Cheers!
Despite the ongoing gossip I’m not dead
I’m in intensive therapy, without full use of my hands (I’m dictating this text) and i foresee many more months of therapy.
Thank you for your worries, I’ll try to right back.
I still live.
Category Archives: My Projects
Thanks, Darby
A new review of my novel Dreams of Fire was posted on Amazon.
I was initially confused by the mention of Darby – hawing one time been introduced as Daniele Menna instead of Davide Mana (I’ll have to tell you that story one day), I tend to be paranoid about names.
But it turns out Darby is the narrator of the audiobook version of my novel – and so I owe them a big thank you, for contributing to make my story truly shine.
Thanks, mate!
A Night in the Lonesome October… again
I found out about A Night in the Lonesome October about twenty years ago, thanks to my friend Eckhard.
Which is strange, because I love Zelazny, and yet his final novel had gone unnoticed for almost a decade.
I got me a copy, and read it in two days.
It was not October. I think it was in April. But the book was great anyway.
Written, apparently, on a dare – to show you could write a story and have people root for Jack the Ripper – A Night in the Lonesome October turned out to be one of my favorite books, by a favorite writer of mine.
And so, when I was invited to join the ritual, in this year of our lord 2023, and read the novel again, one chapter a day, throughout the month of October, I readily accepted.
My copy is buried in some box somewhere, so I acquired an ebook edition, in order to be able to read it anywhere, anytime.
This October will feature a Friday the 13th, a lunar eclipse and many other wonders.
One of these will be Roger Zelazny’s aclectic masterwork.
A box of Dreams
My novel Dreams of Fire will finally be available outside the US, and as a result I received a box with my author copies.
So I thought, why not do what all popular writers do online, and post a photo?
So here it is.
Gearing up for Cimmerian September
The Cimmerian September starts tomorrow – a month in which a number of Youtubers will read all the original Conan stories written by Robert E, Howard, and post videos about it.
And I thought, why not do something similar here on Karavansara?
Robert E. Howard wrote only 21 stories about Conan during his life, and those are the ones I’m going to read.The reference edition I’ll be using is the Gollancz The Complete Chronicles of Conan, Centenary Edition edited by Stephen Jones.
For reason of portability I might also check The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, published by DelRey, that collects the earliest stories of Conan, masterfully illustrated by Mark Schultz.
I’ll add a simple copybook to jot down notes while reading in bed or out in the garden, and I’ll get me lots of hot tea and treats, because, why not?
The idea is to go through the series from cover to cover, and then write a post about them – possibly collecting two or three stories in one post for practical purposes.
While there are stories that I re-read regularly, most of the series belongs to a dim and distant past, and it will be fun to revisit the Hyborian Age after all this time.
I will also try and squeeze in some extras, and do some extended cut for my Patrons.
But anyway, tomorrow we start.
Watch this space.
It’s going to be fun.
Fantasy Piano Bar, Grand Reopening
Back in the day, when the blogsphere was alive and well, I used to do a thing on my Italian blog, called Fantasy Piano Bar. In those posts I took reader requests: book suggestion, author deep dives, odds and ends.
It was a way of getting something out of 40+ years spent reading genre fiction.
And it was pretty popular – so popular in fact, that my contents were lifted and resold as their own by other bloggers.
But then my blog was blacklisted on Facebook (because it spreads hatred, apparently), and the piano bar was closed.
Well, as of today, I am happy to announce that the Piano Bar is open again, on my Patreon.
I received a request for some reading suggestions in the field of Oriental and specifically Middle-Easten fantasy, and I accepted the request to the best of my knowledge.
The post is open for anyone to read.
Further posts of the Piano Bar will be Patrons-only – anyone supporting me with one buck a month or more will be able to make requests, and read the posts.
Think about it.
(and yes, I should have done it earlier)
Dreams of Fire interview
I had a brief chat with Paul Semel on his blog, about the ins and outs of my recent novel, Dreams of Fire.
If you’re not yet tired of my chattering, here is the interview.
Karavansara 