I am old.
I am dead tired.
I am stranded in the middle of nowhere.
But I have friends that gave me wonderful gifts for my 56th birthday.
And so, why not share the covers of the books that I will now pile by my desk (and on my Kindle reader) , and read in no particular order to keep melancholy, boredom and loneliness at bay?
Just the covers, in no particular order…
If you are so inclined, you can now get a copy of my latest novella through Mr Bezos’ general emporium.
There can be a delay because Amazon has a queue thing – but no more tan a few days.
Sherlock Holmes used to introduce himself as a “consulting detective” – one to which other detectives and police officers could go to for, yeah, a consultation, during their own investigations.
This side of Holmes’ business was not often presented in the Canon, and now Belanger Books, purveyors of fine Holmesian pastiches, has decided to tackle this issue by publishing a thick anthology, called The Consultations of Sherlock Holmes, that is currently being financed on Kickstarter.
The volume collects a selection of new apocryphal tales in which Holmes is merely the consultant, and other investigators take center stage, following cases until they get stumped, and need to compare notes with the gentleman living in Baker Street.
The Consultations of Sherlock Holmes includes my new story, The Consultation of the Edinburgh Smoker, in which Holmes will help a colleague working for an Edinburgh department store, investigating a baffling and apparently absurd crime – the theft of some gramophone needles.
I could add that the story was inspired by real events, but don’t you hate too when that label is bandied around?
So, here you go – if this sounds like your sort of thing, check the link provided.
The book will also be in shops as soon as the kickstarter is successfully closed, but by financing it through the Kickstarter platform, you get a load of extras, and help the authors make a little extra.
ProSe Press’ latest anthology is out, and it can be acquired in both paperback and ebook via Amazon.
It is called Princesses in Pulp, it features a killer cover by Antonino Lo Iacono, and it includes a story of mine, called Away with the Fairies.
The idea was to take a classic fairy tale and turn it into a pulp story – so I selected an old Italian folk tale from Giambattista Basile’s classic collection known as the Pentamerone, a nice Cinderella variation called The Three Fairies, and I redid it as a Black Mask-style noir crime story.
It was fun to write it – I hope it will be fun to read it too!
It is also the raciest story I ever published in my name.
If you feel like taking a look at Princesses in Pulp, right now the ebook is 99 cents.
But I’ll shell out a little more for the paperback, just for that cover…
I’ve placed links to Amazon above – I’m not getting any commission for this.
Do you get emails from Amazon?
I do.
About once a week, I find in m y mailbox a mail that says, more or less…
Greetings, Consumer!
based on your previous purchases, we think you might also like…
And what follows is a list of books I have already purchased from Amazon, plus maybe one or two of my own books. On special days, the algorithm also throws in an esoteric kitchen tool and maybe some instant noodles.
But the latest “you might also like” mail was special, because the Amazon algorithm decided I might be interested in this…
Yes, it’s a book of mine (available in Italian only, sorry rest of the world!)
You know, ancient Rome, Aegyptian curses, conspiracies, legionaries… the usual.
And yes, it’s out today.
And no, I did not know anything about it.
I was not informed the book had been published – and indeed already sold during the Lucca Comics & Games fair this past Halloween.
I did not see the galleys.
I did not get a complimentary copy.
Or an ebook.
Google reveals that the book was also presented during a live streaming panel, in November – but I was not informed, or invited to participate, and when the panel was announced on Facebook nobody tagged me, and therefore another algorithm decided not to show me any notification.
And no, there was nothing in my spam folder, either.
And yes, the cover is great, and carries my name and the IP house name, so that it looks like I wrote this with someone else.
And finally yes, this is deeply humiliating, because the book I spent the whole summer of 2022 writing has been out there three months now, and I only learned about it because the Amazon suggestions algorithm sucks.
I will not put a commercial link here, because as I said the book is only available in Italian.
It’s likely to be my last novel to be.
Two days back I finished a big translation job I was eager to get out of the way to clear my desk for the upcoming novel writing job I will be doing these next two months (more details soon).
To celebrate the conclusion of the translation, I awarded myself an ebook, and got me a copy of Jeremy “Deathblade” Bai’s Understanding Chinese Fantasy Genres: A primer for wuxia, xianxia, and xuanhuan.
Now, first of all, how cool it is to have “Deathblade” as a nickname.
I mean, me, my friends call me “Doc”.
Boring.
But “Deathblade”? Ah!
I first became aware of Jeremi Bai’s work through the excellent Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades roleplaying game, published by Osprey. A game designed to simulate the wild action of wuxia movies and novels, and a great alternative to the ubiquitous mock-medieval fantasy roleplaying game.
I was really impressed by the game, and checked out the authors (Brendan Davis collaborated with Bai on the game), and found myself going down a rabbit hole.
Now, I like Chinese fantasy, but I have experienced it mostly through “classical” texts – Romance of Three Kingdoms, the Water margin, Journey to the West etc – than through the more recent multi-volume serials that seem to be extremely popular. And of course I used to watch Hong Kong movies way before it became cool.
And I have often flirted with wuxia in my stories (I do not know how successfully or convincingly).
Jeremy Bai’s primer on the genre(s) of Chinese fantasy is exactly what I needed to put some order in my patchwork knowledge of the tropes, the themes and the trends of a HUGE world of stories.
The book is short (148 pages in ebook, that go for less than 3 bucks) and to the point, illustrating the basic ideas and the quirks of wuxia (basically Chinese sword & sorcery), xianxia (high-powered, universe-shattering Chinese high fantasy) and xuanhuan (that mixes Western and Eastern modes in its storytelling).
Short chapters provide cultural background, examples and historical context for the building blocks of the stories. It’s a useful primer for both readers and would-be writers, and has many interesting insights on the issue of translation that, as a translator myself, I found particularly interesting.
A light but highly informative read and yes, one that will lead to checking out more movies, more books, and who knows, maybe will lead to the writing of a few stories.
Highly recommented to anyone with an interest in Chinese and Oriental fantasy.
I am finally free to share the news that my new novel for the Descent, Legends of the Dark line will be available next summer through Aconythe Books.
It’s called Dreams of Fire, and it’s gonna be hot.
We’ve got dwarves, we got orcs (but not your father’s old orcs), we’ve got necromancy and rock-magic, we’ve got swordsmen-poets and more dragons you can shake a stick at.
And volcanoes.
It’s going to be a blast.
Karavansara 