Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Books


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Back to the (Captain) Future

Captain Future was a pulp series of science fiction novels that started in 1940, mostly written by Edmond Hamilton. The stories, featuring Curtis Newton, aka Captain Future, aka The Wizard of Science were classic space opera with a pulp hero twist – Captain Future was sort of Doc Savage in space, complete with a team of quirky helpers and all that.

Now, for us here in Italy, and for my generation, Captain Future is a special thing, not much because of the novels – only a few were translated, and quickly disappeared – bu t because in the early ’80s the Toei Animation series was distributed in my country, a part of the “Japanese anime invasion”. To me it was a special treat, because I knew Hamilton, having read a few of his novels, and I had often heard mentioned the character but never been able to track down the books. Back then I was in my early teens and I loved Golden Age authors like Hamilton and Williamson, and so I really enjoyed the series (and to this day, I still like the jazz-based original soundtrack by Yuji Ohno, the same guy that did the Lupin III soundtrack).

It was therefore with a lot of expectations that I (finally) got myself a copy of Allen Steele’s 2017 novel Avengers of the Moon, that is presented as the first volume in an authorized reboot of the old Hamilton novels, written by noted hard SF author Allen Steele.
Expectations, I had, and also a few doubts – why reboot the old stories?

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Voices in the Dark

The last time I listened to an audiobook I was driving along the highway to meet a friend, and I got so engrossed in the action that I missed my exit, and had to drive an extra fifty miles. I learned my lesson, and left audiobooks on the side for a while.

These days I no longer have a car, and I have a stack on audiobooks I never got around listening to.
I’ve got half a dozen Bryant & May mysteries by Christopher Fowler I got with a special offer a few years back, and I have a huge selection of Warhammer 40K novels I bought with a Humble Bundle two years ago.
And more.

These audiobooks, together with the huge troves of audio-dramas one can find online (via the Internet Archive), are an absolute blessing with this heat: I can turn off the lights, close my eyes and enjoy the ride as the evening gets cooler.
Because we need to adapt to the environment if we want to survive, and this place is too hot, humid and mosquito-ridden to do anything else.

Tonight I’ll start with Bryant & May – nothing better than a good mystery on a hot summer night.


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Heatwave at the Keep

Heatwave is the title of a song by a band called the Blue Nile that I discovered in the version by Dave Stewart (not that one, the other) and Barbara Gaskin.
Not that you care, I guess.
An heatwave is also what’s hitting Europe in this moment – we are at 38°C here in Astigianistan, with a staggering 58% of humidity (that goes up to ‘70% in the evening). It will get hotter in the next days.
People will die, like it already happened in 2003.

All we can do is stay indoors, use the fan in moderation, and try to go through these days. I’ve work to do, and I’ll do it in the night.
In the meantime, I pass my time listening to old records and reading a chiller – because, well, one can try and get chilled at least ideally, right?

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And should the Winter never come? What then, uh?

I am not a fan of Game of Thrones, and I did not like the books by Martin when I read them. So sue me.
I still appreciate Martin as a writer (mostly because of Fevre Dream) and I like what he’s trying to do with his books, even if I don’t care for the way he’s doing it. The Wars of the Roses? Really?

But I have watched with mixed emotions the evolution of the Game of Thrones fandom, their reactions at the way the show and the story were developed and all that. Always good watching how a pro does his thing, and how the punters react.

Yesterday I read somewhere that George R.R. Martin explicitly said that the whole “winter is coming” thing in his books was intended a metaphor of climate change. Now … yeah, I know, I told you already, I am an environmental scientist… this sort of intrigued me.

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A day off

And so yesterday I took the day off. It was, after all, my birthday, and so I spent the day reading a book, listening to some music, and watching a few episodes of a TV series (god bless streaming services and my high-speed satellite connection). I also had a nice serving of tiramisù (a simple dessert that apparently is very popular outside of Italy).

And because this is that kind of blog, here’s the recipe, taken from Wikibooks – and also a controversial, egg-less alternative, courtesy of the BBC. My goodness, to reach the tender age of 52 and find out that tiramisù can be “controversial”…!

As for my other birthday activities…

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Ghosts, Crimes and Philosophy: a review of Joyland

My friend Flavia says she re-reads Stephen King’s Joyland every year, usually in June, because she likes how it makes her feel. And I know a lot of people that did not like the book – and it’s because of both Flavia’s opinion and of those people’s opinion that I went and read it.
I said I’d write a review when I finished it.
Guess what… I finished it.

I’ll start by saying that Joyland plays a dangerous game, because it’s both a crime thriller and a ghost story, and if mixing genres is always dangerous, it is also true that ghost stories often deal with the revelation of some dark secret, the avenging of some old crime. So, it’s a classic mix, and it works fine. Many also point out that Joyland is a coming-of-age story, and this is throwing another genre (or is it a theme?) into the mixer.
As I said, a dangerous game, that King pulls so nicely it seems effortless.

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