two genres that gave birth to the fantasy and yet are so hard to translate in English: the merveilleux of fables and epics, the fantastique of 19th century supernatural tales… Why wouldn’t France have fantasy too? The name of the genre stays English, unfortunately, but it has enough echoes and roots within our own féeries and surnaturel to find a place prepared for it since centuries…

Anyway, enough lyrical: let’s get into the meat of the subject, let’s dig to the bone, and I want to begin with “Les flammes de la nuit” (The flames of the night) by Michel Pagel.

When I picked up this book I was not expecting anything precisely from it, I was just curious. I had only ever heard of Michel Pagel through a huge and dark series of his called “La Comédie Inhumaine” that everybody loved and that was renowned as a dark and violent fantastique, but I never read it. The reason I picked up this book was due to its relationship with fairytales. If you do not know I am REALLY into fairytale stuff, I even have an entire sideblog just to talk about fairytales ( @adarkrainbow ). And this novel was advertised as being a fairytale subversion, so I thought, let’s get into it! [EDIT: I actually also had heard of Michel Pagel through another work of his that now I will definitively read, Le Roi d’Août, a supernatural historical novel that faithfully retells the biography of the king Philippe Auguste… While filling some historical blanks in his life by the intervention and encounter of the supernatural folks hiding within the French landscape.]

Most notably, when I checked briefly online reviews to see if I should get the book, all agreed on a same thing: all said that the book was absolutely great, with wonderful ideas and powerful characters… until the very end which had disappointed everybody (at least at the time the reviews were made, so by the 2000s/early 2010s). As a result I went into this novel saying to myself “Okay, the beginning and middle will be great, the end will be bad, get ready”. And… what a surprise! The ending was not bad at all. A bit confused and rushed but… it was a good ending. Or rather a fitting ending (because it is not a happy or positive one, nor is it a negative one – it is a grandiose, tragic, bittersweet but hopeful ending perfect for the tone of the novel and the project the author set upon himself). If you ask me, all the reviews were wrong – and I had been deceived for the best, since the novel surpassed what I was expecting. Now, I won’t throw the stone, I actually understand why these readers were disappointed with the ending and I’ll explain why (spoiler: it is a question of context and point of view). For now, I’ll simply say that I greatly love this novel which definitively goes into my top French fantasy novels.

In terms of editions and publications, a few indications… This is one of those typical edition thingies that are so peculiar to France. The novel was originally published as a series of novellas. Four in total, between 1985 and 1987, in the “Anticipations” collection of the Fleuve Noir publishing house (it was still in this era where in France fantasy and sci-fi were sold together as one and the same). Later, the four novellas were collected into one full volume, one novel divided into four parts. This complete volume was published in 2000 (in a small format by the J’ai Lu Poche Fantasy, in a large format by Denoël collection Lunes d'encre), and it is both the version I read and the one most people refer to when talking about “Les flammes de la nuit”. I do not know if the text was edited or slightly rewritten for this new format – I don’t think so, but I have to admit the text felt so much like an early 2000s story I was quite surprised it came from the mid-80s… There’s quite notably the fact the main character is openly bisexual, but hey, the 80s in France were quite a time too… More recently in 2014 Les Moutons Electrique republished the integral in a large format, and then in 2022 in a middle format, proving this novel’s great and enduring success.

 [Note: As I am writing this post I made a quick checklist and I just discovered that Michel Pagel actually was the French translator of Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys and American Gods, as well as of Gary Gygax’s Monster Manual for D&D… Wow, that was a total surprise – and it does explain some things, I notably see how Neil Gaiman’s writing could have had an influence over this novel…]

Let me briefly set you in the mood the very first pages plunge the reader into… We follow an old man who is travelling on a pilgrimage to a great lake at the center of a medieval kingdom name Fuinör. He isn’t just any old man: it is but one of his masks. He is the Enchanter, a great and powerful wizard as old as the universe itself, a supernatural being known to take many forms, and who can be as much a wild animal of omens as a seducing woman luring knights to an uncertain doom… Once he reaches the great lake, called the Mirror for its still waters form the perfect reflection of the sky and the sun above it, in a great burst of light, the sun disappears… and reappears. But the sun is not golden anymore: it is green. And with the sun everything changed color within Fuinör: the sky is not blue but indigo, the sea is the color of emerald, the trees have blue leaves, human skin is orange… And this is perfectly normal, for in the world of Fuinör, every seven years the sun is reborn above the lake, turning into a different color, and with it everything in the world also changes its hue. And as such, seven year by seven year, the light goes through all the seven colors of the rainbow…

This sets the stage for what “Les flammes de la nuit” is. And it is many, many things, a story which likes the sun of Fuinör undergoes different stages and tones (the serial publication helps this feeling of slow transition and evolution throughout the novel).

The story opens as an open, cynical and dark parody of fairytales – for the world of Fuinör is a world of stock fairytales. It is a world in which, when the king has a daughter, seven fairies, each for each color of the rainbow, arrive to bless her with all the usual gifts – beauty, grace, singing – while carefully avoiding anything like strength or intelligence, for these are male gifts for those destined to rule. It is a world in which, when the queen gives an heir to her king (and there is always only one king and one queen), she must die in labor – and if she happens to survive… then the royal doctor must prepare a certain powder to make sure the queen respects the tradition. It is a world where barons often declare themselves vile rebels and wicked usurpers and try to overthrow the high king… but they are always defeated because the law claims there can only be one rebellion at a time, and each baron must warn in advance the king and let him decide how, when and where he wants to do the battle. It is a world where there is a land for each thing – quite literally. Fuinör is divided into different “countries” each dedicated to a specific area: there is a land of Hunting, where the hunts take place, and any hunting elsewhere is outlawed. There is a land for War, and nobody would ever think of waging war elsewhere than there. There is a land for Love, and all love and romance and sex can only take place within its boundaries. Such as the laws, and the customs, and the traditions, and they have always been since the beginning of time…

Fuinör is a mix of all the classical fairytales and the traditional medieval romance and Arthurian tales – but all taken to an extreme. Fuinör is a world stuck in an endless cycle of loops, where the events all repeat themselves in the same way with predictable end, where everyone is given a specific role and fate since birth, where everything is stuck under an order that has been decided by ominous gods a long time ago, and where no surprise and no disorder can ever happen. The brave knights in shining armor always win the heart of princesses, the high king is always victorious of anyone that tries to take his throne – and if someone ever does, THEY are the rightful high king and the other is the usurper – and the peasants… well who cares, they don’t count, they’re not even considered human, they are just here to work and be background props.

But things will change… Things will change thanks to the Enchanter, who decides that when the new princess of the kingdom is born, little Rowena, she shall receive a gift no other princess ever received… the gift of intelligence. An intelligence that will allow her to understand the absurd logic of her world, and use the sclerosis of archetypes and the rigidity of millennia-old customs to her advantage. An intelligence that will make her greater and more powerful than anyone – an intelligence that will threaten the very existence of Fuinör… Thus is the beginning of “Les Flammes de la Nuit”.

The beginning of the novel, Rowena’s own youth and story, is clearly designed to deconstruct all the archetypes, stereotypes and point out all the bad side of both the generic fairytale (especially Disney’s version of fairytales – the novel is filled with jabs at Disney and the “Americanized” fairytale, the seven fairies being basically Disney’s fairy godmothers mixed with Glinda from The Wizard of Oz MGM movie) and of the Arthurian romance as we know it today. It does not mean Michel Pagel hates those genres, quite the contrary! This book heavily pays homage to both domain, in which Pagel has clearly a great interest. In fact, this book is much more “medieval romance/Arthurian epic” than fairytale in tone, and while anybody who saw the Disney movies or read Perrault will get the fairytale references, I do believe someone with zero knowledge of the Arthuriana will miss a LOT of cultural jokes and clever references in this text. From the get go the Enchanter is clearly supposed to be inspired by Merlin from the Arthurian myth – but not the Disneyified, Americanized Merlin. The original Merlin, Myrddinn, the mythical, legendary, ambiguous and terrifying entity that exists beyond shapes and times and manipulates fate as he pleases… In a similar way, if you haven’t done any research on the evolution of the legend of Avalon you won’t get how twisted and cool the climax within the domain of the Fairies is… But I won’t reveal too much spoilers.

But loving doesn’t mean being uncritical, and this book is clearly the result of Michel Pagel thinking about what he adores, and highlighting in an entertaining way all that is wrong with those classical tales. The first part of the story is centered around Rowena, this intelligent and daring girl born within a world of the worst fairytale stereotypes and outdated medieval chivalry. And as she grows up she gets to explore what others were too afraid to explore, she understands what nobody understood, she gains power nobody had access to before… all the while suffering from what her world really is: unfair, classicist, sexist, misogynistic and abusive. And this begins already the bittersweet tone of the novel. At the same time we have a very funny parody that enjoys dark humor and plays all the code of the traditional “fractured fairytale”, and yet it alternates with very sad and dark moments where Rowena is confronted with the cruelties of such a universe and understands why being an intelligent girl in a world where women are to be submissive and stupid can be dangerous. But all is in fact set and prepared for her own fate, prepared by the Enchanter in person: for Rowena will become… the Witch.

And of course I love this, because who doesn’t get to love a dark retelling of fairytales, who doesn’t like a faithful retelling of medieval epics with an acute sense of modern values clashing with outdated morals, who doesn’t get to love the story of how a girl became a witch-queen? But… I think this is where the “fracture” with a certain part of the audience happened. I will return to the reviews I talked about above: many people thought the ending was worthless or were betrayed by it. Having read the novel I understand why they felt that: in their own words, they were sold and expected a feminist retelling of fairytales about breaking conventions and stereotypes. They were sold the story of a girl being a hero, and the old fairytale clichés being mercilessly mocked and denounced and beaten upon. And that was it for them. As such, yes, the ending probably disappointed them… Because it isn’t what the story is about.

It is made clear in the beginning of the story: being a Witch is not a pleasant thing. It is not a power fantasy. It might look like it, and Rowena uses it as such, but we are clearly warned that a Witch is still an unpleasant, dangerous and sometimes disgusting existence which will require suffering, both inflicted by the Witch and received by her. It is in such a path Rowena sets herself upon – and this is part of a greater scope of things. Rowena is the main character of the novel, but she is part of a wider plot by the Enchanter. The Enchanter wants to break the endless, frozen cycle of Fuinör. He wants to destroy those paralyzing traditions and this unnatural order. He wants to plunge back the world into chaos – a benevolent, needed, positive chaos, but a chaos still. And one of the very strong messages of this tale is: a need to go beyond Manicheism. To go beyond simplistic duality or archetypal characters. What Rowena, and the Enchanter, and others later, bring is complexity. The entire point of the novel is to go beyond the idea that there is all good and all bad, clear cut good and evil, black and white. As such, slowly as the cosmic battle wages on, as the Tradition and the Divine Law unravel, the characters grow into shades of gray as all their values, their positions and their allegiances are redefined, put to test or exposed, as the very machine of the universe starts to be pulled apart. Characters that start out as nice and lovable heroes turn into selfish villains. Characters that appear as flawed jerks and unsympathetic narrators learn from their mistake and grow heroic and wise. Courageous warriors grow into cowards, figures of sanity become mad, and this entire novel is the story of one huge revolution where everything changes: moralities, social hierarchies, laws of justice, and even genders! (The novel notably features an exploration of non-binary genders through one specific character – or three depending on how you count it – not including the various shapeshifting of the supernatural entities, which again helps make it resonate with a modern audience despite being around for quite a long time)

As such, no, this story is not a feminist power fantasy, and those that go in expecting this will be disappointed. It is a much, much larger and complex story about an entire world, about this fictional place born out of the classic fairytales and the medieval romances and the Arthuriana, and how this thing is confronted with its own choice of “evolve or die”. And this is still a very powerful and admirable story, which at the same plays subverts tropes, while also playing many clichés and stereotypes straight, but with a clear knowledge of this. Some people in the reviews said they were disappointed that ultimately, it seemed that Michel Pagel, in trying to break down and denounce clichés, ended up himself reasserting those same clichés. And I honestly do not think it is the case – as the novel is rather a strong defense of “We should get rid of all clichés and stereotypes, because they’re always going to trap us, no matter on which side they are”. But again, I can’t reveal too much without spoiling this long modern epic.

A good example of why for example this novel isn’t a pure “feminist fantasy” as many believed: Rowena is not the only main character. There’s another one, a “male counterpart” so to speak of the Witch-Queen in training. A character who doesn’t really have a name (well he has one but it is kind of a spoiler domain), and whose own backstory forms the second part of the novel (or the second novella of the series). A character who lives in a different part of Fuinör, and also should have been trapped in a cycle of millennia-old rituals and binding traditions and unfair customs, but whose fate changes completely due to the interventions of the Witch and the Enchanter… Except that, whereas with Rowena we had a bittersweet parody of Disney movies and traditional fairytales, with this second character we rather explore a deconstruction and attack of a different type of folktales. There is notably a brutal takedown of the whole “Journey of the Hero” system and the “Monomyth” idea. And I don’t say “brutal” lightly: this part of the novel is very, very brutal, physically speaking. Because this second main character is the helpful companion on the road in fairytales that helps the hero get the girl while himself having nothing. He is also the stock archetype of the Fool doomed to make mistakes and be ridiculed or punished. And he is the False Pretender, the False Hero of fairytales here to put in value the True Hero… Except we are told the story through his point of view. Except he is not evil, he is a guy who is trying his best but is put in an unfair position and only gets endless bullying. Except the True Hero doesn’t seem to be deserving of his position, and the question is raised of “Maybe the other guy should have been the Hero”… But here we shift into a fantasy version of what Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” was and we fully explore the magical dystopia that is Fuinör.

Overall I do have to say… I think so far the closest thing I have seen in terms of overall tone and ambiance, in the English-speaking world, to compare these works… would be Dimension 20’s season “Neverafter”. Both works deal with a very funny parody but also very dark twisting of fairytales and folktales. Both deal with characters being abused and going through horrors at the end of great cosmic powers and otherworldly narrators. Both tread between comedy and horror ; and both deal with the protagonists’ attempt at breaking endless cycles set upon by fairies (because, in both Pagel’s novel and Dimension 20, the fairies are one of the numerous antagonists as the ruthless and terrifying enforcers of the “laws of fairytales” that get everybody stuck in their roles and functions). Of course, the two works are very different beyond that… But there is a common bone.

A final element I need to add so that you get a full understanding of this novel: Michel Pagel placed his book under the patronage of Shakespeare. And if the fact every part opens with a quote from one of Shakespeare’s play, from Hamlet to Macbeth passing by Romeo and Juliet, King Lear and more, wasn’t enough, anyone versed in Shakespearian studies will see how among the many archetypes and stock tropes of the novel, those of Shakespeare also regularly pop up. Someone once wrote that this novel started out as a fairytale parody, but slowly evolved into a Shakespearian tragedy, and I cannot agree more. It does start out as a dark and morbid but entertaining parody – and then things get really brutal, really violent, really sad, really serious, and we enter a terrible and dreary fantasy, but still very poetic and very human, that moves towards a universe where all of Shakespeare’s greatest cruelties fit right at home. The novel most notably has a lot, a LOT of fun exploring the Shakespearian archetype of the “Fool”. There’s almost two handfuls of characters that each is meant to explore a different aspect of the Shakespearian Fool, each expressing a difference nuance of it (the famous non-binary character is one of them, paying homage to the typical gender-plays and gender-questioning within Shakespeare’s plays) – and I am glad to be a Shakespeare enjoyer when reading this novel because again, a random person with zero Shakespeare knowledge would miss a lot of things. (Which again is I believe the reason the Internet reviews attacked this novel, there is a certain degree of medieval and literary knowledge needed to get the parts of this novel that pay homage to the older texts and more ancient roots of the clichéd, Disneyified myths we have today… Without it the novel can still be read, but it might seem much weirder and bleaker than it truly is)

Finally a flaw, because there needs to be a flaw in every review, it can’t all be glowing: I do admit that of the four parts composing this novel, the fourth one did felt unbalanced. Notably the author seemed to spend too much time, description and effort on characters barely introduced (which at the ending climax of a story is not good), and not enough on the characters we were following since the very beginning… But I will blame that on the fact the fourth part was originally meant to be an independent novella read one year after the last part was published. I do believe that, while putting the full series in one volume is quite convenient if you want to buy something to read over holidays, it does make one feel a bit tired by the end since you literally absorb four years of writing into one go… So, my advice would be to enjoy this book by making pauses between each part, to not do an “overdose” that would be too abrupt.

Or two flaw, I feel generous: when it comes to the second part, it felt a tad bit repetitive. A tad bit too much repetitive. I get that we are supposed to have a hopeful character that is trying his best to make things work and obtain what he wishes for, and we are supposed to fully get the injustice of the situation and the hardness of this world… But precisely because of how it explores casual violence and vicious brutality, the repetitiveness is felt more. It’s a type of “break the cutie” (who isn’t here so much a “cutie” as a morally neutral human being) scenario, and I am not well placed to say if the author did just enough or too much.

[Edit: I do love how the original covers for the 80s series tried their best to make it seem like a full horror series... when it is not]

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The 46th edition of the 2024 Richard Murray Newsletter

The seventy-eigth of the Cento series. A cento is a poem made by an author from the lines of another author's work. In the series I place my cento and a link to the other authors poem.

Invincible Fight Girl- fan art challenge

Dates - Auguste Rodin , Evelyn Cisneros

IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR : Black elected representatives need to replace hope with truth, and Priceless Facts About Money ; Rajacenna van Dam - ambidextrous drawing ; Architecture- Sans Souci Palace + Citadelle La Ferriere ; Fleuve Noir Anticipation- Fantastic Planet ; Honoring Charlie Christian - flying home

URL https://rmnewsletter.over-blog.com/2024/10/11/17/2024-rmnewsletter.html

#rmnewsletter #rmaalbc

[everythingsecondhand]

Piege Infernal, by Mark Agapit (Editions Fleuve Noir, 1960).

From a second-hand book shop in Malta.

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Jean Bure : de Karol Bor à Jan de Fast

Nous aurions aussi bien pû titrer « Jean Bure : de l’espionnage à l’anticipation » ou encore « Jean Bure : du Toubib au Docteur Alan », etc. Jean Bure, né en 1916, de père français d’origine suédoise et de mère polonaise, avait un doctorat en médecine et parlait huit langues. Actif pendant la dernière guerre mondiale: de Varsovie au Pacifique, via Londres et d’autres lieux. Grand voyageur, il connaissait très bien les pays au-delà du rideau de fer. Il est l’auteur de monographies en qualité d’attaché médical au titre des relations scientifiques avec les pays de l’Est. Voilà qui est bien utile quand on écrit des romans d’espionnage et qui explique la spécialisation de l’auteur dans l’espionnage scientifique, puis dans la science fiction, ainsi que le choix de ses héros permanents (qui semblent bien être des portraits rêvés/romancés de leur créateur). Jean Bure affirmait avoir toujours écrit, depuis l’âge de 16 ans. Il a cependant 43 ans quand paraît son premier roman connu : Aller-Retour Varsovie (Karol Bor, « Le Monde Secret ») chez Arts et Créations en 1959. A partir de là, Jean Bure publiera une moyenne de 5 romans par an, jusqu’à ce qu’on perde sa trace au début des années 80… Après 5 romans chez Arts et Créations, il passe au Grand Damier où il sera Franz Nikols pour 3 romans en 1960/61. Il sera aussi Gen Khor aux Editions Galic en 1962/63. A ce sujet, romans de « vaches maigres » qu’il ne reniait pas, Jean Bure disait :

« J’étais Franz Nikols au Grand Damier et Gen Khor chez Galic. En ce qui concerne ce dernier, le nom porté sur les manuscrits était d’ailleurs très différent avec sa forme mongole, puisque c’était Khan Gor, mais ces nobles pignoufs ne savaient même pas lire… Je n’ai pas eu trop d’ennuis avec le Damier l’ayant quitté à temps, mais un peu plus de bagarre avec Galic.»

Entre-temps, avec l’entremise de Jean-Pierre Bernier (alias Marc Arno, Paul Orney, etc.), Jean Bure était entré à L’Arabesque dans la collection « Espionnage » (Impasse aux dames, n° 160, signé Karol Bor, 1961) dont il sera un des plus solides piliers (près de 70 romans). Atlantide 1980 (n°185), une anticipation à court terme, obtint le Grand Prix International d’Espionnage de Lugano 1960. Son dernier titre inédit paraitra fin 1969 (Le Toubib vend la mèche, n° 606). La plupart de ces romans, signés Karol Bor, mettent en scène le personnage du docteur Philippe Olivier, alias le Toubib (directeur d’un laboratoire privé, officier de renseignement hors cadre et animateur de réseaux, dont la personnalité et les particularités préfigurent bien évidemment le « docteur Alan » de Jan de Fast). A L’Arabesque, outre Karol Bor, Jean Bure était aussi Noël Ward (pour 7 romans consacrés à Nick Carter) et, comme beaucoup d’autres, Gil Darcy, pour les « Luc Ferran » (Jean Bure en a écrit une trentaine et décrocha le prix Cicéron 1965 pour Luc Ferran bloque le piège)

Quelles étaient les relations de Jean Bure avec son éditeur ? Et sa manière de travailler ? Personne n’est mieux placé que l’auteur pour en parler :

« Je suis profondément égoïste, j’écris pour le plaisir d’un seul lecteur, moi-même. Je place mon héros devant des problèmes dont j’ignore au départ la solution, lui et moi la cherchons ensemble au cours des chapîtres. Mon ami Nouveau sait bien que je ne suis guère intéressé par le côté financier, je me suis contenté d’un forfait de petite dactylo aussi longtemps que j’ai pensé l’aider ainsi à tenir le coup. Sinon, comme bien d’autres, je l’aurais lâché longtemps avant – mes premiers contacts avec le Fleuve Noir dataient de 1965»

Premiers contacts non suivis d’effets immédiats. Jean Bure, sous l’alias Jan de Fast, n’apparaîtra au Fleuve Noir dans la collection « Anticipation » qu’en 1972 avec L’envoyé d’Alpha (FNA n° 495), mais notons qu’à la parution de son deuxième roman « Anticipation » (La planète assassinée, 1972), l’auteur avait déjà écrit une douzaine de manuscrits, acceptés par le comité de lecture du Fleuve Noir sans un seul rejet ! Ce qui représente près de trois années de publication pour un auteur de la collection. Comme quoi les dates de parutions sont parfois assez éloignées des dates de rédaction. Jan de Fast donnera 43 romans à la collection « Anticipation » et disparaîtra du catalogue avec le n° 1111 : Il fera si bon mourir. Un titre prémonitoire ?

Comment l’auteur en est-il venu à la science-fiction ? Jean Bure :

« Ce qui justifie la disparition du Toubib vient de ce qu’il s’est déplacé à la fois dans le temps et l’espace. J’en avais assez de l’espionnage, à part le côté descriptif des lieux de l’action, l’histoire est toujours la même, on se recopie sans cesse. Un agent est liquidé par ceux d’en face à Singapour ou au Kamtchtka, le Vieux fait appel à l’indestructible héros qui se fait casser la figure pendant douze chapitres, rebondit sur ses pieds et pulvérise d’un seul coup le réseau adverse. Notez que je m’efforçais de faire raisonner mon personnage avec son cerveau plutôt qu’avec sa mitraillette, mais ça devenait vraiment lassant.(…) Le Toubib est devenu le docteur Alan, médecin et aventurier du 23ème siècle, membre itinérant du Conseil Suprême de la Fédération des Planètes Unies et son hypernef l’entraine au cœur de lointaines civilisations galactiques. »

Place donc au docteur Alan et à Jan de Fast. C’est sous ce pseudonyme que Jean Bure s’est réellement surpassé à tous les niveaux : En compagnie d’un personnage itinérant incroyablement attachant, nous assistons à la construction, roman après roman, d’une Fédération galactique cohérente. Les idées de Jan de Fast sont brillantes, réellement novatrices, exposées avec clarté, et devraient être méditées – pour ne pas dire « être mises en pratique (ne serait-ce qu’à titre expérimental) » – tout comme ses remises en cause des préconcepts, des préjugés et des tabous ancestraux. Des visions et des extrapolations vertigineuses enfièvrent le lecteur ou le plongent dans une torpeur féérique et déconnectée. Certains des premiers romans de Jan de Fast sont, selon nous, de véritables chefs-d’œuvres : Infection focale, La quatrième mutation, Cancer dans le cosmos, Les tueurs d’âme, Sécession à Procyon, notamment, théâtres permanents de l’inouï qui témoignent d’une inspiration époustouflante et n’ont pas encore fini de nous envoûter. L’apothéose d’une belle carrière de romancier populaire.

Par la suite, Jan de Fast délaissa quelque peu le docteur Alan au profit d’autres personnages, plus aventuriers et mercenaires que concernés par les interventions humanistes et les enquêtes scientifiques. Encore que… A la fin des années 70, Jean Bure, toujours sous l’alias Jan de Fast, se mit à la nouvelle et donna quelques récits à la revue Fiction et aux anthologies de l’époque : « c’est un exercice qui me prend très peu de temps et m’amuse, je peux m’y libérer par l’humour, même s’il est parfois un peu noir ». Il disait aussi être tenté par l’Univers de Jacques Sadoul mais qu’il lui faudrait alors se surpasser. Si ça ce n’est pas de la modestie ! Salut docteur Alan et merci Jean Bure !

©️2009 ®️2023 Myrrha Kerenko

#Jean Bure #Karol Bor #Jan DeFast #litterature populaire #espionnage #anticipation #Le Toubib #Docteur Alan #Brantonne #Jef de Wulf #Gaston de Sainte-Croix #paperbacks

[librairiemelodieensoussol]

On profite des beaux jours pour faire aussi du rangement dans les collections ! Ici l'intégralité des livres Gore Editions Fleuve Noir ! 118 tomes quand même ainsi que le numero 0. Tous acheté et lu entre 1995 et 1998.

Avant internet ce n'était pas simple de les trouver et il fallait chercher chez Gibert ou tous les bouquinistes de la terre + les petites annonces des magazines Mad et Occaz.

#librairiemelodieensoussol

#melodieensoussol #oiseaumortvintage #gore #fleuvenoir #livregore

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[lecturedesam]

A pleurer tout nous condamne

                      Auteur : Cécile Cabanac Titre : A Pleurer Tout Nous Condamne Date de parution : 7 mars 2024 – Editions Fleuve Noir EAN : 9782265157903 – 432 pages     Native du Pays basque, Cécile Cabanac grandit à Saint-Jean de Luz. Après son bac, elle se rend à Bordeaux suivre des études d’histoires afin de devenir journaliste. Cécile Cabanac (pseudonyme) est journaliste de formation,…

[jedivoodoochile]

Ian Miller (English, b. 1946).

"The Werewolf Principle" / c. 1976–77.

Either just pen and ink on board, or mixing acrylic with ink.

A wonderfully trippy and detailed illustration by Miller in his distinctive style.

Featured on the 1977 Pan Books pb edition of Clifford D. Simak's SF novel, THE WEREWOLF PRINCIPLE (G. P. Putnman's Sons, hc, 1967).

—Back cover text—

In the middle-distant future, Andrew Blake, discovered on a distant planet huddled inside a capsule, is brought back to Earth suffering from total amnesia.

Over 200 years old, he think he thinks and acts like a man but becomes frighteningly aware of two alien beings that lurk within his body -- a strange biological computer and a wolf-like animal. With the latter in control he breaks out of hospital to look for his past...

'A fine example of genuine SF. It is well written, it has suspense, it is intelligently conceived. In short, it bears the usual Simak guarantee...first-class entertainment.' —THE SUNDAY TIMES

(See comments section for the published cover.)

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Also featured on the cover of Daniel Walther's French language SF novel, MAIS L'ESPACE... MAIS LE TEMPS (Fleuve Noir, pb, 1981).

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(Re-post, previously in the first "Genre Art" album, Aug. 2016.)

[dixvinsblog]

Le choix littéraire de Sab en Live : Jacques Saussey "L'aigle noir " (Edition Fleuve noir)

Le choix littéraire de Sab en Live : Jacques Saussey “L’aigle noir ” (Edition Fleuve noir)

J’aime les villes traversées par l’eau.J’aime mes montagnes qui surplombent mes lacs. (Le possessif est obligatoire )J’aime regarder mer et océan s’agiter au gré du vent.J’aime les îles et pas qu’à cause de l’eau tout autour. Par contre je suis incapable de vous dire pourquoi.Mon coeur m’emmène automatiquement en Guadeloupe, je n ai donc pas laPossibilité de visiter beaucoup d autres îles sauf à…

[mudwerks]

J. P. Ferrière's Marie-meurtre, which is entry #573 in Editions Fleuve Noir's long-running Spécial Police series - the book was published in 1967 and it has Michel Gourdon artwork

[angelitam]

Norferville de Franck Thilliez

Norferville de Franck Thilliez – Editions Fleuve noir Norferville de Franck Thilliez, présentation 1996, Quebec, Norferville, après une soirée bien arrosée, Léonie, 16 ans et métisse, et Maya rentrent chez elles. Elles sont agressées. Léonie promet de garder le secret. Il y a souvent des dérapages entre les mineurs, qui travaillent sur place, les blancs et les indiens. En 2016, en France, Teddy…

[mask131]

The cosmogony of French fantasy

The title is not by me - this is actually the title of an article I want to kind-of-translate kind-of-recap here. "Cosmogonie de la fantasy française - Genèse et émancipation", "Cosmogony of French fantasy - Genesis and emancipation", by Marie-Louise Bougon. It was an article part of the "Worldbuilding" issue of the French National Library review (La revue de la BNF), back in 2019, and it brings a lot of interesting element for those who are curious about what fantasy literature looks like currently in France (since all the fantasy we talk about is mostly American or British).

Here is the rough translation/summary:

Fantasy only appeared quite late in France - and if the first translations of English-speaking fantasy only come from the 1970s, we will have to wait for the new editorial dynamic of the 1990s for a true "French fantasy" to appear and specialize itself - many talk of a "French touch" that makes these books clearly different from their English companions.

I) The first translations: a fragmented territory

The first translations in French of fantasy books started in the 70s. The decisions of publishing houses at the time made it quite hard for a reader to identify "fantasy" as its own genre. Indeed, most fantasy authors (especially British ones) were published by houses specializing in "general literature" - The Hobbit was translated as "Bilbo le Hobbit" in 1969 by Stock, before it took care of the Cycle de Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake, while in 1972 Christian Bourgeois releases the first French translation of the Lord of the Rings. Another part of fantasy books - more American, these ones, the inheritors of the pulp aesthetic, the sword and sorcery books - was rather translated in collections dedicated to either science-fiction, or fantastique. [N.o.T.: The French term "fantastique" designates a specific literary genre in which supernatural elements suddenly happen in an otherwise normal, regular and mundane setting identical to our own - as opposed to "merveilleux" which is about describing worlds where the magical and fabulous is mundane. Dracula would be "fantastique" while fairytales are "merveilleux".] There was the collection "Aventures fantastiques" by the editions Opta, or the science-fiction collection of Lattès.

Fantasy was perceived originally as merely a sub-genre of science-fiction - an idea that was kept alive by collections such as "Pocket science-fiction" or "J'ai lu - SF" that published a mix of science-fiction and fantasy works throughout the 80s. Outside of the short-lived collection "Heroic Fantasy" by Stan Barets at the Temps futurs publishing house (it only lasted from 1981 to 1983), we would have to wait for quite some time before publishers started to understand that fantasy was its own genre. In 1988, the Atalante creates the "Bibliothèque de l'évasion" (Library of evasion) collection. Fleuve noir creates in 1998 a fantasy collection called "Dentelle du cygne" (Swan's lace), that in 2002 was replaced by "Rendez-vous ailleurs", "Meetings at other places". These were for large formats - pocket formats also started their own specific collections. J'ai lu Fantasy in 1998, for example, and in 1988 the Pocket SF collection started to add sub-titles such as "Fantasy", "Dark Fantasy" or "Science-fantasy" to differentiate the works. However, despite all these efforts, the original decades-old confusion between fantasy, SF and general literature hindered the growth of the genre in France, since it never got a true visibility...

II) Cartography of the "great old ones"

If people only start to realize and understand the genre itself at the end of the 80s, it doesn't mean that there never was any French fantasy works until this date. In fact, the Callidor editions, specializing in "fantasy archeology", have made an effort to dig up and bring back to light the works that shaped the French fantasy - and for them, the oldest French work of fantasy would be the epic Les Centaures, in 1904, written by André Lichtenberger. In 2005, the author Laurent Kloetzer went even further than this - he claimed that Flaubert's Salammbô (an 1862 sensual, violent and Orientalist historical novel) was one of the earliest examples of French fantasy. Kloetzer notably pointed out the similarity between Salammbô's baroque style, and the one of Michael Moorcock's Gloriana, and how the way Robert Howard described bloody battles was quite close to Flaubert's own war descriptions. By retrospectively considering these works as fantasy, this would make the French fantasy a continuation of the merveilleux genre (see my mentions above).

So, French precursors did exist - but they remained lonely and rare experimentations, that never got any true success upon their release. Nathalie Henneberg, an author of science-fiction (who often published under the name of her husband, Charles Henneberg) did made a few fantasy pauses in her SF career during the 1960s - Le Sang des astres (The blood of celestial bodies) and Les Dieux verts (The Green gods), republished by Callidor in 2018. However the most notorious example of this "primitive French fantasy" would be Jacques Abeille's Cycle des contrées, published in 1982 at Flammarion, then re-edited in 2012 by the Attila editions, and finally released in pocket format by Folio SF in 2018. This cycle, that describes the exploration of another world full of wonders and magics, took more than thirty years to be recognized as a fantasy works - and that despite Abeille having sent his manuscript to Julien Gracq, one of the greatest French fans of Tolkien at the time. If people did notice a similarty between fantasy books and Abeille's works, editors made nothing of it - one would have to wait for the more modern reedition for the "fantasy" aspect to be advertised. In 2011, in an interview, Jacques Abeille recalled a sentence one of his readers said to him: "As a kid, I watched Star Wars. As a teen, I read Tolkien. As an adult, I read you."

Abeille's new success in modern fantasy is however an exception, since other "precursors" of fantasy never regained such a late recognition: for example, Isabelle Hausser's Célubée, published in 1986 by Julliard, is still not sold as a fantasy work, and that despite being re-edited by Fallois in 2000 (with a Marc Fumaroli preface). Among other French early attempts, we can find Sous l'araignée du Sud (Under the South spider), a 1978 novel by Dominique Roche and Charles Nightingale, published by Robert Laffont. Unlike the previous works, this novel actually had a consciousness that it belonged to a new and "infant" genre. The back of the book doesn't use the "fantasy" word yet, but it does describe it as "a marvelous and terrifying fairy tale, in the line of Tolkien's work, in the heroico-fantastical tradition of the Anglo-Saxons, but this time written in French, in a rich and visual language, sparkling with humor."

In the 1980s, we see an hesitaton, an ambiguity between publishing/editing decisions that made the birth of this first fantasy completely invisible to the public, and a slow, creeping recognition by authors and publishers of a new genre. In 1983, Francis Berthelot's Khanaor duology was published in the Heroic Fantasy collection of Temps futurs - and in the preface the author clearly states its "fantasy" status. "No need to lie to ourselves, the same way general literature disdains SF, the SF disdains heroic fantasy. It makes it a sub-sub-genre, a doubly-poor parent of the Letters with a big L." This preface highlights the bad reputation of the genre at the time - for French people of the 80s, fantasy was just a sub-science-fiction, less thoughtful, less prone to reflexion, more turned towards adventure and entertainment. Despite all this criticism, fantasy will still manage to grow away from science-fiction, and find its place in the "genre literatures".

III) An expanding universe

It was around 1995 that a true turn of event happened, around the same time the first French publishing house entirely dedicated to fantasy were created (Mnémos and Nestiveqnen). Mnémos, originally conceived by Stéphane Marsan and Frédéric Weil to publish role-playing game novelizations, still edited during its first years French authors such as Mathieu Gaborit, Fabrice Colin, Laurent Kloetzer, Pierre Grimbert and Sabrina Calvo. Nicknamed "the Mnémos generation", these authors created a true boom and multiplication of the French fantasy works in the 2000s. Les Chroniques des Crépusculaires (The Chronicles of the Dusk-people), of Mathieu Gaborit (1995-96) and Le Secret de Ji, by Pierre Grimbert (prix Julia Verlanger in 1997) form the two first commercial successes of French fantasy.

This new fashion was certified by the creation in 2000 of the Bragelonne editions: this very prolific publishing house released translations of English works, but also promoted the writers of the "Mnémos generation", while discovering new authors. For example, Henri Loevenbruck with his Celtic saga La Moïra (2001-2002), or the Ange duo (already famous for their work on comic books and roleplaying games) with their cycle Trois Lunes de Tanjor (Three Moons of Tanjor, 2001-2003, re-edited in 2005 under the title Ayesha). Les Editions de l'Oxymore (The Oxymoron Editions), created in 1999, also allowed numerous French authors to start in the genre, via periodical anthologies - these anthologies contained short stories from authors now quite well-known, such as Justine Niogret, Mélanie Fazi or Charlotte Bousquet. The editorial expansion follows all the way throughout the 2000s, with new publishing houses opening regularly. Le Bélial', which created the Bifrost journal, published fantasy novels since 1998 (their collection "Fantasy", renamed "Kvasar" in 2011). The webzine ActuSF becomes an editing house in 2003, and dedicates its collection "Trois souhaits" (Three wishes) to French authors. Les Moutons électriques (The electrical sheeps) were born in 2004, and made famous Jean-Philippe Jaworski, while La Volte, around the same time, started the very noticeable Horde du Contrevent (Horde of the Counterwind) by Alain Damasio. The years 2010s also saw a few house apparitions - such as the Critic, Callidor and Scrineo editions - and there was also a very dynamic microedition market.

Of course, French youth publications also stayed very rich and prolific - finding a true audience after the Harry Potter phenomenon. Two famous French series played on the idea of "the adventures of a young wizard" - the Tara Duncan series by Sophia Audouin-Mamikonian, started in 2003 and a mass commercial success, and also started in 2003 the saga of the "world of Gwendalavir" by Pierre Bottero. While these works all evoke the Potter-phenomenon (teenage characters promised to a great destiny and magical powers in a fantastical parallel world), they do keep an original voice, find their own themes and specificities, and thus gain a faithful audience. In the Fantasy forum of the university of Artois, Pierre Bottero was the most frequently mentionned French author when participants were asked "Who is your favorite author?", making him a good rival of English-speaking fantasy authors.

If French fantasy managed to build itself, and to singularize itself - and if the genre became even more visible thanks to the recent mediatic success of the Game of Thrones TV series, Jérôme Vincent (director of ActuSF) made a quite disappointing observation in a 2017 interview. He noted that the "wave" expected did not happen. "The big cinema blockbusters all belong to either science-fiction or fantasy, the great TV series are all tied one way or another to fantasy, that's the same thing in comic books and video games, and that's without talking of role-playing games... [...] But it seems that is no effect, no repercusion of this onto fantasy literature." In order to ameliorate the visibility and the sales of fantasy books, since 2017 publishers created the "Mois de l'imagination" (Month of the imagination), a way to rival the "literary new year". While it is too early to establish if this worked or not, it is quite a hopeful sign to see that in "fantasy reading recommandations", French names start to pop up alongside the great English ones. As Estelle Faye wrote, "French fantasy seems to still suffer from an inferiority complex" - but we can only hope authors and readers will manage to fight it off.

IV) A world of its own ?

Is there a "French touch", a specificity to French fantasy? This question, frequently debated by fan forums, became the subject of a podcast produced by the website Elbakin.net, in which was noted the lack in France of huge cycles carried over several volumes (a very prominent feature of English-written fantasy). French fantasy authors prefers one-shots, short series (rarely more than a trilogy), or series of distnct novels merely sharing a same world (for example, the works of Lionel Davoust that take place in the Evanégyre world). This formal difference would however be due to the "fear" of editors, who do not dare putting in the world too-ambitous projects. Due to this format specificity, it seems that there is a lesser importance of the worldbuilding in French fantasy - which might be why its authors had a hard time building an audience in the beginnings. As David Peyron wrote it in Culture geek, fantasy fans tend to prefer the quality of the worldbuilding over the quality of the style. "If the quality of the world becomes essential, in return some traits such as the literary style, which gives its value to a cultural object in a classical system, are pushed aside." French fantasy, which is less of a worldbuilder and much more literary than its English counterpart, is as a result swimming against the stream. However, nowadays this particularly is accepted by the fans. Indeed, in recent reviews and articles, several French authors such as Jean-Philippe Jaworski or Alain Damasio are praise for their mastery of style - the first one because of how he writes like Alexandre Dumas, the second because of how versatile he can be with tones and genres. These literary qualities are obviously tied to the inspirations of the French authors, who do not have the "pulp inheritage" and rather take from French classics or swashbuckling novels. Of course, we also cannot ignore the theory that French readers are more sensible to the style when it comes to writing in their own language.

If we go towards themes, we can see several recurring motifs and traditions shared by both English-speaking and French-speaking fantasy. For example, Arthurian fantasy has sparked a certain interest in France - La Trilogie des Elfes (The Elf trilogy) of Jean-Louis Fetjaine (1998-2000), or Justine Niogret's Mordred (2013). However, French authors truly seem to express a taste for historical but non-medieval fantasy. Jean-Philippe Jaworski's Gagner la guerre (Win the war, 2009) takes place during a reinvented Renaissance, Johan Heliot's takes an interest in the rule of Louis XIV in his Grand Siècle (Great century) saga (2017-2018), Pierre Pevel choses the 17th century for the setting of his Les Lames du cardinal (The Cardinal's blades, 2007-2010), and finally Fabrice Anfosso takes inspiration from World War I in his Le Chemin des fées (The road of fairies, 2005). Urban fantasy also has a big success in France - especially one focusing on a reinvented Paris. There are numerous works reimagining the French capital as either filled with surpernatural beasts, either invaded by a scientific-marvelous touching to both the steampunk and gaslamp fantasies. For examples you have the Paris des merveilles cycle, by Pierre Pevel (Paris of marvels, 2003-2015), Un éclat de givre by Estelle Faye (A fragment of frost, 2014), Les Extraordinaires et Fantastiques Enquêtes de Sylvo Sylvain by Raphaël Albert (The Extraordinary and Fantastical Investigations of Sylvo Sylvain, 2010-2017), or Les Confessions d'un automate mangeur d'opium by Mathieu Gaborit and Fabrice Colin (Confessions of an opium-eating automaton, 1999).

Jacques Baudou described with enthusiasm the originality of French fantasy, whose main specificity is - according to him - a tendency to go to the margins. "The best works of French fantasy [...] operates a subversion of the codes, they practice the art of mixing, and as thus come off as greatly original literary objects". It seems indeed that, due to its late apparition, French fantasy benefited from a certain look-back on its own genre, making it easier for French authors to play with or subvert its codes. Anne Besson, however, nuances this opinion: she points out that the small number of French fantasy authors (compared to the mass of English-speaking authors) makes the differences in tones, themes and motifs much more obvious - which creates what is merely a feeling of a greater diversity.

Another element of French fantasy that seems to be born of its "lateness" is its reflexive dimension: French authors have a strong tendency towards the commentary and the erudition. For example, the fantasy anthologies of the Editions de l'Oxymore include between its short stories things such as critical files or textstaken out of classics of French culture. These practices seem to be an attempt at legitimizing a genre that still has a hard time being recognized as "true literature" - even though modern days receive fantasy works with much more benevolence than before.

V) To the conquest of the world ?

If French fantasy grew enormously since the first experiments of the 70s, and if it now benefits from a much better visibility, its market stays quite weak. A proof of that: the numerous funding campaigns launched these last years by different actors of the genre. French fantasy also has a hard time crossing the frontier. Le Livre et l'épée by Antoine Rouaud (The Book and the sword, first volume released in 2013) was translated in English, German, Dutch and Spanish. Le Secret de Ji of Pierre Grimbert (Ji's Secret) was also published in English via Amazon Crossing in 2013. But these are exceptions to the rule. But there is hope for future French publications - for example the Bragelonne publishing house established a partnership with the British Gollancz, a science-fiction specialist.

[raypunkzero]

René Brantonne (1903 - 1979) Infernal Menace Cover Art (Editions Fleuve Noir, 1953) https://ift.tt/2IP90oM October 15, 2019 at 01:19AM +visit our fellow Goethepunk art page

[retroscifiart]

Art by Angus McKie for Perry Rhodan Alerte aux Antis (French edition, Editions Fleuve Noir, 1977)

[songedunenuitdete]

Concours #4 Gagnez 1 des 2 romans mis en jeu avec Les ed. Pocket & Fleuve

Concours #4 Gagnez 1 des 2 romans mis en jeu avec Les ed. Pocket & Fleuve - Comment participer au concours ? - Liker et être abonné à notre page Facebook : Songe d'une nuit d'été et celles des éditions Fleuve et Pocket Imaginaire et/ou - Nous suivre sur twitter -> https://twitter.com/SongeD1NuitDete + https://twitter.com/Fleuve_Editions + https://twitter.com/PocketImaginair Partager le concours sur les réseaux sociaux en nous taggant  Remplissez le questionnaire ci-dessous (histoire que l'on puisse vous contacter et vous envoyer le lot si vous gagnez).

Nous n’avons pas pu fêter dignement les dix ans de Songe, alors nous nous rattrapons avec les onze ans ! Eh oui ! Onze ans, déjà, le temps passe tellement vite ! Enfin bref, pour vous remercier d’être encore là, nous avons décidé de vous gâter ! 

Cet été, nous allons vous proposer divers concours sur des titres qui nous ont marqués, des coups de cœur. Aujourd’hui c’est au tour de deux titres que…