I have just learned of the passing away, early last week, of Charles R. Saunders, the author whose Imaro was the first character in a fantasy genre that would come to be known as Sword & Soul, and whose catalog included some of the best fantasy produced in the second half of the 20th century.
I am absolutely devastated – no more than two weeks ago, I was suggesting Charlse Saunders’ books to a contact that was looking for some different take in sword & sorcery – and the recent reprint of the first Imaro book was just what he needed.
For me, Imaro was, with Elric, the first sign that there was life beyond Conan, and I still have my trade paperback of the first volume.
It’s time for a thorough re-read, in remembrance of a great writer.
Today I did something I rarely do – I asked for a refund on my last purchase on Amazon, a 7 bucks ebook I bought because I am interested in the topic but also because I am doing some research for my next writing project (contract signed – I am waiting for the advance … my bank is also waiting for the advance … and my insurance company … and my electricity provider).
So, considering this will be a fun project that could lead to more books being written in the series, I decided to check out what I could find on the main topics, to supplement my own collection. And I immediately stumbled on this new (2018) Italian-language biography of one of the key historical characters – that happens to be Italian himself. I have a couple of bios already, but this one is really recent, and so I bought the ebook.
Having mentioned the Hays Code in my previous post(*), I thought I’ll suggest you a book on the subject – because we talk about books in this place, right? And because I like old movies, and I like reading about old movies.
Sponsored by Turner Classic Movies and published by Running Press, Mark A. Vieira’s Forbidden Hollywood is a wide and deep survey of the pre-Code era productions – when Tinseltown was reckless and shameless… or something like that.
As you can see from the cover (don’t get distracted by Harlow’s charms), the book covers the 1931-1934 period, and as you can imagine because of Harlow’s charms on the cover, it’s illustrated with dozens of beautiful black and white photographs. It also has tons of period documents, to give you a nice overview of what was happening, and how it influenced the development of the medium.
This is a great read for lovers of classic movies, and while it’s certainly a great book to have in hard-copy, it can be bought real cheap as an ebook.
Vieira also edited a big selection on film noir, Into the Dark, that is a fun read but is not as good – and the omission of two of my favorite noirs really really baffled me. But it’s a fun read, and it features some stunning stills – once again, it can be bought real cheap as an ebook, and it’s a good, if biased, starting point for anyone interested in learning more about noir movies.
I still love a good black and white movie, and while I wait for them to come up on my streaming services, reading about them is almost as fun.
(*) Well, not, actually – it’s in my NEXT post. What happened was, the post scheduled for this afternoon was postponed to tomorrow morning because of the sudden death of Diana Rigg taking precedence. But because my memory is like a sieve, I forgot to reschedule this post. So here you have it – part two before part one. Sorry for the inconvenience.
I usually point out here on my blog what I think are interesting offers from Humble Bundle – still one of my go-to services to keep my to-read list stocked. The deal is the usual – you get a pack of themed books for real cheap, and you help a charity. Everybody wins.
The latest book selection from Humble Bundle is so quirky and weird I was sure I’d find something interesting – and indeed, the eight volumes you get for 83 euro-cents are already on my hard disk.
And today I sold a short story. My SF short-short Singularity will be published in a British magazine some time in the future. I found out about the sale this morning, and by lunchtime I had signed the contract. This is another hit in a string of good turns that happened to me in the last 72 hours – so I think it is just fair mentioning that this morning I also got a rejection slip: sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
The story is a short humorous piece, a club story about The East Wexford Knitting Society that I mentioned last May – as I mentioned in the old post, I expanded it a little for submission, but it’s still under 2000 words.
So to celebrate I took the day off – and I only wrote 500 words on my current novel (title still pending), and then sat down to read The Courage to Be Disliked, a philosophy book by Japanese authors Ichiro Kishimo and Fumitake Koga.
I am not normally much into self-help books (but then again, I’ve been known to read anything, even the back of cornflakes packs) but I had read a lot of reviews of this one, and I had picked up an ebook copy for little more than a buck a few weeks back. Also, the title suggested it could be something I might like reading.
The interesting thing is, the book is built as a dialogue – which makes for easy going – and is about Adlerian psychology as philosophy. A subject I knew nothing about, but that is providing much food for thought – not so much in the helping myself department, as in terms of story ideas and world-building options.
And a good non-fiction book is always a good way to cleanse the synapses after a long bout of writing/editing/worrying-about-stuff.
Yesterday I finished my final revision of my non fiction book (yeah, I know,I told you that already) and I sold a pitch for another book (I am waiting to sign the contract, so it’s still very hush-hush). So to celebrate I went and bought me a few books, and because sometimes the Amazon algorithm is your friend, I ended up with a Kindle-full of (mostly free) books. Nice and smooth.
On top of that, I got a bout of insomnia, and so spent the whole night reading, going cover-to-cover through Kiss me when I’m dead, Dominic Piper’s first book in the PI Daniel Beckett series. And it was quite fun.
Set in contemporary London, the novel follows the former insurance investigator Daniel Becket as he’s hired by an arms dealer to track down his missing daughter, a girl that has a history of drugs and dangerous liaisons. It won’t be an easy job.
The general set-up is very classic and very pulp-style – Beckett is an ultra-competent guy that pulls all the chicks and kicks ass with the best, and if the tone of the first-person narration is halfway between The Rockford Files and Robert Crais’ Elvis Cole novels, the mood is very much Mickey Spillane, and in terms of action and feats, we are dangerously close to Remo Williams‘ territory.
But Piper manages to pull it, with the simple expedient of making his main character strangely mysterious. Beckett has something to hide, some sort of secret history that colors his background and justifies his exceptional skills without ever explaining anything. Indeed, we are dragged along the story more by the curiosity of finding out who’s really Beckett than by the actual mystery – that is somewhat easy to patch together.
All in all a solid hard boiled read, with enough stylish violence for those that like that sort of thing, and an entertaining, intriguing main character.
Karavansara 