Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Armchair adventuring


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Stargate Origins looks good

Granted, I only saw about half an hour of it (is being released in ten 10-minutes webisodes), but the set-up is quite good: set in 1938, it features the first activation of the Stargate, Nazis, the Goa’uld as sinister as ever, and a good heroine.

Production values are quite good for such a small-scale project, and with the exception of a pair of long shots that look as fake as pantomime backgrounds, the whole thing looks like they made the most with what they had in terms of funds.
Hopefully they also put down a few bucks on the screenwriting side of the project.

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All in all, this looks like a fun way to spend a few minutes once in a while –
and sure it would be great should it signal a return of the franchise. Now I’m really curious to see how things will develop (even if, given the set-up, at least some developments are predictable).


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On Verne’s Birthday: Michael Strogoff

324_500_csupload_22715671And this being Jules Verne’s birthday, why not go and reread one of his books – or watch a movie basedon one of Verne’s books?
And KeithTaylor mentioned Michael Strogoff, and that’s quite a nice choice for Karavansara: an adventure yarn, set in the heart of Eurasia, and featuring chases, swashbuckling, heroics and derring-do.
All in a neat package, courtesy of one of the fathers of science fiction – but here applying his skills to a spy thriller of sorts.
It is also one of the titles on which my generation cut its teeth as readers. But we’ll get to that. Continue reading →


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Van Maanen’s Star

9a410eaaf9963756201434ccdb46df82_originalStar Eagles is a game created by Damon Richardson and published by Andrea Sfiligoi’s Ganesha Games.
Humanity faces an alien menace in this fun, easy-to-learn game of space battles.

I’ve been lucky enough to be involved very marginally in the project when I provided a few short snippets of fiction to spice-up the game handbook.
And as it usually happens, I found the universe interesting and worth exploring, and two characters, Tam and Lol, that would make it a fun thing exploring it.
So I asked Damon and Andrea for permission, and they allowed me to play in their backyard. The result is a story – hopefully the first of many – called Van Maanen’s Star.

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My first ever military SF story is currently available in multiple formats through Gumroad. It will also go up on Amazon, but it will take a little longer for the oompa-loompas to do their job.
Check it out.

ADDENDUM: the oompa loompa were as fats as hell, and now Van Maanen’s Star is also on Amazon.


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The Lost City of the Mayan Snake Kings

“A vast, hidden network of cities, fortifications, farms and highways has been found hidden beneath the trees of the remote Guatemalan jungle.”

You can read the whole article here.

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Now, this is the sort of news that really make me feel good. I was 18 when a lecturer in my high school told me and my mates

“in the Real World anything worth discovering has been discovered already… the future is in stock trading, not in archaeology or geology.”

It was 1985.
I hope the guy is still alive, but he’s probably in some nursing home eating apple puree and watching all-afternoon reality shows and he won’t get the news about the recent discovery of (get this)

the lost jungle city of the Mayan Snake Kings

Say it out loud, let the syllables roll on your tongue…

the lost jungle city of the Mayan Snake Kings

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The world is still large, and uncharted and full of surprises. We have bandits and warlords on the Silk Road, lost cities in the Amazon, strange beasts from the oceanic depths and the looming menace of runaway Artificial Intelligence.
And they are starting to market sex bots.

So here’s a toast to all those that sneered and acted superior, and rambled on about The Real World(TM). May they never wake up – the shock would kill’em.


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Gypsy Wagons

One half of it…was carpeted, and so partitioned off at the further end as to accommodate a sleeping-place, constructed after the fashion of a berth on board ship, which was shaded, like the windows, with fair white curtains… The other half served for a kitchen, and was fitted up with a stove whose small chimney passed through the roof. It also held a closet or larder, several chests, a great pitcher of water, and a few cooking-utensils and articles of crockery. These latter necessaries hung upon the walls, which in that portion of the establishment devoted to the lady of the caravan, were ornamented with such gayer and lighter decorations as a triangle and a couple of well-thumbed tambourines.
(Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop)

The above is the description of a gypsy wagon, or vardo, to give it its proper name. Continue reading →


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Where the wind leads us

This is another ramble written in a single sitting and without thinking.
You’ve been warned.
Because you see, we were talking about adventure, with my friend Lucy.
She’s a scuba diver and a cyclist – the sort of person that goes on the road with her bike as a form of vacation, cycling for miles.
I write about adventures. Make believe adventures.

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I was all set, I studied geology and paleontology because I wanted to go out there – deserts, jungles, far off places…
I ended up in a lab and a classroom, first, and now in a small cold house in the middle of nowhere.
I should have been smarter, I’ve been told, I should have sought a post at the post office, or as a bank teller.
Everybody told me so, ever since I was 10, ever since I started saying I wanted to go dig dinosaurs or climb volcanoes.
End they were right.
Or were they?
After all, my chat with my friend Lucy started because there’s an organization out there handing out the European Adventurer of the Year Award.
What would our families, our teachers and our successful white-collar friends say, should they ever find out? Continue reading →