American Adamant Entertainment, specialists in both RPG games and e-publishing for over five years, collected and presented the first three books of the Fu Manchu series (The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, The Return of Fu Manchu and  The Hand of Fu Manchu) into a handy paperback consisting of  441 pages called Tales of Fu Manchu.

Adamant Entertainment sells via a net-platform called Lulu.com, a digital marketplace which allows self-publishing or small publishers to access customers with unrestricted access. According to Eleonora Gandini, European PR Manager of Lulu.com: “Lulu eliminates traditional entry barriers to publishing, and enables content creators and owners to bring their work directly to their audience.” If you would like to meet Sax Rohmer's original Fu-Manchu, this is the correct web address to use.

The stories are simmeringly told in a saucy, sizzling and snappy style – dominated by direct speech. When Rohmer comes to description, he writes in a magniloquent way, with a surprisingly pleasing lyrical style.

Assaults by night, stranglers sneaking soundlessly and silently on the rooftops, out of sarcophaguses absconds horror …

Fu Manchu bends the will of his victims by using hypnosis and drugs. All manner of creepy-crawlies offer their assistance eager to help – snakes, scorpions, trained monkeys.

Each chapter (and there easily are thirty or forty chapters) ends with a climax: while our Raiders of the Lost Chinese are hanging on chains, plopping through trapdoors in dungeons – fade to black.

It’s not Nayland's skills that save the boys from these almost dead-end situations. A woman does - Karamaneh – mere slave to the Manchus - and in two ticks, quick! Quick!  - falling head over heels in love with Dr. Petrie - and cannot bear him to be continually left hanging. Karamaneh to the rescue! Over and over again! And finally, they marry and raise a family.

Fu Man Chu instigates Evil on behalf of a secret organisation called Si-Fan, and is promptly promoted to the leader of the pack.Initially, the goal is to expel Europeans from Asia, however that is not ultimately satisfying and thus begins his quest for world domination.

The ruthless rascal wafts with secrets. Even the correct spelling of his name remains mysterious  – from Fu-Manchu to Fu Man Chu and Fu Mandschu different variations being sighted.

At the end of The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, he leaves behind an exceptionally cryptic: “Greetings! I am recalled home by One who may not be denied. In much that I came to do I have failed. Much that I have done I would undo; some little I have undone. Out of fire I came - the smoldering fire of a thing one day to be a consuming flame; in fire I go. Seek not my ashes. I am the lord of the fires! Farewell”. The Filmanchu is more self-confident: "The world shall hear from me again!"

 

Also Viewfinder – A Media Magazine shall hear again from Fu Manchu. In the second part of An Indestructible Doctor, Indeed …, Harald Helmut Weiss will continue concentrating on comparing the sequels of The Face of Fu Manchu in the original English with the German version. Forthcoming attraction on this website.

The Writer

Harald Helmut Weiss, born 1954, is living as an author and director in Schifferstadt, Germany. He received an International Film Award for his first short film Bisher war der einzelne auf sich gestellt ... (Until Now, the Individual Had to Depend on Himself ...) at the Mannheim Film Festival in 1977. He owns Galteor Kommunikation, a Media House where he’s also the Managing Director. He was involved in the start of Private Television and Radio in Germany and was co-founder of the local community channel K3. Since 1975, he has shared his opinions regarding media trends in newspapers, magazines and on television. He was editor-in-chief for TV magazines Im Foyer and Viewfinder which he also moderated. He’s also been awarded the Media Prize of the Bezirksverband Pfalz.

The Translator

Margot Sennett Freedman works as a counsellor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. She obtained her Bachelor of Journalism and Media Studies degree from Rhodes University (Grahamstown) in 1984. She speaks four of the (eleven official) languages of her country: English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa, as well as French. She has also had poetry published both locally and nationally, including the annual anthology The English Academy Review of South Africa and journals like New Coin, Fidelities and Botsotso.