Well, this is the week dedicated to the Arabian Nights, or so it seems.
So why not go on and talk about another good book I will be quite happy to find the time and re-read, not just because it will be fun research for the Mana Bros Alam al Mithral project, but most of all because it is one of the ten best literary essays I ever read. And I kid you not.
The book is Marina Warner’s Stranger Magic and I have bored to death all my friends, trying to push it on them, and now I guess it’s your turn. Continue reading
Category Archives: Armchair adventuring
Tits&Sand: Marrakesh, for free
… And talking about Arabian Nights and Tits&Sand, I just found out that Graham Diamond’s Marrakesh is available for free on Amazon.
I don’t know how long the offer will last, so hurry!
What’s it about?
It’s about a guy that falls in love with the last descendent of the Forty Thieves, those from Ali Baba and all that. And they set out on a treasure hunt. And there’s a bad guy…
Damn! What else do you need?
Here’s the link.
Hurry!
Jumping off airplanes for science
Two days ago I mentioned Humble Bundle as a source of reading matter and games on the cheap – and just today I squandered 1 buck for one of their latest offers.
The current bundle (that will remain available for another 12 days) is a treasure trove of roleplaying games based on popular narrative franchises: George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire, Charles Stross’ Laundry universe (Cthulhu and espionage – what could be better), Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Universe, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files and yes, the true reason why I spent that buck… Clevinger & Wegener’s Atomic Robo.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love both the Stross and the Sanderson novels, and while I never got into the Dresden Files a lot, I appreciate that universe too.
But Atomic Robo… ah!
For the uninitiated (let’s quote Wikipedia)
Atomic Robo is an American comic book series depicting the adventures of the eponymous character, a self-aware robot built by a fictional version of Nikola Tesla.
And it’s just a lot of fun. Continue reading
Weird book delivery
More weirdness from the depths of Astigianistan.
Today I received a copy of Jean-Christophe Grangé latest thriller, Lontano.
The mailman handed it to me without any package or envelope or nothing. The naked book, just like it was off the shelf of a bookstore.
I must have looked at him weirdly, because he justified himself.
“I’m keeping the package because I need the label.”
If you say so, I thought…
Sometimes I think Neil Young was thinking about this place when he wrote This is Nowhere.
On the other hand, Grangé’s book looks promising.
The wire that sings
I’ve been absent a few days due to a curious mishap, the sort that only happens when you live in Astigianistan: works for the new sidewalk, accidentally truncated the phone cable, leaving us isolated… well, much more isolated than usual.
Or at least this is what they told us.
In fact I know the natives of Astigianistan don’t trust “the singing wire”, and often cut the lines out of spite or superstitious fear.
It happened with the Apaches, too – or so I learned by watching old Hondo reruns.
Anyway – I’m back, the natives are restless, and tomorrow I’ll appear in video-call at the Lucca Comics & Games special event to present Hope & Glory.
I’ll keep you posted.
My first night on Mars
Yesterday night, despite the dismal internet connection I have here in the sticks, I followed the first lesson of the Monash University MOOC How to Survive on Mars, offered for free through the FutureLearn platform.
It is a good way to spend an hour, it is far better than television, and it’s helping me to brush up my basic physics and chemistry.
Then it’s about Mars, and that’s part of the fun.
And indeed it gave me a few ideas for stories, which is nice.
Still three weeks to go: all this is very promising.
The Shanghai Bund
Today I gave a good shake at The Mother of Lightning, the story I’m writing for Pro Se Press’ The New Adventure of Ned Land – hoping I’ll be able to finish it, and they’ll like it.
The deadline looms closer, it is time to check the details and nail the box shut for delivery.
The story is set in Shanghai in 1871, and that’s the tricky part, because this is exactly the moment in which the British and the French, aka The Most Favoured Nations, were redesigning the former fishermen’s village in their own image.
The Bund was there but it was not yet the wonder it would be in the 1920s, and a lot of the city was very different from the Shaghai we usually get from movies or novels – the Paris of the East.
So I went through my collection of old maps and books,a nd finally fell back on Peter Hibbard’s The Bund, Shanghai: China Faces West, a wonderful historical and architectural guidebook to the waterfront of Shanghai.
The book, published by Odyssey, is beautifully illustrated, with both old and new photos.
Some complain that it is not up to date (it was published in 2007) and so it does not work – or so they say – as a proper guidebook when you are out in the field, but for an armchair traveler or a writer looking for details about the Shanghai Club, it is an absolute treasure trove.
I was a little surprised in finding out that some of the details I had put down on the fly while writing were actually correct. But I’ve spent so much time reading (and sometimes writing) about Old Shanghai, that apparently I know the ins and outs of it better than I remember the streets and bus stops of my hometown.
Karavansara 