Here is the first “proper” episode of the KaravanCast.
Following the suggestions provided by many listeners (thanks!), I ditched the proposed structure and went for a leaner, tighter episode design.
This … programme? post? cast? … anyway, today I take a quick look at Henry Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines and its legacy, including some odds and ends.
My voice is ugly, my pronunciation abysmal, but what the heck, it’s a start.
Hope you like it – comments welcome!
Talk about never throwing away anything.
It was August 2014, my life was pretty different, I was about to publish a new collection of Aculeo & Amunet stories and I mused about doing a spin-off of the series, focusing on the character of Centurion Nennius Britannicus and his contubernium.
For the uninitiated, the contubernium is the smallest unit of the Roman army – a band of eight men, led by a decanus, with two auxiliaries, and maybe a mule. The guys, called contubernales, lived together and fought side by side. It was a very tightly knit sort of military unit, and probably one of the (many) reasons why the Roman Legions were so awesome in the field.
So back in the summer of 2014 I decided I’d do a spin-off series, and call it Contubernium. I said I would be…
Something like Hill Street Blues, but set in Alexandria, in the Third Century.
A city filled with zealots, fanatics, weirdos and loose women.
With Lovecraftian creatures.
It would be fun.
But then the project went nowhere.
I had my Scrivener file with all its odds and ends and stuff, but quite clearly there was not a good story in there. So I filed the lot away.
Fast forward 30 months. Continue reading
Just a very quick note to let the world know that the submissions for Ladies in Red, the horror anthology I am editing for Horrified Press, are now officially closed.
It took me a while to nail the project shut due to personal hang ups and stuff, and I’m terribly sorry, but now this is it.
I’m happy to say that the number of exclleent stories and great poetry that hit me was simply staggering. I’ll start sending mails to all those that submitted fiction or poetry over the weekend, and on Monday I will start discussing the details with the publisher.
Hold tight!
I’m hard at work on a short scenario for Savage World, that will be published in Italian in the forthcoming Almanacco dei Mondi Selvaggi 2017, a special book filled with Savage Worlds gaming goodness, prepares especially for the Modena Play gaming fair.
My Savage Tale will be a pulp number, and will be called The Ten Thousand Daggers of Madame Yen Sin.
It was outlining the thing that I realized I have a real hard time writing in Italian – I think the text in English.
I’m getting too old for this thing.
Setting up the scenario was also a great occasion to go and re-watch Josef von Sternberg’s The Shanghai Gesture, as the main-villainess and dragon lady in the story is based on the character of Madame Gin Sling, as portrayed by Ona Munson.
In case you are curious, I covered the movie in an old post.
Now I only have to figure out what Madame Yen Sin is going to do with her ten thousand items of cutlery, and then hit the editor with the finished product.
As you are reading this, my brother and I are braving the cold, the rain and the snow to reach some friends 120 kms away.
Photo by Valerie Mcintyre
We’ll spend the day together chatting, eating good food and playtesting the first episode of the forthcoming Hope & Glory plot point campaign. I’ve printed the character sheets, I’ve a bunch of notes and I’m still wondering if I might need a map or not. Probably not.
Due to a number of personal misadventures (most of which you know about already), the Hope & Glory ebooks are still in publiser’s limbo, that place where books hover in darkness waiting for the presses to churn them out.
But I’m continuing working on the big one, and testing the scenarios is part of the developing process.
And fun.
God knows we both need a vacation.
So, if we don’t get lost in the blizzard, see you on Monday.
Otherwise, send a team of sherpas to look for us.
It is not often that we get the opportunity of seeing ourselves through the eyes of others.
When it happens, it is usually disappointing, but it’s also an important learning experience.
I caught a comment about yesterday’s post, the one about the Day of Memory. Found it by chance on Facebook, yesterday evening.
It went more or less like this…
Nice post.
But by tomorrow he won’t remember anything, and that’s it.
Now this got me thinking.
Because this was a comment by someone that doesn’t know me, does not read this blog, nor my Italian blog. Never met me, never read my books. He chanced on a link to my blog on one of his contacts’ profile, read my post, found it good, and also thought I’m a hypocrite, a liar, an opportunist.
Which I generally try not to be.
And as someone that mostly expresses himself through the written word, the way in which what I write is perceived by the readers – the way in which I am perceived through my writing1 – is really important to me. So I re-read my post, to see if it carried any hint at my flawed character, and found nothing – but would be really happy to learn about anything I missed, so please use the comments.
But maybe the problem is another.
Because you see, that blasé attitude, that schoolyard cynicism is nothing personal2.
It’s not about me, or my post, my family, my story. It’s not about the Day of Memory, or Christmas, or Mardi Gras or the the 24rth night of September.
It’s about the idea that people might be, you know, a little bit better.
Not much, just a little bit.
That’s unacceptable. Because we’ve been sold this weird idea, that thinking the worst, always, makes us look cool, it makes us feel badass.
Badassery is very important on the social networks, you see3.
Which I find interesting because my post, yesterday, talked about what happens when someone arbitrarily decides that some people are wrong just because.
So now I’ll tell you the second part of yesterday’s story, to make a point, to show that my memory does not come and go with fashions, and because a good story pleases everybody, while a fuck you!, no matter how heartfelt, does not.
Here goes… Continue reading
And then something happens that disrupts all your plans and your timetables, and it0s OK like that.
In this case, the something was a quick message from my friend Marina, that suggested I check out a book called Passing Strange, by author Ellen Klages.
The book, Marina said, came with the recommendation of Caitlin R. Kiernan.
If the recommendation and the gorgeous cover weren’t enough, I then checked the blurb on Amazon…
San Francisco in 1940 is a haven for the unconventional. Tourists flock to the cities within the city: the Magic City of the World’s Fair on an island created of artifice and illusion; the forbidden city of Chinatown, a separate, alien world of exotic food and nightclubs that offer “authentic” experiences, straight from the pages of the pulps; and the twilight world of forbidden love, where outcasts from conventional society can meet.
Six women find their lives as tangled with each other’s as they are with the city they call home. They discover love and danger on the borders where magic, science, and art intersect.
Inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy, Passing Strange is a story as unusual and complex as San Francisco itself from World Fantasy Award winning author Ellen Klages.
Yes, inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy.
Could I not invest two bucks and a half in this book?
And a great investment it was, just as it was a good idea spending a few hours in these two nights to read the book and enjoy its mix of class, elegance and ideas.
Part of the (excellent) series of Tor.com novellas, Klages’ book is a historical fantasy1 set in 1940, and touches on a number of subjects, from topology to weird menace pulps, while tracing the lives of six characters in the shadow of the incoming war and in a society i n which they have a hard time fitting.
Elegantly written, with great dialogue and great characterization, Passing Strange reads like a breeze, and is hopefully a sign that 2017 will be an excellent year for fiction, if nothing else.
Highly recommended.
Karavansara 