My friend Mauro (who also happens to be a fine game designer and an equally fine writer) just turned forty and he made a long list of fantasy novels he intends to read or re-read in the next five years.
I suggested a few additions to his list, and was absolutely impressed by his commitment and his ability to plan ahead.
Or by his cheek.
But let’s say he’s much more committed than I am,and much better at planning and sticking at it.
Could I do something similar? Continue reading
There is a concept in imaginative fiction that has been intriguing me ever since I learned of its existence: pariah elite.
I found the definition in the classic Encyclopedia of Fantasy by Clute & Grant:
A group which, though despised and rejected by society, remembers and preserves the secret knowledge necessary to keep the world from ultimate Thinning. In other words, members of PEs are despised and rejected precisely for that which they retain: their knowledge of the Secret History of the World, their Talents, their memory of the Elder Gods, their familiarity with the old True Names and the real Map of the territory (which allows them to escape the minions of the false king), their direct descent from the Elder Races, their memory of the way through the Labyrinth, their access through Portals to the Golden Age … But they sometimes do more than retain the past; it is always possible that the PE may be the Secret Masters of the world.
A lot of stories I enjoyed as a young man discovering fantasy and science-fiction hinged on the idea of a pariah elite: the Morgaine Books by C.J. Cherryh and the Birthgrave books by Tanith Lee, the old Foundation books by Ike Asimov, the Uplift books by David Brin in which the whole of humanity is sort of a pariah elite.
I sometimes toy with the idea of writing something based on this idea. Continue reading
No, this is not a post about some 1970s disco extravaganza.
In a post about the late Robert F. Young a few days back I mentioned his influence on a Japanese anime called RahXephon.
I was first interested in the thing when it was described to me as Evangelion’s smarter brother.
Confessions of an Anime viewer: I was never able to get Neon Genesis Evangelion. I know it was a huge success and a smash hit and all that, but I tried it and I did not like it.
The fact that there were at the time self-styled otakus shouting ceaselessly about how the series was better than anything that had gone before and anything that would come afterwards sort of cooled my already not-very-hot enthusiasm.
But RahXephon came with that comment, the reference to Robert F. Young’s masterful short story The Dandelion Girl and the discovery that it was somehow related to Churchward’s work about the lost continent of Mu.
So I gave it a try, and while I still have some misgivings, I’ll admit I was positively impressed. I do not normally cover anime on this blog, but once in a while, during the Silly Season… why not? Continue reading
“He was a devil incarnate in his ability to govern and defend a town, and a man of extraordinary courage”
This, according to Ibn al-Athir, Arab chronicler of the Crusades, was Conrad of Monferrat.
But then of course Sir Walter Scott got to work and gave the upstart Italian that had defeated Saladin and (more importantly, for Scott) opposed Richard Lionheart his just desserts.
And I, that I am sitting right now smack in the middle of Montferrat, never heard about the guy. Weird, considering this should be part of our History curriculum in school, right?
Looks like it’s time to set the record straight.
This is a story that will feature intrigue, politics, swordfights, courage and a mysterious death, the lot in the Holy Land during the Third Crusade.
Perfect for Karavansara.
Let’s go back to Tits & Sand movies with the mother of them all – the 1940 version of The Thief of Baghdad.
And I know, there were Arabian Adventure movies before, but this one was and is, to me, the definitive item. Once again, this was a movie that was a staple of afternoon reruns on the telly in the ‘90s, and before that I saw it in a small parish cinema, and boy did it make an impression.
So be warned – I’ll wax nostalgic, or maybe not. But this is one of my favorite movies from way back when…
After yesterday’s cover reveal, it’s time to write a little about Sketches of China, my fifth novelette in the Hope & Glory series that acts as an introduction/prequel for the game, that will be out very soon.
The plan for the novelettes was to try and show a different corner of the Hope & Glory world with each story.
So we’ve been through the Anglo-Indian Ray (Glass Houses), North Africa (Number the Brave), the Imperial court of Russia (Part of the Machine), on a flying ship belonging to the Republic of Iezo (Above the Clouds) and now, China.
Also, each novelette tackles a different genre, showcasing the different themes and gaming approaches the players will be able to adopt in the game.
So we’ve seen a spy story (Glass Houses), a war story (Number the Brave), a noir (Part of the Machine), a “big dumb object” SF story (Above the Clouds) and now… Continue reading
I discovered Harold Lamb pretty late in my life, about ten years ago.
I had retrieved, as a kid, a pair of biographies written by Lamb, I had found in my grandmother’s attic. They were from my mother’s collection of young girl’s reads. I think one was Tamburlane, and the other might have been Theodora.
I don’t know what happened to those books – I guess my mother gave them away. I was not overly interested in historical biographies, at the time I liked dinosaurs.
Only much, much later I found the collections published by Bison Books and edited by Howard Andrew Jones, and it was a delight.
“Who,” my friend Claire asked, “Lamb the one of the Cossack?”
I knew, through my readings, that Harold Lamb was a great author of historical adventure, “always the scholar first, the good fictionist second” as one of his editors said, and I associated his names with Adventure magazine, that to me was possibly more iconic than Weird Tales or Astounding.
Karavansara 