So, I did a piece about Raygun Gothic for my Italian blog – why not do another here for Karavansara?
Now, I am not too hot on tags and labels and subgenres.
All the various “-punks” that came after cyberpunk – steampunk, dieselpunk, atompunk…
OK, they can make itr easier to find a book on a shelf, and make for great parlor games, but obsessing about such stuff is dangerous.
So, if dieselpunk is just pulp misspelled, then raygun gothic is basically atompunk without the rust. Continue reading
So we (my brother and me, that is) went to the Casale Comics & Games convention, and it was a lot of fun.
Really a lot of fun.
Let me tell you a little story, in order to share part of the fun with you.
We arrived at the wonderful Citadel of Casale, on Saturday morning, and we soon found out that, due to a technical glitch (Google as usual deciding that some mail is spam) Acheron Books did not have a table in the vendors area.
Ouch! Continue reading
I am about to launch my first crowdfunding.
Everything’s set, everything’s ready.
As I mentioned in a previous post, some friends had this idea, of setting me up on a crowdfunding platform (Produzioni dal Basso, an Italian website) and then sit back and watch as people throw me change while I write a story.
It was a shock treatment to get me move my backside – I’ve been toying with the idea of crowdfunding or Patreon for almost two years now, and without a good push, I’d probably still be fidgeting.
Instead, now the deed is done.
Or at least, the whole system’s been set up. Continue reading
So it went this way.
For my fiftieth birthday, a lot of friends decided to conspire to get me a birthday gift.
They operated in separate groups, pursuing different aims.
One of the gangs of knaves I call friend had this idea: commission me a story (in Italian) and offer it on a crowdfunding platform.
Neat, what?
And so this is what I will do in the next two months.
In the next ten days, I will study the crowdfunding platform handbook and see what I can and can’t do.
I’m thinking of perks for the backers, extra contents, the works.
If we want to do it, we might as well do it as professionally as possible. Continue reading
One of the things I’m working on is a sword & sorcery story for a forthcoming anthology of Italian low fantasy, known as “Zappa & Spada”1.
The idea is to do a humorous – if possible – collection of grim stories about the lower classes in a fantasy setting.
My idea is moderately humorous but not overly grim2, and evolves around the lady of a small feudal holding that, while her husband and all the “able men” are away to fight for the emperor, has to patch together an army of peasants, poachers and women to hold back a marauding band of raiders.
Not an overly original idea I will admit – George MacDonald Fraser used something similar in his The Candlemass Road, and a great little book it was3.
But I’ll try and make something different of it. Continue reading
Today we celebrate the Republic here in Italy, which means that we are in for a long weekend of nothingness.
Today I got a haircut and then took the day off to read and clear my systems after weeks spent writing and re-writing for Hope & Glory.
I’m quite enjoying Cthulhu Cymraeg that, as the title suggest, collects a series of Lovecraftian stories set in Wales.
I’ll do a proper review as soon as possible.
On the weekend proper, I’ll be writing, because I have two stories long overdue.
Three, actually.
I’ll post about those works, I think, as soon as I nail them shut.
I am also making some notes and plans for my next project or two.
Karavansara 