Amount

A French superhuman jungle woman

23 Mar 2020 17:06 #67235 by brantley
A French superhuman jungle woman was created by brantley
Just came across this in a list of works be René Thévinin (1877-1967), a major sf writer..

fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Râni,_reine_des_jungles

Chances are he got the idea from Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, which had debuted nine years earlier.

--J.J, 

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • brantley
  • brantley's Avatar Topic Author
  • Offline
  • Platinum Member
  • Platinum Member
More
23 Mar 2020 17:38 #67236 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic A French superhuman jungle woman

brantley wrote: Just came across this in a list of works be René Thévinin (1877-1967), a major sf writer..

fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Râni,_reine_des_jungles

Chances are he got the idea from Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, which had debuted nine years earlier.

--J.J, 


My French isn’t very good. Have his books been translated to English?

Shadar

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • shadar
  • shadar's Avatar
  • Offline
  • Uberposter par Excellence
  • Uberposter par Excellence
More
23 Mar 2020 18:46 - 23 Mar 2020 18:47 #67237 by brantley
Replied by brantley on topic A French superhuman jungle woman
No, they're still under copyright, which means that Black Coat Press (which has marketed translations of hundreds of French sf novels that are in the public domain) can't touch them.

I know about some of his novels from secondary sources; his best known (out of dozens) is Hunters of Men'.

From my sf history update in progress:

<<René Thévenin (1877-1967), an official of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, seems to have been influenced by J.H,.Rosny ainé. In The Iron Idol’s Necklace (1911), descendants of lncas in the Amazon have created monsters of living metal to guard their city of iron and gold – an alternate life similar in concept Rosny’s Xipéhuz. The Haunted Castle of Owlesfear (1912) has to do with a race of amphibious people living along the shores of the Sunda Islands of Malaysia – almost exactly the same idea Rosny had used in “Nymphaeum.”In Thévenin’s Hunters of Men (1930), Europeans come up against something terrorizing the natives in Africa, something like vampires – though reducing the victims to powder. The beings, called "Hunters of Men," turn out to be something seemingly human, but possibly an evolutionary step beyond us. They have high foreheads and long, even skeletal fingers ending in claws, and leave tracks with only four digits. There are two of them, a male and female, who communicate by subtle means and hunt human beings in order to steal their blood by means of a strange process of mental vampirism.The Hunters are so different from humans that there is no real communication with them; they are predators who regard us as prey, and don't seem to have any culture or civilization of their own but inhabit the jungle like other animals. The female appears to be the dominant one of the pair, the male apparently smaller and weaker; he is killed in the latter part of the novel, which ends with the female still at large. Thévenin evokes an eerie sense of confrontation, akin to that with the super-wolves of Michael Wadleigh’s film Wolfen (1982), that is central to his novel.>>
Last edit: 23 Mar 2020 18:47 by brantley.

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • brantley
  • brantley's Avatar Topic Author
  • Offline
  • Platinum Member
  • Platinum Member
More
23 Mar 2020 20:51 #67238 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic A French superhuman jungle woman

brantley wrote: No, they're still under copyright, which means that Black Coat Press (which has marketed translations of hundreds of French sf novels that are in the public domain) can't touch them.

I know about some of his novels from secondary sources; his best known (out of dozens) is Hunters of Men'.

From my sf history update in progress:

<<René Thévenin (1877-1967), an official of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, seems to have been influenced by J.H,.Rosny ainé. In The Iron Idol’s Necklace (1911), descendants of lncas in the Amazon have created monsters of living metal to guard their city of iron and gold – an alternate life similar in concept Rosny’s Xipéhuz. The Haunted Castle of Owlesfear (1912) has to do with a race of amphibious people living along the shores of the Sunda Islands of Malaysia – almost exactly the same idea Rosny had used in “Nymphaeum.”In Thévenin’s Hunters of Men (1930), Europeans come up against something terrorizing the natives in Africa, something like vampires – though reducing the victims to powder. The beings, called "Hunters of Men," turn out to be something seemingly human, but possibly an evolutionary step beyond us. They have high foreheads and long, even skeletal fingers ending in claws, and leave tracks with only four digits. There are two of them, a male and female, who communicate by subtle means and hunt human beings in order to steal their blood by means of a strange process of mental vampirism.The Hunters are so different from humans that there is no real communication with them; they are predators who regard us as prey, and don't seem to have any culture or civilization of their own but inhabit the jungle like other animals. The female appears to be the dominant one of the pair, the male apparently smaller and weaker; he is killed in the latter part of the novel, which ends with the female still at large. Thévenin evokes an eerie sense of confrontation, akin to that with the super-wolves of Michael Wadleigh’s film Wolfen (1982), that is central to his novel.>>


Sound like some good tales. The idea of humanoid hunters of humans who have superhuman abilities, with the female of the species the most powerful and dangerous, would work in both SF and Horror genres, not not to mention our local subset of both. 

Shame I won't be able to read them. Learning to read French at a level sufficient to enjoy literature is not on my Bucket List. 

Shadar

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

  • shadar
  • shadar's Avatar
  • Offline
  • Uberposter par Excellence
  • Uberposter par Excellence
More
23 Mar 2020 22:23 #67240 by jyache
Replied by jyache on topic A French superhuman jungle woman

This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.



This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.


This image is hidden for guests.
Please log in or register to see it.



Three books have been drawn by the french artist René Pellos in 1949 ...
The following user(s) said Thank You: Ravens_ghost, aguilauno

Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.

More
Time to create page: 0.053 seconds