Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Books


by Leave a comment

Very short stories

Short stories are tough.
There is this sort of… not really a debate, more like a feud, between those that Novels are proper literature, short stories are for losers and those that short stories are the true distillation of talent, any hack can write a 1000-pages trilogy given enough time and coffee.
Both are wrong, of course, and both are right, because the fact is, it’s not a binary system – there’s a whole lot of shades and issues there.

I write mostly short stories and novellas.
I feel comfortable with the word-count, and they make for reasonably fast writing, meaning I can sell them quick and keep the creditors at bay.
Sometimes I write longer stuff.
All formats have their pros and cons.
My favorite word-count is probably within the 8.000-to-12.000 words range. Shorter, I usually feel cramped, longer, I usually need a lot of time and planning and things get somewhat rambling. Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

The Sex Lives of Cannibals

51m8HcJWoXL._SX315_BO1,204,203,200_In the 1930s a young Thor Heyerdhal spent one year and a half in the Marquesas, as part of a project of what we could call today experimental archaeology. He and his wife lived as low-tech a life as possible,and later Heyerdahl wrote a book on the experience, called Fatu Hiva, from the name of the island they were living on. The book was published in 1974.

Sixty-odd years after the Heyerdhals’ stay in the Marquesas, J. Maarten Troost and his girlfriend did something similar, and spent two years on a small island in Kiribati. Their experiences went into a book called The Sex Lives of Cannibals, that was published exactly thirty years after Fatu Hiva (a coincidence, most certainly).

2018-10-26-132955

The postman just delivered a mystery package containing pristine copy of Troost’s book this morning. A gift from a friend (thank you!), I’ve been curious about it ever since I learned of its existence.
This is going to be a fun weekend.

The book also goes to expand the list of books here on my shelf that are prominently displayed just to shock my (rare) visitors.


by 4 Comments

Karavansara Free Library: El Borak

773049I’ve been discussing the El Borak stories with some friends recently.
For the uninitiated, El Borak, whose real name is Francis Xavier Gordon, is a character that appeared in some of the last stories written by Robert E. Howard. An adventurer in a similar vein to Talbot Mundy’s JimGrim, Gordon’s always been one of my favorite characters, ever since I discovered an old paperback with a Chris Achilleos cover on a shelf in a bookstore, about thirty-five years ago.

The El Borak stories are tight adventure yarns, set along the Northwestern Frontier and in parts East.
Not the most popular character in Howard’s production, El Borak was a mature effort on the part of the author, a character that might have allowed Howard to grow in different directions.
But these are what-might-have-beens.

Six of the El Borak stories, including Lost Valley of Iskander, that really made an impression on sixteen-years-old me, are available online, having fallen in the public domain.
Here are the links to the versions on the Wikisource servers.
Enjoy!0f070aadc63cfd2749ab0cbd74da9e65--conan-heroines

The Daughter of Erlik Khan (First published in Top-Notch, December 1934)
Hawk of the Hills (First appeared in Top-Notch, June 1935)
Blood of the Gods (First published in Top-Notch, July 1935)
The Country of the Knife (First published in Complete Stories, August 1936. Alternate title: Sons of the Hawk)
Son of the White Wolf (First published in Thrilling Adventures, December 1936)
The Lost Valley of Iskander (Alternate title: Swords of the Hills)


by 2 Comments

Sinbad the Sailor

cover_lgPhil Masters is a well known author in the field of gaming, and in particular his GURPS Arabian Nights is in my opinion not only one of the best GURPS supplements, but also a fundamental addition to any Arabian Nights/Oriental Fantasy shelf.
I check it out occasionally, and it’s been very helpful in and out of my gaming life, and was one of the books that started me on my ill-advised idea of collecting different versions of the Arabian Nights.
And this morning the postman delivered a copy of Master’s other Arabian nights book – Sinbad the Sailor, part of the wonderful Osprey Adventures line. Continue reading →


by 4 Comments

In Cuba, during the war

It can be argued that Ernest Hemingway was one of those authors that turned their own life into a story they were writing and selling.
Whether it was a conscious effort or an unplanned consequence of a number of circumstances I cannot say, but it’s certain that “Hemingway” was not just a set of books, but also a style, an attitude, a lifestyle.
A brand and a platform, modern marketeers might say.
Look at all those photographs.
We don’t have as many shots of, say, Raymond Chandler or Dorothy Parker, they are not so widely circulated.

Ernest_Hemingway_Aboard_the_Pilar_1935-840x420

It is not surprising then if Ernest Hemingway became the subject of other people’s fiction. Continue reading →


by 2 Comments

A Halloween reading list

Halloween, Halloween… it’s weird when you find yourself doing more posts about Halloween than you will ever do about, say, Christmas or New Year’s Eve.
It’s like Halloween has become the Web’s main festivity.
A festival of ghosts, spooks and dead people.
Seems fitting.

So, why not suggest a reading list for Halloween?
And considering we are cheapskates, why not a list of free ebooks?

Let’s see… Continue reading →