The Fu-Manchu Omnibus : The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor, the Si-Fan Mysteries: "Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu", "Devil Doctor", "Si-Fan Mysteries" Vol 1 (A&B Crime) [Paperback]

Unlike the figure presented in the various cinema versions, particularly the Harry Alan Towers films of the 60s with Christopher Lee in the role, Rohmer's Fu-Manchu (he dropped the hyphen after the first couple of books) is not a mad criminal with some insane scheme to rule the world. In the books, he is a captivating figure who is clearly presented as a sort of patriot, working as part of a vast secret society to restore China to its rightful place in the world - i.e., a dominant place. It is clearly stated that Fu Manchu is not his real name, that he is some sort of nobleman (with "the right to the title of Prince"), and an exceptionally well-educated individual who also is privy to knowledge of many areas unknown to Western science. The books could not be written in the same way today, not simply because of the reflexive way anyone "yellow" is automatically suspect (admittedly balanced by the statements in some of the books that the average "Chinaman" is law-abiding, decent and kindly).

The books are written as episodic adventures in a way that makes me wonder if they were serialised in magazines. The action proceeds thick and fast, with Nayland Smith and his Watson, Dr. Petrie, dashing around to arrive, usually, just too late to save someone from a mysterious death as prescribed by Dr. Fu Manchu. Later books had other narrators, possibly because once Petrie had become captivated by Kāramanèh (Petrie's dish, you might say) it would not have been seemly to have Fu Manchu's daughter vamp him as effectively as she does Shan Greville and Alan Sterling. Whatever the combination of heroes against him, however sluggish they are at preventing his murderous attacks on various individuals, Fu Manchu is always eventually defeated. You can't help but think that if he would just use a gun and shoot them, he would succeed much more easily!

The first book, in this volume, was published in 1913. The last, "Emperor Fu Manchu", appeared in 1959, the year Sax Rohmer died. Initially, the "Devil Doctor's" deadly schemes are aimed at silencing westerners who have somehow learned too much about the changes taking place in China; in later books, when China's government is in the hands of "weak fools", his plans are aimed at the whole of Western civilisation, to restore Chinese power of the right sort. At the end of some of the books, Fu Manchu obviously makes an escape. At the end of others, he is apparently dead, in one actually seen to be struggling with another man in a boat as it goes over Niagara Falls. But the ancient Doctor always came back to menace Western civilisation once more.

For those who have read the Bond novels there are interesting parallels between Fu Manchu and some of the villains, especially Dr. No and Blofeld (whose garden of death in "You Only Live Twice" could have come straight from a Fu Manchu book). Regarding the Bond films, many of the villains there with their plans to sweep away world civilization and replace it with a better, 'saner' society (The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker) are simply repeating arguments that Fu Manchu used in, say, "The Bride of Fu Manchu".

This nicely-presented omnibus has one defect: the number of errors is amazing. It seems from the text that rather than thorough proofreading there has been too much reliance on spell-checking software, because at least 95% of the errors are actual words. Sometimes this is confusing, usually obvious, but occasionally hilarious, as when Dr. Petrie says, "I knocked out my pope in the ashtray"!

I eventually downloaded the first couple of Fu Manchu stories free of charge from the internet, via the wonderful project Guttenberg.

They're politically incorrent to an incredible degree, but fast paced and quite imaginative. I thoroughly enjoyed them, in much the same way that a movie like 'Sanders of the River' is an interesting period piece, but much of its content would nowadays be rightly considered unacceptable.

They are hardly books to which I would return, but a very good way to while away an idle hour.