Yellow Peril…how can a phrase that reeks so of racism and paranoia yield a body of fiction so…cool?
The term originated in the late nineteenth century. Chinese immigrants were flooding our western shore and spreading throughout the country at a time when their homeland was growing more and more militaristic. Could this mass immigration be a silent first wave of an eventual invasion?
In polite conversation they were called Chinamen or Orientals (not “Asian,” as political correctness now dictates). Down on the street they were chinks and coolies.
Chinese villains became regulars in the penny dreadfuls. In 1913 Sax Rohmer created the paradigm for all Oriental evil from then on: Fu Manchu. I became enthralled with the good doctor at age fifteen when I met him in the pages of the Pyramid reprint of The Insidious Doctor Fu Manchu. I became a fan of the pulps and particularly enjoyed the exotic yellow-peril stories they regularly featured. (Even the Shadow had an archnemesis named Shiwan Khan.)
So when Joe Lansdale asked me to contribute to an anthology called Retro Pulp Tales, I said it had to be Yellow Peril. I did a lot of research to find the right tone. I decided it would involve a face-off between two fictional titans of the times.* I came up with the most lurid title I could think of, and after that the story pretty damn near wrote itself.