Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Books


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Re-reading Conan (for starters)

In 2022 I launched an Italian-language podcast called Chiodi Rossi (Red Nails), together with my friend Germano – who is a fine writer and an excellent editor, and a fellow Howard fan.
We started every two week, reviewing and discussing a classic… well, “classic” 1980s fantasy movie – and we started with John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian.

The podcast was well received, and we have somewhat widened our scope – we did a couple movie trailer reviews, we covered the eight episodes of the Amazon Prime series The Rings of Power. Our listeners were reasonably happy with what we did, so we are experimenting further.

And so we said, OK, we are both writers – but discussing our own writing would be in poor taste. Why not discuss the stories that we like from the authors that we love, within the sword & sorcery and fantasy genre?

As a test run, we’ll do an episode about four of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories – having selected two each. We will re-read them, and take notes, and then talk, and record, and inflict the result on our unsuspecting listeners.

The four stories we selected are

  • The Tower of the Elephant
  • Shadows in the Moonlight
  • People of the Black Circle
  • Red Nails

As I mentioned, the podcast is in Italian*, but I’d love to do something for the blog here – maybe a single post on the four stories, maybe a post each.
And then, maybe, do it again with other Conan stories, or other non-Conan stories from Howard, or with stories from other classic authors.
Watch this space.

(* – i can add that I’d love to do an English-language podcast, but first, my spoken English is VERY rusty, and second, in the past I have found out that I am no good when I have to carry a whole episode by myself… but who knows…?)


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Aliette de Bodard’s The Red Scholar’s Wake is out, and there’s space pirates in it

It is not often that I have the opportunity to give a shout out for a colleague’s new book.

Multi-award winner Aliette de Bodard has a new book out, called The Red Scholar’s Wake, and she had art especially created for the novel, and is revealing it today.

Here is an example

If you want o learn more about the book, here is the back cover blurb:

‘So romantic I may simply perish’ Tasha Suri, award-winning author of THE JASMINE THRONE

‘LESBIAN SPACE PIRATES. Enough said.’ Katee Robert, NYT bestselling author of NEON GODS

Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now-her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death-only for the pirates’ enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself. 

Rice Fish: sentient ship, leader of the infamous Red Banner pirate fleet, wife of the Red Scholar. Or at least, she was the latter before her wife died under suspicious circumstances. Now isolated and alone, Rice Fish wants Xích Si’s help to find out who struck against them and why. Marrying Xích Si means Rice Fish can offer Xích Si protection, in exchange for Xích Si’s technical fluency: a business arrangement with nothing more to it. 

But as the investigation goes on, Rice Fish and Xích Si find themselves falling for each other. As the interstellar war against piracy intensifies and the five fleets start fighting each other, they will have to make a stand-and to decide what kind of future they have together…

An exciting space opera and a beautiful romance, from an exceptional SF author.

And the covers.

Check it out.


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Douglas Barbour Award

I’ve been pushing uphill for weeks now, entangled in a number of projects.
But last night I got a big surprise – the anthology Water: Selkies, Sirens & Sea Monsters, edited by Rhonda Parrish, was awarded the Douglas Barbour Award for the Speculative Fiction Book of the Year by the Book Publishers Association of Alberta (BPAA).

The book includes a short story of mine – The Man that Speared Octopodes.
A small aquatic horror number.
I am proud to have contributed in a minimal part to the success of this anthology.


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Another (great) review for Bloodwood

The central group of The Raiders of Bloodwood are a lovely bunch though, and the fact that they’re mostly just normal people makes their interactions and their journey the real highlight of the story. The small moments when they’re travelling together, telling stories around the campfire at night, or helping each other down a steep hill without falling down, make for some of the best moments. Mana gives you a chance to get to know them, to see them as regular people so that you come to like them and care about them; and so that you begin to worry about them when their lives come into danger.

UK based blogger Amy Walker posted a beautiful, in-depth review of The Raiders of Bloodwood – and she really liked it!
And I an particularly happy that Amy actually appreciated my choice of characters and the way I wrote them. I might start to think that I am actually really good.

You can find the complete review on the Trans-Scribe Blog.