Inscrit le: 14 Fév 2007
Messages: 590
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This month, we're releasing the first volume in THE BLACK COATS series which Feval wrote chronologically.
As a brief reminder, the order of writing/publication was:
1. THE PARISIAN JUNGLE (1863) (a year after JOHN DEVIL, its prequel of sorts)
2. HEART OF STEEL (1865)
3. THE SWORD-SWALLOWER (1867)
4. SALEM STREET (1868)
5. THE INVISIBLE WEAPON (1869)
6. THE COMPANIONS OF THE TREASURE (1872)
7. THE CADET GANG (1875)
What's interesting is what happened behind the scenes, as it were.
THE PARISIAN JUNGLE was a huge best-seller. But like Conan Doyle with Moriarty, Feval had made the mistake of killing off his arch-villain, the Colonel, and his right-hand man, Lecoq.
Nevertheless, Feval embarked on a sequel (HEART OF STEEL), successfully recapturing the tome of #1 with a slightly different cast, all of which taking place while the Colonel was still alive.
With #3, Feval decided to jump forward in time and tell the story of the Next Generation of Black Coats, anticipating what they with with STAR TREK. The book was not nearly as successful, and this time, Feval had painted himself in a corner.
So like JJ Abrams with STAR TREK again, he backtracked and with #4, SALEM STREET, engaged into a massive retconning job, firming up the history and origins of the Black Coats, incorporating other works into the continuity, etc.
Now Feval had his "franchise". This is why we published SALEM STREET first, because it retroactively set the stage for everything else in its universe.
Then it was easy to spin off yet one more "simultaneous" story with INVISIBLE WEAPON, which in my opinion is a masterpiece.
But Feval was still boxed in by his earlier continuity.
In a masterstroke worthy of Marvel Comics (or DALLAS), #6, THE COMPANIONS OF THE TREASURE, which we will publish next year, completely revisits the Colonel's death scene from THE PARISIAN JUNGLE written ten years earlier and shows the reader that, in reality, what he was told happened didn't quite happen the way it seemed.
I think Feval was perhaps the first author to ever grapple and deal with retroactive continuity issues in such a way. Reading #1 and #6 back to back is going to be a treat!
#7, THE CADET GANG (in which Feval blithely -- and this time without any explanation -- resurrected the villainous Countess de Clare killed off at the end of #2) was obviously meant to be the first volume in a massive bridging sequence that would connect the "Original Series" with the "Next Generation" Black Coats of #3. Hints abound as to what Feval planned to do.
Then he became born again and that was that for THE BLACK COATS, one of the saddest events ever in literature's history, IMHO comparable to Dickens never writing a resolution to THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.
Brian Stableford speculated that Feval had fallen in love with his truly diabolical old Colonel, and saw the loss of his fortune and other tragedies as God's punishment for what he felt was devil worship. We'll never know.
THE BLACKS COATS and its peripheral works (eg JOHN DEVIL) are truly a unique masterpiece in the history of crime literature and, I would argue, general literature as well. We are immensely proud, Brian and I, to bring it to the attention of the English-speaking public for the first time.
JM
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