Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Flights of the Phoenixes

Rewatching old movies… and not so old movies.

I remember watching Robert Aldrich’s The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) as a kid, with my parents.
I found it mind-numbingly boring.
I was ten.
Ten years later or so, I saw it again, and at that point I was old enough to appreciate the tension and sheer cinematographic quality of this film.
The cast is colossal, and the story itself (based on a 1964 bestseller) is simply great in its simplicity.

Later, I was rather excited about the remake when it was announced. And I caught in a cinema. Continue reading


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A new feature: Worldbuilding

As a spinoff of the massive work I’m doing on the Hope & Glory project, I’ve rebooted my old collection of Worldbuilding Resources as a new feature page here on Karavansara.
You find the relevant link on the top bar, under Features.

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The page collects articles, books and software for writers interested in worldbuilding – that is not only the Tolkien-esque chore of spending thirty years drawing maps and noting down Elvish irregular verbs, but also quite simply the task of providing vivid and active detail to your story.
Or game.
Or whatever.

Check the page out.
If you have any suggestions, if there’s anything you think I left out, please use the comments on that page to give me a pointer.

I’ll post updates to this Feature occasionally.


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Writing marathon

Here is what I’ll do…

No, ok, let me explain.
I’ve just finished the first Hope & Glory novelette, a 12.000-words thing that goes under the title of Glass Houses.
This is actually the second story in this new steampunk series, as I’ve yet to finish the first (somewhere in the fist week of May). There’s a total of six novelettes planned – I’ll write the lot, and then start publishing them with a regular, monthly schedule.

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But that’s not what I wanted to talk about now. Continue reading


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The Tiger House Party

hahnA different kind of medium, today – plain old written word, the oldest and most widespread form of information transfer.

As I am putting the finishing touches to “The Snowball Caper”, the first novelette in my new Hope & Glory series, I’ve had the sheer luck of chancing upon the delightful The Tiger House Party: the Last Days of the Maharajas, by the delectable Emily Hahn.
Once again, a demonstration that there’s nothing more entertaining than doing research. Continue reading


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Looking for a lost world

An unexpected post, with some musings and some ideas – basically me talking to myself by way of the blog.

Fact is, I’ve more or less successfully pitched “a story with dinosaurs” to a publisher, and I’m working on an outline for a short novel (say, about 45K words) more or less in the Lost World genre.
Quoth Wikipedia…

The lost world is a subgenre of the fantasy or science fiction genres that involves the discovery of a new world out of time, place, or both. It began as a subgenre of the late-Victorian adventure romance and remains popular into the 21st century.

… and I am a fan of the subgenre – H. Rider-Haggard, E.R. Burroughs, all the way down to Xenozoic Tales and Indiana Jones.
And yes, why not, babes and dinosaurs1.

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Continue reading


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I’ll remember April

I took a look at the statistics and noticed that not only Karavansara is lagging, but this actually happens every spring.
And I can suggest a reason.
As every spring so far, I’m feeling lethargic and tired, and I’m writing an awful lot.

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The lethargic and tired thing is seasonal, and will probably drag for a few weeks more – until, with temperatures hitting +25°C, I will become uncomfortable and tired, and will probably start sleeping by day and working by night.

As for the writing thing, it is true that spring usually sees the start of a number of new projects, and due to a number of causes, looks like this year I spread myself pretty thin… Continue reading