Status Updates From The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu

Well, now this was actually racist.

Started reading Fu Manchu when I watched Shang-Chi, Fu Manchu was originally his father in the comics. It’s reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes… if Holmes was a bumbling cop, Moriarty a capable but racist stereotype, and Watson some rando.

Reading for research purposes only. Only a few pages in and it’s already even more racist than I expected. Don’t know if I’ll get through it.

Wow. The racism starts strong in this one. "I have traveled from Burma not in the interests of the British Government merely, but in the interests of the entire white race..." LOL. Chapter 1.

This book sucks.

"No white man, I honestly believe, appreciates the unemotional cruelty of the Chinese."

Welp, I'm at the end of chapter II, and the big bad has just been described as "the yellow peril incarnate in one man," so there's that

Fun pulpy book with interesting villain. Fu-Manchu is cruel, maniacal killer, but somehow honorable one. The book worth reading just for him, because it's chappy and lazy mystery. :)

The adventures of Dr. Petrie and Smith

Sherlock Holmes (1887) is better. This is like a few of the murder cases in one.

This book is dreadful.

How strangely does the adventurous intrude upon the humdrum; for, when it intrudes at all, more often than not its intrusion is sudden and unlooked for. To-day, we may seek for romance and fail to find it: unsought, it lies in wait for us at most prosaic corners of life's highway.

Like the best serials and B-movies.

"Lord of Strange Deaths" would also be a great band name.

"You may be horrified that I was hot for the Asian girl - but she was a real babe!" Fu, you have 15 pages to murder our protagonists. Don't fail me.

"Then it began - the unnatural scene - the saturnalia of murder." That's a great band name.

Pretending to smoke Opium, lying on a couch, in a room surrounded by trap doors. Like a boss.

Wait. What the hell is Fu's doctorate is, anyway?

Fu's not only winning, he's literally trolling our "heroes." I like the guy.

Fu's not only winning, he's literally trolling our "heroes." I like the guy.

Fu's not only winning, he's literally trolling our "heroes." I like the guy.

That infernal Fu Manchu has started drugging people! With. . . Marijuana! His evil plan culminates in selling Pringles.

Our doctor swears that it's basic medicine and politics that "East and West may not intermingle." I really wish that I had a joke here, but all I can think of is the library copy on Anansi Boys I checked out and returned while I was busy with this.

If Indians really had "wolfish fangs," Bollywood would be so much crazier.

Really, any knife-wielding assassin traveling around London in a loincloth will worry about frostbite more than Scotland Yard.

"Discolored teeth?" Shouldn't a government-backed mastermind have great dental?

Say it ain't so! Fu Manchu, held at gunpoint in his own poison lab? How can he possibly escape? Is this the end for our hero? Stay turned, kids!

The book feel onto my papers-to-grade stack. I briefly considered playing hooky to read Fu Manchu. Then I put it to the side and grabbed the next mitosis packet.

That's the most complete review I can give currently.

"An outbreak of dacoity" sounds like something a topical cream could handle.