Be warned, this is going to be a bit rambling, as posts go.
Fact is, Jim Cornelius did a post, on his blog Frontier Partisans, about heroes, and our need of heroes as we grow old.
Old, mind you, not older.
George Carlin was right – we grow old, and we better learn to deal with it.
Jim’s post is a worthy read – and it got me thinking.
About heroes, about growing old, and how my heroes have changed through the years, as I grew old. If they changed at all, of course. Continue reading
My post about Robert E. Howard’s anniversary was an unprecedented success (thanks, dear readers!) and it also brought some more goodness my way.
I was pointed in the direction of Frontier Partisans, a blog maintained by Jim Cornelius that is an absolute treasure trove of learned and opinionated articles about he Old (and Not So Old) West, barbarism, history, and adventure books.
And tons of other good stuff – I’ll have to spend quite a while browsing the stacks and taking notes. Already I have found books to read, music to listen to, and characters to inspire future posts or stories.
And then there’s The Muster – Jim’s collection of links, which promises to bring me down a few previously unknown routes, to discover more wonders.
Isn’t that great?
I wish I got more suggestions like this (hint hint, nudge nudge). Continue reading
Robert E. Howard died eighty years ago today.
He was a troubled young man, and a writer – not necessarily in that order.
At his worst, he was not very good – but still enjoyable, and entertaining.
At his best, he was a master storyteller and had an extraordinary control over his prose. He infused such an energy in his stories, that it was impossible not to get caught and carried along, dragged along screaming, almost, by the plot, the action, the imagery.
Howard’s role in the development of imaginative fiction and of fantasy in particular cannot be summarized in a single post on a backwaters blog like this.
But I’m going to list a few good stories – because that’s what we always do, right, when we talk about an author we love?
We suggest a few good titles for the uninitiated to check out and see what it’s all about.
And please, do the same, in the comments, and list your favorite Robert Howard stories. Continue reading
… but I still have a minute for the blog, despite it all.
And today, as I browsed my feeds before starting on the CV-distribution tour again, I chanced upon an interesting video posted on Black Gate.
The video features C.J. Cherryh’s speech and question session at the 2016 Nebula Conference.
Cherryh is one of my favorite authors, and has been since the mid-’80s, when I quickly went through the Morgaine Trilogy and then, hot on its heels, Downbelow Station.
She has been a consistent presence in my reading list ever since, and she’s the first author I normally suggest to friends and relations.
Upon receiving her SFWA Damon Knight Grand Master Award, C.J. Cherryh observed something that resonates strongly with me.
That’s our job… to make people face the future with confidence. With a notion that there is something they can do, and they should be doing it. Because, remember that [we’re] one generation removed from barbarism. People have to believe there’s a reason to keep on keeping on, and this is what we are. We are a romance of the machine. In the time when people declared Romance was dead, we were the despised literature that kept going, and kept inventing, and saying, ‘There’s a way out of this.’
Yes, exactly.
And if it is true that it is very hard to remain an optimist in the face of our everyday life, it is also true that thinking and optimism are the only tools we have handy to keep the darkness at bay. And find a way out of it.
You can find the complete Black Gate post – and the video – here.
Today, something different.
Carlos, one of the regular readers here on Karavansara, is looking for companions for a trip along the Silk Road.
Check out his plan, and if you’re interested, use this blog’s contact form (up in the right corner of this page), and I’ll get you in touch with Carlos.
Now, I leave the stage to him, so he will illustrate his plan…
I had a dream
When I was working in China, back in the nineties, when China was somehow opening to Western Industry, I often told my agent that I would like to travel through the Takla Makan.
Of course, being Chinese, my agent told me that he would be glad to organize the trip for me, and that we could go together, “when the right moment came”. And, of course, right moment never came. Either it was winter (too cold) or summer (too hot), or autumn (this autumn the moon is red, and we cannot travel under these circumstances), and of course, spring is the peak time for business.
So, I never fulfilled my dream.
Now I wonder if the moment has not arrived. I love deserts, I love to travel, I love adventure (but not too much), and I seek people with same interests. Continue reading
Last night, I dug out the only Owen Lattimore book I own – 1928 The Desert Road to Turkestan.
Of all the adventurers on the Silk Road I discovered during my researches, Lattimore is probably the one I have more dear.
Maybe it’s because he was subject to much injustice, or because he was a keen observer and a charming storyteller.
Owen Lattimore was born in the USA in 1900. He was raised in China and educated in Switzerland and England. Unable to afford a university education, he got back in China, studied Chinese and was employed by a British commercial firm as jack of all trades and troubleshooter.
A load of wool blocked somewhere in the wild at the whim of a warlord? Send in Lattimore.
He actually liked it. Continue reading
I fall easily in love with the women of yesterday – especially those that I discover in my search for what I usually call pulp history.
For instance – Shanghai, 1930s, a party in the Italian consulate, one of the guests is a beautiful woman chaperoning a gibbon wearing a diaper.
I put that in my novel, The Ministry of Thunder, and I was told I was silly.
But it’s a historical fact : the gibbon was called Mr Mills.
The beautiful lady was Emily Hahn.
Born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, Emily Hahn was the first woman in America to get a degree in Mining Engineering – basically because she had been told she would never get it, and it was an unsuitable job for a woman.
And indeed it was – in the sense that she was ostracized, and had to find another way to make a living. So she started writing.
Sort of. Continue reading
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