Henry Vernes - The Dinosaur Hunters

[Calenture]

Corgi, 1966

Originally published in Belgium; translated by Jean Ure

Frank Reeves, millionaire big-game hunter had vanished...

And when Bob Morane agreed to search for the hunter he had no idea of the terrifying expedition ahead of him.

For this was no ordinary safari, this was a trek that led to the bloody jaws of the flesh-eating tyranosaurus---a perilous journey through a prehistoric world of mammoth beasts and errupting volvanoes...

The sight that met their eyes froze them to the spot with horror: between them and the time machine a vast tyrannosaurus had appeared. It was roaring with evident rage and beating the air with its front legs, snapping its jaws open and shut like some monstrous steel trap. And then it turned and began boucing forward with tremendous leaps.

"It's coming at us!" shouted Bill. "Scatter!"

"No! Keep together!" contradicted Bob. "Wait till it's nearly on top of us. Wait till I give the word."

The tyrannosaurus was approaching at the speed of an express train. The earth shook beneath the vast bulk of the monster. It was only thirty yards away. Twenty yards---


Pulphack wrote:
Ooooh, that's one of the ones I haven't got! the others published by corgi that I have are: The White Gorilla (Rider Haggard territory), Treasure Of The Golcondas (like a Jess Franco movie - dacoits, sultry sirens - no sex, though), and The Yellow Shadow (Limehouse-set, with a Fu Manchu-like villain that must have had Harry Alan Towers - by then owner of the Fu Manchu catalogue - reaching for the lawyers).

According to the books I have, there was also another title called City Of A Thousand Drums. I don't know if any others were translated, but there are loads of them in Belgium, and there is a site out there somewhere (which I stumbled across by accident) which is about the author, an ex-sailor if I remember right, who wrote them primarily for a male teenage and upwards age group. which shows, as although they're real ripping yarns, there isn't much sex and violence except by implication.

I found them fun page-turners, but a bit flat at times, which I put down to the translation. at the same time, Corgi also did a lot of Jean Bruce's thrillers, and they suffered from the same problem.

Bob Morane, being a very Brit type of hero, seems to be typical of a type of Franco-Belgian fiction that likes to imagine a fictionalised London that's very Wallace/Holmes/Fu Manchu (Harry Dickson springs to mind). this sort of stuff seems to still be popular with bande dasinee (spelling?) audiences, if not prose readers. it's very strange how they love a fictionalised english hero. Do we seem exotic to them? It doesn't look like that in woodford, I can assure you...

But i'd recommend picking any of them up if you see them. not great, but great fun.



I followed your cue and found this site, with some cover scans: Bob Morane Corgis. The cover for The Yellow Shadow is a real blast from the past which I remember well; real 'sixties cool. That one seemed to be on all the shelves then!

I definitely would pick them up if I found any.

City of a Thousand Drums is pictured there.

I guess there'll always be people queuing up for ripping yarns. Holmes and Watson, Rider Haggard, John Buchan and Doc Savage (still haven't started a Doc Savage thread - sorry!) Recently I've been reading David Stuart Davies' Holmes meets Dracula novel, The Tangled Skein and it really is ripping stuff. ;D Kim Newman does the same sort of thing but with added gore for his readers.

I think I'll nick the cover scan on that site for this thread. It's a bit better than mine...

P.S. This site is about Henri Vernes, but it's in English: The French Wold Newton Universe

Pulphack:
You diamond! That's the one I stumbled across before. It tells you everything you need to know,doesn't it...

This Wold Newton lark is quite interesting, really, and I didn't know it had been developed so far. First came across it via JT Edson. Now, I'm not a great western fan (even the picadilly cowboys stuff I find hard going), and read a couple of old west Edson's that did little for me when I was a kid. But I did like his Rockabye County stuff, which was set in the west of the 1960's, and are basically cop novels. With a gorgeous redhead as one of them, who gets into lots of bondage related trouble and fights... despite which, Edson is a terrible old reactionary, with his 'authentic' footnotes, his frothing at the mouth at 'liberals', and his insistence that these are REAL people. he can, however, tell a good page-turning yarn.

So, about ten years ago I was on holiday with the then-missus and we found a bookshop that had loads of Edson's, including almost all the Rockabye stuff. Which was a must. But also his Company Z series, set in the 1930's, two of which featured JG Reeder, the character created by Edgar Wallace (and a favourite of mine from way back). They were really good, and tied all his characters to their own bloodlines, and also to other fictional creations - he also calls the Doc Savage novels 'biographies', and banged on about Phillip Jose Farmer and his lineage reasearch!

Meanwhile, there were also three books of the four he wrote about Bunduki - the son of Tarzan, as approved by the Burroughs estate. Never read them as they seem to run ogether, there's the third one I've never been able to find, and so I just CAN'T start them until I find it!

Anyway, quite a lot in this about the Wold Newton concept, which seemed to be a master plan to bring all action/adventure, thriller, sci-fi characters into a universe that fitted them all and so mirrored this one. A grand design, and quite fun to speculate upon. Anyone interested inthis area of junk fiction (my new term for it, and said with love to differentiate it from that literary crap) should check it out.

Much as I love Alan Moore and the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and what Jesse Nevins has done in cataloguing its roots), those who think he invented this idea should look to Mr Farmer. Actually, I wonder if anyone had done it before? Surely the pulp houses here and in the US must have stumbled on this as a formula before now?

Discuss...




Wold Newton (so called because a comet landed at Wold Newton in 1795, and so started off the mutations that led to all this heroic stuff)... go to www.pjfarmer/woldnewton/pulp.htm

I've only just had a look, and even scratching the surface will take you ages. Fascinating stuff, though...




I missed this one earlier. I'd think there'd be enough there to keep any pulp-loving forum happy for a month. I had no idea JT Edson had written cross-over fiction. Incidentally, when I worked in a second-hand bookshop, the Edson's used to get picked up by the women.

JG Reeder brings back pleasant memories of the TV series. Can find precious little out there except that the series starred Hugh Burden (who also scripted some shows) and it ran 1969-71.

Hmm...Doc Savage again. Must do something about that. I have the P J Farmer "biography" and a stack of Ballantine reprints with those gorgeous Bama covers.

Not sure where the cross-overs started, but I'll bet someone here does.

Craig Herbertson wrote:
I confess to an addiction for Edson in my youth. Great character that Dusty.

Peter C wrote:
Rog,

You are my absolute hero for this post about The Dinosaur Hunters. My Dad bought me this book second-hand when I was about 12 and I have never forgotten the impression it made on me. I'd like to get a copy for my own son to carry on the tradition, so this info is most helpful.

Peter

Charles Black wrote:
I had this when I was much younger, too. Bought from, of all places, a wool shop!

Craig Herbertson:
I suspect its a very rare book.
I come from a book collecting family and am available for assistance and mothering. I specialise in explaining how that book you gave away as a kid to the jumble sale would now buy you a mansion in Cheshire.