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Crimes, Aliens et Châtiments
Nous étions adulés, nous parlions devant des stades entiers de lecteurs, nous faisions rêver les foules avec nos romans de science-fiction. Mais pas de bol, les aliens ont débarqué et plus personne n'a envie de lire nos histoires de petits hommes verts. Du coup, pour survivre, nous sommes devenus détectives privés. Pour des affaires liées aux ET, évidemment. C'est bien le seul domaine dans lequel on peut prétendre à une quelconque qualification. C'est que nous, Laurent Genefort, Pierre Bordage et Laurent Whale, avons de la ressource. Aucune affaire ne nous fait peur. Les nouveaux détectives du crime sont là ! Et nos enquêtes sont... euh... formidables ! Enfin parfois...
300 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2017
About the author
Pierre Bordage
184 books134 followersPierre Bordage a grandi en Vendée. Aimant le sport, il pratiquera pendant neuf ans le karaté. Il s'inscrit en lettres modernes à la faculté de Nantes. En 1975, au cours d'un atelier d'écriture, il découvre la science-fiction avec notamment les Chroniques martiennes de Ray Bradbury.
Il fera plusieurs voyages en Asie et pratiquera différents métiers, dont celui de libraire pendant plusieurs années.
En 1985, alors qu'il habite dans le Gers, il écrit son premier roman Les Guerriers du Silence qu'aucune maison d'édition n'acceptera. Il devient journaliste sportif, déménage à Paris où il rencontre en 1992 son premier éditeur, Vaugirard, qui lui propose d'écrire le Cycle de Rohel le Conquérant.
L'année suivante, il découvre chez un petit éditeur nantais, l'Atalante, un ouvrage de l'écrivain américain Orson Scott Card, traduit par son ancien professeur de banjo, Patrick Couton. Il leur propose alors Guerriers du Silence qui est accepté. Le livre est un succès inattendu et reçoit plusieurs prix littéraires, dont le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, le Prix Julia Verlanger, le Prix Cosmos 2000...
Il publie les deux autres tomes de la trilogie, puis en 1998 Wang, couronné par l'éphémère Prix de la Tour Eiffel et le premier volume d'Abzalon, toujours chez L'Atalante.
En 2000, primé par le Prix Paul Féval pour Les Fables de l'Humpur, il met à jour chez Librio le roman-feuilleton en six épisodes : Les Derniers hommes.
L'Évangile du serpent et L'Ange de l'Abîme paraissent, en 2001, chez le Diable Vauvert.
En 2008 Pierre Bordage innove de nouveau en s'associant avec l'entreprise mp3minutes pour produire un roman audio et vidéo à partir d'un scénario inédit. Cette bande dessinée vidéo s'intitule Chroniques des Ombres, actuellement téléchargeable sur le web.
Pierre Bordage s'est installé dans le sud-est de la Loire-Atlantique, à Boussay, avec sa femme et ses deux enfants.
Fin janvier 2009, sa femme décède, victime d'un accident de la route en Inde[
Il fera plusieurs voyages en Asie et pratiquera différents métiers, dont celui de libraire pendant plusieurs années.
En 1985, alors qu'il habite dans le Gers, il écrit son premier roman Les Guerriers du Silence qu'aucune maison d'édition n'acceptera. Il devient journaliste sportif, déménage à Paris où il rencontre en 1992 son premier éditeur, Vaugirard, qui lui propose d'écrire le Cycle de Rohel le Conquérant.
L'année suivante, il découvre chez un petit éditeur nantais, l'Atalante, un ouvrage de l'écrivain américain Orson Scott Card, traduit par son ancien professeur de banjo, Patrick Couton. Il leur propose alors Guerriers du Silence qui est accepté. Le livre est un succès inattendu et reçoit plusieurs prix littéraires, dont le Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire, le Prix Julia Verlanger, le Prix Cosmos 2000...
Il publie les deux autres tomes de la trilogie, puis en 1998 Wang, couronné par l'éphémère Prix de la Tour Eiffel et le premier volume d'Abzalon, toujours chez L'Atalante.
En 2000, primé par le Prix Paul Féval pour Les Fables de l'Humpur, il met à jour chez Librio le roman-feuilleton en six épisodes : Les Derniers hommes.
L'Évangile du serpent et L'Ange de l'Abîme paraissent, en 2001, chez le Diable Vauvert.
En 2008 Pierre Bordage innove de nouveau en s'associant avec l'entreprise mp3minutes pour produire un roman audio et vidéo à partir d'un scénario inédit. Cette bande dessinée vidéo s'intitule Chroniques des Ombres, actuellement téléchargeable sur le web.
Pierre Bordage s'est installé dans le sud-est de la Loire-Atlantique, à Boussay, avec sa femme et ses deux enfants.
Fin janvier 2009, sa femme décède, victime d'un accident de la route en Inde[
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 8, 2026
I had to DNF this one, unfortunately. Sometimes not everything you read is a success. Sometimes it's half a success, sometimes it's no success at all. Convincing yourself to stop reading when the going gets tough (and no, "the tough get going" doesn't apply here) is not easy, but maybe one should be more strict in such cases.
Giving it the benefit of the doubt, I checked out this little anthology consisting of 3 well-known (at least in the Francophone spectrum?) French authors. Their main playing field is science fiction, but for this occasion, their writing skills were appealed to for detective reasons. Because in all three stories, there's a matter of kidnapping or abduction. And so, each other gives (fictitious) account of how their services were requested and put to good (?) use.
The "Préambule" explains in a few words the situations at hand, trying to keep it light and funny, which is also the basis for each of the three stories. Laurent Genefort and Pierre Bordage are the only authors whose works I've read previously. Laurent Whale would thus be a "discovery". My first and only encounter with Laurent Genefort's writing was "Lum'en" (review), which wasn't that much of a success.
Pierre Bordage, on the contrary, has been on my reading list far more and still many more times to go. He was also one of my favourite French authors. It would therefore be interesting to see if at least these two writers could pull it off with a detective story.
Each story revolves thus around its respective author, whose role as detective is flawed from the start. But they are apparently the only hope to find the loved one or objects that were respectively kidnapped or stolen. In Genefort's and Bordage's stories, it's an alien who's been kidnapped (or abducted, to use the right term). Of course, in both cases, as both stories are quite similar, the fellowship consists of our respective author-detectives, the partner of the supposedly kidnapped alien and a few other non-human beings. In Bordage's case ENHA, which misses an N: ENHNA, Espèce Non Humaine Non Animale, which he reused a few years ago in his novel "Le Dixième vaisseau" (review). But he first used it in this short story here, "Où es-tu, mon Choo ?".
Both stories are similar, also in our author-detectives getting paid for their "hard" work and investigations. Genefort is cheap, 20 EUR per day (but raises it to 25 EUR after his first "successful" mission), whereas Bordage is happy to charge at least 50 EUR, but will be rewarded more in the end, after having found out how Choo (also a synonym for nicknames like Honey, Dear, Sugar, ...). Turns out not every human being liked alien migration and assimilation, fearing Earth would be conquered by aliens and humans being replaced by them.
Genefort's "Jennifer a disparu" is a simple story, nothing fancy, just entertainment, even if xenophobie is an ingredient; obviously, it's the aliens who are at fault and should be removed. I did fail to see any humour in it or properly enjoy the story itself, some comparisons were also quite flat and ordinary. Oh yes, Jennifer was a male character, despite the female name. I liked Bordage's effort better, though that too wasn't his best either. As usual, he tried to incorporate his classic themes about racism, religion, ... His writing made it complete. In that regard, Bordage was a master storyteller. Whether or not you like the story, is a different question. Of the three, I liked this one the most or found it the least bad.
Last but (not?) least, there is Laurent Whale's tale, "L'Affaire du FBG", the longest of the pack (+130 pages) and revolving around the disappearance of an alien called Flugmitz Bliatouchni Galamounat and it was a turtle with 12 eyes on its shell that came to report FBG missing. For the solving of the problem, Laurent W. would be greatly rewarded, a whole lot more than our two other authors. This story takes time to unfold. I can't fault the writing, because it is actually very good, even if a bit heavy. However, too many references to other authors or characters (from books or films) made it a bit of a mess that went over my head quite rapidly. Add some old-fashioned and outdated "humour" and a DNF is close-by.
Short stories or novellas can be nice for in-between. I had good hopes for this little anthology, if you can call it that, but unfortunately, it couldn't really entertain me. Not that I can't appreciate French humour, on the contrary even: Raymond Devos, Louis de Funès, ... Some counter-examples of parodic stories I did like and found funny: "Cardboard Box of the Rings" (review), a parody trilogy consisting of "Bored of the Rings", "The Soddit", and "The Sellamillion", to name one counter-example. Or some of the late Terry Pratchett's works, in this case his "Discworld" series: "Mort", "Reaper Man", "Hogfather", ...
Giving it the benefit of the doubt, I checked out this little anthology consisting of 3 well-known (at least in the Francophone spectrum?) French authors. Their main playing field is science fiction, but for this occasion, their writing skills were appealed to for detective reasons. Because in all three stories, there's a matter of kidnapping or abduction. And so, each other gives (fictitious) account of how their services were requested and put to good (?) use.
The "Préambule" explains in a few words the situations at hand, trying to keep it light and funny, which is also the basis for each of the three stories. Laurent Genefort and Pierre Bordage are the only authors whose works I've read previously. Laurent Whale would thus be a "discovery". My first and only encounter with Laurent Genefort's writing was "Lum'en" (review), which wasn't that much of a success.
Pierre Bordage, on the contrary, has been on my reading list far more and still many more times to go. He was also one of my favourite French authors. It would therefore be interesting to see if at least these two writers could pull it off with a detective story.
Each story revolves thus around its respective author, whose role as detective is flawed from the start. But they are apparently the only hope to find the loved one or objects that were respectively kidnapped or stolen. In Genefort's and Bordage's stories, it's an alien who's been kidnapped (or abducted, to use the right term). Of course, in both cases, as both stories are quite similar, the fellowship consists of our respective author-detectives, the partner of the supposedly kidnapped alien and a few other non-human beings. In Bordage's case ENHA, which misses an N: ENHNA, Espèce Non Humaine Non Animale, which he reused a few years ago in his novel "Le Dixième vaisseau" (review). But he first used it in this short story here, "Où es-tu, mon Choo ?".
Both stories are similar, also in our author-detectives getting paid for their "hard" work and investigations. Genefort is cheap, 20 EUR per day (but raises it to 25 EUR after his first "successful" mission), whereas Bordage is happy to charge at least 50 EUR, but will be rewarded more in the end, after having found out how Choo (also a synonym for nicknames like Honey, Dear, Sugar, ...). Turns out not every human being liked alien migration and assimilation, fearing Earth would be conquered by aliens and humans being replaced by them.
Genefort's "Jennifer a disparu" is a simple story, nothing fancy, just entertainment, even if xenophobie is an ingredient; obviously, it's the aliens who are at fault and should be removed. I did fail to see any humour in it or properly enjoy the story itself, some comparisons were also quite flat and ordinary. Oh yes, Jennifer was a male character, despite the female name. I liked Bordage's effort better, though that too wasn't his best either. As usual, he tried to incorporate his classic themes about racism, religion, ... His writing made it complete. In that regard, Bordage was a master storyteller. Whether or not you like the story, is a different question. Of the three, I liked this one the most or found it the least bad.
Last but (not?) least, there is Laurent Whale's tale, "L'Affaire du FBG", the longest of the pack (+130 pages) and revolving around the disappearance of an alien called Flugmitz Bliatouchni Galamounat and it was a turtle with 12 eyes on its shell that came to report FBG missing. For the solving of the problem, Laurent W. would be greatly rewarded, a whole lot more than our two other authors. This story takes time to unfold. I can't fault the writing, because it is actually very good, even if a bit heavy. However, too many references to other authors or characters (from books or films) made it a bit of a mess that went over my head quite rapidly. Add some old-fashioned and outdated "humour" and a DNF is close-by.
Short stories or novellas can be nice for in-between. I had good hopes for this little anthology, if you can call it that, but unfortunately, it couldn't really entertain me. Not that I can't appreciate French humour, on the contrary even: Raymond Devos, Louis de Funès, ... Some counter-examples of parodic stories I did like and found funny: "Cardboard Box of the Rings" (review), a parody trilogy consisting of "Bored of the Rings", "The Soddit", and "The Sellamillion", to name one counter-example. Or some of the late Terry Pratchett's works, in this case his "Discworld" series: "Mort", "Reaper Man", "Hogfather", ...
September 23, 2019
A l'image de la modernisation policière de classiques de la littérature comme le tentât Jo Nesbo avec son Macbeth, l'intention de ce livre de fournir trois histoires mêlant histoire policière et science-fiction était bonne mais malheureusement n'est pas tenue.
Ces trois histoires ont recours à de trop gros clichés de la science-fiction et des aliens, faisant penser à un mauvais M.I.B de par son humour et le foisonnement créatif des aliens. Seuls quelques points sont intéressants comme les instances internationales extrapolées en organisations interstellaires, ou les lois pour le respect des aliens, ou encore l'extrapolation de la xénophobie.
Cette faiblesse n'est pas compensée par l'aspect policier. L'intrigue est soit très limitée voire inexistante ou les personnages une nouvelle fois sont emprunts de clichés.
Seules les écritures font de ces histoires faciles à lire.
https://quoilire.wordpress.com/2019/0...
Ces trois histoires ont recours à de trop gros clichés de la science-fiction et des aliens, faisant penser à un mauvais M.I.B de par son humour et le foisonnement créatif des aliens. Seuls quelques points sont intéressants comme les instances internationales extrapolées en organisations interstellaires, ou les lois pour le respect des aliens, ou encore l'extrapolation de la xénophobie.
Cette faiblesse n'est pas compensée par l'aspect policier. L'intrigue est soit très limitée voire inexistante ou les personnages une nouvelle fois sont emprunts de clichés.
Seules les écritures font de ces histoires faciles à lire.
https://quoilire.wordpress.com/2019/0...
February 14, 2019
Humour lourd, potache, plat pour des histoires niveau club des 5. La dernière atteint un record de vulgarité bête et nauséabonde. Les auteurs se sont peut-être amusés à pondre ces bouses ?
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews