Tales of the Shadowmen is a series of anthologies where authors write science-fiction and fantasy stories based primarily on old public-domain French literary characters (the French equivalent of pulp heroes in most cases). That in itself isn't so bad; some of the old French adventure stories deserve to be read, and some are fun enough to deserve continuation. But some of the authors do pastiches on American characters; again, not a bad thing, but deserving of a little bit better attention.
I purchased this book specifically because it had in it a Captain Future (my all-time favorite SF hero) story. As it turned out, the author really mangled not only Cap and the Futuremen, but all of the other SF heroes that he pulled in for crossover action; it was truly bad writing, not to mention poorly-researched ahead of time. That left enough of a bad taste in the mouth that when I went to sample the other stories in the book, I was less willing to put up with what is, at best, fanzine-quality writing. (No, not even that; I'm friends with fanzine writers who write _much_ more professionally than do most of the contributors to this volume.) Some of the stories are so badly-written that I couldn't make myself finish them, and I'm usually able to put up with pretty bad craftsmanship if the story's interesting.
A couple or three of the stories weren't badly-written (Brian Stableford's offering stands out), but the well-written ones held no interest for me.
Another of the Shadowmen anthologies also came with this one, and the writing hadn't improved. I was truly disappointed in the quality of the writing; I love old pulps and pulp heroes, and wanted very much to enjoy the Shadowmen books. Alas that the quality just doesn't justify getting any more of them.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 15, 2015
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Another in this eclectic collection of stories using literary characters from French pulps and more!
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2012