Indy Fan novel question

kiler

New member
First of all, this is my first post here so greetings to all Raven members :hat:


Now time for my question: I don`t know if any of you remember one novel which was in Fan Fiction Archive on Theraider.net. I don`t remember the title but it was about searching for the crew of confederate ship CSS Alabama (I`m not sure if the name is right). Action took place in many locations, but now I recall only the US South. I`ve read it some time ago and I remember that it was really good, but never finished. Now I wanted to read it again but I couldn`t find it. Does any one of you remember the title and where to find it now ?
 

monkey

Guest
Hey Kiler,
Wow! I think you might actually be referring to my aborted novel. "Indiana Jones and the Secret of Nan Madol". Maybe not, but it sure sounds like it. I didn't think anyone remembered that.

Once again Wow!

The ship was the CSS Shenandoah, and it was a very obscure but interesting historical anomaly. The only Confederate ship to enter the Pacific ocean.

It actually made a visit to the Island of Pohnpei in Micronesia in the year 1865. Pohnpei is the site of some very interesting and mysterious archaeological ruins.

I tried to tie it all up in an interesting story involving Indiana Jones, with Japanese villains instead of the usual Nazis (though there were Nazis in the story too).

Anyway, I never finished it. It still sits on my shelf. I keep telling myself I will finish it.

It was actually my second attempt at an Indy novel.

My first was a real abortion. It had Indy traveling up the Congo river in a canoe being attacked by alligators.........believe me, you don't want to read that. ....pretty bad.

My third attempt (third time's a charm) was a bit more successful. You may have seen it here on theraider, and a couple of other sites. "Indiana Jones and the Gypsy's Kiss". It's not a bad story..........but not too good either.

I'm actually moving this year. Maybe some new surroundings will inspire me to finish "Indiana Jones and the Secret of Nan Madol".

But if this is the story you are referring to, then, thanks for remembering it. It gives me some real inspiration.
 

kiler

New member
Hi Monkey

Yup, we are talking about your novel for sure :D I think I`ve read it 4 years ago but I still remeber it as the best thing I read in Fan fiction archive on theraider.net. "Gypsy`s kiss" was also good, but "Indiana Jones and the Secret of Nan Madol" was a real masterpiece (y) . I really really hope you`ll finish it because it deserves it for sure.

As I wrote earlier, some time ago I wanted to read it again, but unfortunately it is no longer on theraider.net. :( Is it possible to get the part you`ve already written ?

Once again congratulations on a really great work (y)
 

Canyon

Well-known member
Kiler, I agree with everything you have said. (y)

Nan Madol was indeed a masterpiece and is probably the best Indy fan fiction I've ever read. :hat: Monkey, I've been meaning to ask if you could send me Nan Madol. :D

And Monkey, are you kidding about Gypsy's Kiss? That story was magnificent! (y)
 

monkey

Guest
I just pulled this one down off my shelf and scanned through it. It's not as bad as I thought it was. In fact it's actually kind of good.

I'm going to try to finish it. Then I'll post it.

Might be a few months, but I'll try to get it done.
 

kiler

New member
Almost a year passed since my last post, but I know that writing a story is tough thing and requires a lot of time, so finishing "Nan Madol" can take even a few years. That is why I`d like to ask if you could send me at least the part of "Nan Madol" you`ve already written and which was earlier on theraider.net fan section. I`d be very, very grateful if you could do so. Is it possible ?
 

monkey

Guest
Killer,

Thank you very much for your continued interest in my Nan Madol story.

I must apologize greatly. This has been a tremendously eventful year for me. I not only changed jobs, I also changed hemispheres, and countries. I have been extremely busy and have only now found time to take care of things.

I am ashamed to say that, even after promising to try, I have not done a thing with Nan Madol this year.

I am so very grateful at your and others' interest in my novel.

Because of your post here today, which I appreciate more than you may know, I have vowed to myself, and to you and others, that I will either finish this novel, or I will send it along to you as is.

One problem is that I only have this incomplete novel on two media: I have it on hard copy paper, and I have it on a floppy drive. Unfortunately my "A" drive on my computer broke. So there might be a delay in getting this out.

But once again, thank you very much for your interest. I've sat on this thing long enough. I think either I should finish it, or maybe someone more energetic than myself should finish it for me.

Stand by Killer.

And Thank You
 

kiler

New member
Thanks for your reply Monkey.

Of course I understand the circumstances that didn`t allow you to finish this great novel, but I still hope you do and I keep my fingers crossed for it ;) .
 

monkey

Guest
Hey Kiler,

And anyone else who is interested.

I have not yet fixed my (antique) A-Drive. As soon as I do, I will put my unfinished novel again on this site. Then, I hopefully will be able to finish it.

It's a struggle right now.

Thanks for your patience. And your support.
 

kiler

New member
Wow, almost ten years passed and by chance I recalled the whole thing when looking again at theraider.net fan fiction site.

Anyway, any chance for that novel of yours Monkey?
 
As already mentioned above you can find this story (Indiana Jones and the Sunken Continent) here: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12358670/1/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Sunken-Continent and use fichub.net to extract it into an pfd of ehub (and use those files to make a paperback version)

I just finished this well-written pageturner. Sunken Continent is as good as Gypsys´s Kiss, which means it is blows all of the Rob MacGregor and Martin Caidin novels out of the water. It would also rank it higher than most of the Hohlbeins, probably on par with the best of Hohlbein and MacCoys. It is better than the fan-novelizations "Staff of Kings" or "Fate of Atlantis" and on par with the fan-story "Smoking Mirror".
First of all: this story is HUGE. The paperback I made out of it turned out to be even bigger than Gypsy´s Kiss. It takes a lot of dedication to write over 150000 words for a novel and it takes a lot of talent to make a novel of such size such a fun read. Seriously, I want to have a third book my Monkey.

Some thoughts:
In Gypsy´s Kiss there was one main Indy-girl (and one side girl in the "opening mini-advetnure"). In Sunken Continent Indy has 5 girls. The last one (and probably main one) is introduced in the last quarter of the book. On the other hand, Sunken Continent has the presence of a main villain right from the early chapters of the book. In Gypsy´s Kiss there was only a random german Colonel introduced in the climax of the book.
I made a lot of comparisons with a James Bond story when reading this book. As just mentioned: Indy has a lot of girls in this one. Indy is also getting briefed and later hired by the government (similar to Raiders) and he is temporarily in the Navy. He chases clues and hunches and infiltrates the camp of the enemy later in the book.
The main critisicm of Gypsy´s Kiss was that the ending was a bit rushed, too abrupt and not as spectacular as the rest of the book. Sunken Continent definitly has a better ending and a better climax. HOWEVER I was a bit disapointed that Indy did not unravel the mystery of Nan Madol. Usualy Indy encouters the magic powers of the McGuffins (wrath of god, healing power, Aliens, time travel, splitting of the sea, etc). With all the build up in the novel I ecxpected to have indy in a low gravity sequence or having a lot of boulders/rocks flying around him. Earlier in the book it was mentioned that there were reports of strange lights every night at Nan Madol and that the natives therefore do not go there at night. None of that came to fruiton in the climax. Indy explores some secret tunnels and chambers in the ruins (which is fun to read of course) but there were no supernatural elements at all.

The title of the book makes you believe that this is a "Fate of Atlantis" rip-off. The legends about the sunken continent of Mu is mentioned a few times and the story tries to connect Nan Madol to Mu. But it is defintily a different story and story-structure than FoA. The previous title ("Secret of Nan Madol") would have been a better title IMO. Trying to connect Nan Madol to Mu was very far fetched to be honest. The book claims that no one knows who build Nan Madol and when Nan Mandol was build. Indy believes that a population from a larger continent (Mu) had built it. BUT according to the legends, Mu existed way before time was recored (12000 years before our time). Nan Madol however was buld around 900 - 1100 AD according to geochemical research on Nan Madol. The book also claims that that noone knows for what reasons it was build ... however it IS known that Nan Madol was build and used by the local tribes as a ritual centre and city for their elite. That is like making a connection between Popmeij and Atlantis! But I am splitting hair here since the history of the artifacts in Indy´s adventures wasn´t always based on the real evidence (e.g. Ark in Tanis, existence of Sankara Stone, shape and origin of thw Crystal Skulls etc) and none of that ruined the fun/story.

The action in the book is great. There is a long piece of action in the first third in the book in New York, which consists of several action sequences happening shortly after each other. Great stuff. The way it ended might be a little over-the-top. indy is getting tied to a motor block and thrown in a river. Underwater he recognises an old Mafia-Limousine and uses the shards of the window to cut the rope.... How long can Indy hold his breath? Is it piossible for Indy to spot a wrecked car in the dirty river water without wearing andy underwater-googles? Hard to believe but still captevating suspense.

tThe main strucutre of Gypsy´s Kiss was Indy and Vadoma being on the run across Europe. In Sunken Continent Indy follows some hints and hunches across America and England. There is a lot of luck and coincidences involved that Indy´s interpetation of past events were correct and that certain people that were involved were sitll around he searches for a soldier from the civil war who was at Nan Madol and later for an Idol that the soldier gave away after the war . But it was fun to read how indy followed some breadcrumbs through history and his hunches and interpretations turning out to be correct.
At one point in the story Indy is in the Bayou´s of Lousianna and there is some good action there. He also travles through New Orleans shortly.. This is a great setting for an Indy adventure. There are no mentions of Marie Laveau or Jean Lafitte however but I honestly don´t know and can´t imagine how they could have been included into the story. However, Emilia Erhardt´s story has a minor role into the plot.

It seems that Sunken Continent (SC) didn´get the attention that Gypsy´s Kiss (GK) had 20 years ago. Probably because GK was releases episodic on various Indy-fanpages and SC just in secret on fanfiction.net. But in closing I have to repeat that SC is just as good as GK and therefore highly recommended.

Below is a picture of the paperback I made of this. I made the cover out of exisitng (fan)art (if you recognize your work in here: Thank you) based on what I have read on the summary of the story before actualy reading it (just like I did with GK)

20230804-131835.jpg


BTW: I am going to read "Sword of Gods" next.
 
As already mentioned above you can find this story (Indiana Jones and the Sunken Continent) here: https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12358670/1/Indiana-Jones-and-the-Sunken-Continent and use fichub.net to extract it into an pfd of ehub (and use those files to make a paperback version)

I just finished this well-written pageturner. Sunken Continent is as good as Gypsys´s Kiss, which means it is blows all of the Rob MacGregor and Martin Caidin novels out of the water. It would also rank it higher than most of the Hohlbeins, probably on par with the best of Hohlbein and MacCoys. It is better than the fan-novelizations "Staff of Kings" or "Fate of Atlantis" and on par with the fan-story "Smoking Mirror".
First of all: this story is HUGE. The paperback I made out of it turned out to be even bigger than Gypsy´s Kiss. It takes a lot of dedication to write over 150000 words for a novel and it takes a lot of talent to make a novel of such size such a fun read. Seriously, I want to have a third book my Monkey.

Some thoughts:
In Gypsy´s Kiss there was one main Indy-girl (and one side girl in the "opening mini-advetnure"). In Sunken Continent Indy has 5 girls. The last one (and probably main one) is introduced in the last quarter of the book. On the other hand, Sunken Continent has the presence of a main villain right from the early chapters of the book. In Gypsy´s Kiss there was only a random german Colonel introduced in the climax of the book.
I made a lot of comparisons with a James Bond story when reading this book. As just mentioned: Indy has a lot of girls in this one. Indy is also getting briefed and later hired by the government (similar to Raiders) and he is temporarily in the Navy. He chases clues and hunches and infiltrates the camp of the enemy later in the book.
The main critisicm of Gypsy´s Kiss was that the ending was a bit rushed, too abrupt and not as spectacular as the rest of the book. Sunken Continent definitly has a better ending and a better climax. HOWEVER
I was a bit disapointed that Indy did not unravel the mystery of Nan Madol. Usualy Indy encouters the magic powers of the McGuffins (wrath of god, healing power, Aliens, time travel, splitting of the sea, etc). With all the build up in the novel I ecxpected to have indy in a low gravity sequence or having a lot of boulders/rocks flying around him. Earlier in the book it was mentioned that there were reports of strange lights every night at Nan Madol and that the natives therefore do not go there at night. None of that came to fruiton in the climax. Indy explores some secret tunnels and chambers in the ruins (which is fun to read of course) but there were no supernatural elements at all.


The title of the book makes you believe that this is a "Fate of Atlantis" rip-off. The legends about the sunken continent of Mu is mentioned a few times and the story tries to connect Nan Madol to Mu. But it is defintily a different story and story-structure than FoA. The previous title ("Secret of Nan Madol") would have been a better title IMO. Trying to connect Nan Madol to Mu was very far fetched to be honest. The book claims that no one knows who build Nan Madol and when Nan Mandol was build. Indy believes that a population from a larger continent (Mu) had built it. BUT according to the legends, Mu existed way before time was recored (12000 years before our time). Nan Madol however was buld around 900 - 1100 AD according to geochemical research on Nan Madol. The book also claims that that noone knows for what reasons it was build ... however it IS known that Nan Madol was build and used by the local tribes as a ritual centre and city for their elite. That is like making a connection between Popmeij and Atlantis! But I am splitting hair here since the history of the artifacts in Indy´s adventures wasn´t always based on the real evidence (e.g. Ark in Tanis, existence of Sankara Stone, shape and origin of thw Crystal Skulls etc) and none of that ruined the fun/story.

The action in the book is great. There is a long piece of action in the first third in the book in New York, which consists of several action sequences happening shortly after each other. Great stuff. The way it ended might be a little over-the-top.
indy is getting tied to a motor block and thrown in a river. Underwater he recognises an old Mafia-Limousine and uses the shards of the window to cut the rope.... How long can Indy hold his breath? Is it piossible for Indy to spot a wrecked car in the dirty river water without wearing andy underwater-googles?
Hard to believe but still captevating suspense.

tThe main strucutre of Gypsy´s Kiss was Indy and Vadoma being on the run across Europe. In Sunken Continent Indy follows some hints and hunches across America and England. There is a lot of luck and coincidences involved that Indy´s interpetation of past events were correct and that certain people that were involved were sitll around
he searches for a soldier from the civil war who was at Nan Madol and later for an Idol that the soldier gave away after the war
. But it was fun to read how indy followed some breadcrumbs through history and his hunches and interpretations turning out to be correct.
At one point in the story Indy is in the Bayou´s of Lousianna and there is some good action there. He also travles through New Orleans shortly.. This is a great setting for an Indy adventure. There are no mentions of Marie Laveau or Jean Lafitte however but I honestly don´t know and can´t imagine how they could have been included into the story. However, Emilia Erhardt´s story has a minor role into the plot.

It seems that Sunken Continent (SC) didn´get the attention that Gypsy´s Kiss (GK) had 20 years ago. Probably because GK was releases episodic on various Indy-fanpages and SC just in secret on fanfiction.net. But in closing I have to repeat that SC is just as good as GK and therefore highly recommended.

Below is a picture of the paperback I made of this. I made the cover out of exisitng (fan)art (if you recognize your work in here: Thank you) based on what I have read on the summary of the story before actualy reading it (just like I did with GK)

20230804-131835.jpg


BTW: I am going to read "Sword of Gods" next.
Do you care to post the images you used for the covers? I'd like to use them for my pdfs as well.
 
Do you care to post the images you used for the covers? I'd like to use them for my pdfs as well.
Do you mean the various pictures and fan-art that I "cut up" and used fo my pictures?Tthat would take a while to find ethem again. But here are my finsihed versions:

Gypsy´s Kiss

Sunken Continent

Sword of God

Curse of the Nile
same with an alternative image for Marion:

You will notice that I had to censor the swatikas on the Nazi´s on the cover of Gypsys´s Kiss and Sword of God. Swatikas are forbidden here in Germany (with only few excpetions) and I feared that the service i used to print those covers would not print them (or get me in some trouble) because of them.
You will recognize that I used Sallah and Marcus from the cover of the american McCoy-indy books. Since my the german covers of those books (which i own) have different images I went to use them for the fannovels (since they aren´t on any other covers of the books on my shelves).

I did not use the Indy-title" font for Sunken Continent (and my paperback-version of Gypsy´s Kiss also misses that font which I used on the coverpic above afterwards) ... but you learn and get better with every cover you make. Sunken Continent is probably the worst of the covers but I really like the other covers but also my first. Once again thanks to all the original artists.

I tried to make the books look like the german Indiana Jones novels by Goldmann, so the side and the backover are plain white with black tex (summaries given on fanfiction.net or elsewhere) and the Indiana Jones logo with the title of course. Easy to make yourself but if you want those I can upload them as well.
 

Spiked

Well-known member
Question about fan novels, for all the time and care and effort put into them, why not rename the character, change some aspects of him and publish it as ones own creative work? As we all know Indiana Jones isn't completely original. No one owns the rights to an adventure archetype. Plus you don't want the mouse coming after you.
 

ThrowMeTheWhip

Well-known member
Question about fan novels, for all the time and care and effort put into them, why not rename the character, change some aspects of him and publish it as ones own creative work? As we all know Indiana Jones isn't completely original. No one owns the rights to an adventure archetype. Plus you don't want the mouse coming after you.
The mouse isn’t concerned about a fan fiction novel no one’s profiting on. Hell, they couldn’t even be bothered by the leak of Staff of Kings which they do own.
 

Spiked

Well-known member
The mouse isn’t concerned about a fan fiction novel no one’s profiting on. Hell, they couldn’t even be bothered by the leak of Staff of Kings which they do own.
After I posted I knew I shouldn't have added the mouse sentence because it isn't what I was really asking.

My question is, for all the time and care and effort put into fan fiction, why not rename the character, change some aspects of him and publish it as ones own creative work? As we all know Indiana Jones isn't completely original. No one owns the rights to an adventure archetype.
 
Top