Books | Karavansara

16 December 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Young adult adventures

A story set in the ’30s, featuring airplanes, Japanese spies and no end of intrigue and adventure?
Of course I had to get me a copy.

I chanced upon Jamie Dodson’s Flying Boats & Spies while looking for something completely different – I found the author’s website while doing a web search on tramp freighters.
Looking for a ship, I discovered a wealth of air adventures.

As the world edges closer to war a mighty flying boat is readied for her first flight, and America’s enemies will do anything to see it fail. A plucky young pilot is given a mission that takes him to tropical islands and first love, and into the sights of murderous assassins; he, and America, will need courage to survive.

And no kidding… Continue reading →

15 December 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

On the joys of being an avid reader

There was a time when I was a genre reader.
A single genre reader.
Which means I read mostly genre fiction, and mostly a certain genre of fiction – to wit, science fiction and fantasy (in their broader sense).

This changed, dramatically, when I was about eighteen years old.
There was no great epiphany, no great watershed moment, no single book I can nail as the one that opened the floodgates, but basically, when I was eighteen or thereabouts, I simply found out that I loved reading.
I loved stories, I loved the possibility of exploring different places, different characters, different situations.
Who cares about genre labels? Continue reading →

14 December 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

The Peerless Peer

What with yesterday being the Wold Newton Event anniversary and all that, I spent my Sunday afternoon re-reading Philip José Farmer‘s The Peerless Peer.
And a rip-roaring read it was.

Now, in all honesty, The Peerless Peer is probably not the best of Farmer’s novels, but it is certainly a lot of fun.

In a nutshell: in 1916, the murder of a researcher in Egypt forces Mycroft Holmes to enlist the services of his brother Sherlock and of Dr Watson.
But Holmes alone can’t tackle the problem, and once in Africa, he will join forces with a notorious “eccentric” British peer. One that lives in a tree house he shares with an ape… Continue reading →

7 December 2015
by Davide Mana 5 Comments

The Queen of Space Opera

Leigh_Brackett_1941 The Queen of Space Opera was born 100 years ago, on December the 7th 1915, in Los Angeles, California.
Her name was Leigh Brackett.

When I started reading science fiction, back in 1976, I started with lots of Golden Age of Science Fiction space opera – Jack Williamson, Edmond Hamilton, and Hamilton’s wife, Leigh Brackett.
My schoolmates were reading Isaac Asimov, and yes, I read his books too – as I read all the SF I could lay my hands on.
But those earlier books, often fix-ups or expansions of stories and novellas originally published in pulp magazines, remained with me for a long time.
I read her books in Italian, and later got me copies of the originals, and re-read them in English. Continue reading →

30 November 2015
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

Other People’s (New) Pulp: Tropicana

My plans for the weekend have been completely shot by the publication of Tropicana, a new Savage Setting for the Savage Worlds roleplaying game.
This week I’ll be posting various stuff about this setting – because it’s the sort of game that really clicks with a lot of my interests and passions, and reading the handbook was really inspiring.

If you are looking for a capsule review and an overview of the pulpy goodness that is Tropicana, point your browser at the GreyWorld blog.

In this post I’d like to offer a selection of resources I think players and game-masters might like to check out – if they don’t know them already.
Sort of an essential reference shelf.

Let’s go. Continue reading →

23 November 2015
by Davide Mana 4 Comments

Tracks in the Snowy Forest

I’ll ramble a bit, if you don’t mind.
I’ve been looking for Tracks in the Snowy Forest for a while, now, without any luck.
I read a lot about it, summaries, criticism… but I still miss the real thing.
The book, written by Chinese author Qu Bo and published in 1957, was apparently published in English in 1962 – and never reprinted¹. Alas, I can’t read Chinese.
The book – a thick affair over 500 pages long – is a historical novel. Or maybe not.
Based on true fact – to wit, the operations of a small unit of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army against warlords and bandit chieftains in North-Eastern China in 1946-1947 – it is nonetheless a novel, a work of fiction, and it was published ten years after the events. The author Qu Bo, took part in that PLA campaign, and the story is therefore based on his first-hand experiences.
Does it count as historical fiction?
Or is it something else – fictionalized autobiography?
Non-fiction novel?
I don’t know.

Continue reading →

21 November 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Ennui in the Gobi Desert

cover76765-medium Pierre Benoit is well known for his L’Atlantide, a lost world story that couples the classic venues of pulp adventure with the mood of post-war (First World War, that is) disillusionment.
L’Atlantide is probably the most literary descendants of H. Rider-Haggard‘s She.

The Gobi Desert was published twenty-two years after L’Atlantide, in 1941, and in part it follows the same basic plot.
Two men in the desert, looking from some elusive treasure, while competing for the attentions of a ravishingly beautiful woman.
In L’Atlantide the prized possession is Atlantis itself and the femme fatale is the Queen of Atlantis, in The Goby Desert it is a white tiger, the mythical felis alba, and the object of desire is Alzire, an exotic dancer¹.

Continue reading →