On the latest issue of Odds and Ends, we’ve got Italian and international music, an old classic and its eldritch re-incarnation, enough Steven Spielberg to last you a week, and all you need to stay as fit as it was 1959. Plus, a nice serving of gyudon.
Because it’s good to be my Patrons.
I’m reading two books, as one does. One is a mystery set here in the place where I live, and I’ll talk about that another time. The other is Claude Lecouteux’ Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Undead, a very thorough coverage of the legends and folklore connected with the Wild Hunt, a medieval European legend with its roots in a much deeper past and with echoes that reach us today.
And apparently the Mesnée d’Hellequin, as it was called in Old French has acquired some recent popularity due to a bestselling series of fantasy novels and an equally popular video-game franchise – but I don’t care. I’m doing some research for a story (or five) and I want to go back as close as possible to the original sources.
So, what’s this Wild Hunt all about?
It is always good when a new job provides the opportunity to go back to a character we love. Right now, I am struggling with doctor John Watson’s voice as I try and finish my first Sherlock Holmes pastiche (the editor’s waiting), but in the meantime, I’ve had to dug out a few books about my old friend Conan the Cimmerian.
Of the various books, none is as thorough as GURPS Conan, but certainly none is as gorgeous as Roy Thomas’ huge Conan – The Ultimate Guide to the World’s Most Savage Barbarian (classy title, uh?), that has been sitting here on my shelf for ages, waiting for the right moment to be something more than a private pleasure, and turn into a research item.
Continue readingThe second issue of DreamForge Magazine will be available on the first of July 2019.
The theme of the issue is Tales of Indomitable Spirit.
In the words of the editors…
We have 18 Amazing stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy, including contributing authors from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., South Africa, Italy, and Denmark. Art by Hugo Award Winner Elizabeth Leggett, Illustrator of the Future Winner Cassandre Bolan, renowned national book cover artist John Blumen, and master illustrator, writer, and educator Mark Zingarelli.
Featuring a reprint of David Weber’s exciting Legion of Space Adventure “A Certain Talent.”
The magazine includes a short story of mine, called Sapiens.
I hope you’ll like it should you check out the magazine (and you should!)
And here is a link for you to subscribe to DreamForge and get a lot of perks.
Yesterday I spent the morning playing tourist in Asti, and the afternoon at the Turin Book Fair, where I occupied a chair in the Acheron Books booth. With my brother we had decided to treat the day as a vacation, and it was like that. Granted, today I am voiceless and we had to take a quick jaunt to the triage unit of the local hospital, but that’s nothing serious, and we’ll survive and grow stronger.
The morning in Asti was fun and relaxing – it being market day the place was busy and yet relaxed. We got there at 8 am, and we enjoyed the center of town while most people was still sleeping.
Continue readingI have often written in the past about the impact that the first series of Mobile Suit Gundam had on my generation and on me in particular. I think the best evidence of how much it impacted me is the fact that I am still watching the cartoons – no longer as a start-struck teenager, not as an otaku (I never was that), but with an eye to narrative structure, themes, character arcs, patterns.
It was a story with a large cast, that mixed action and politics, high tech and melodrama, and that maybe for the first time (certainly for the first time for me) portrayed war as something traumatic instead of romantic.
And a few minutes ago I was discussing with my brother how much I’d like to be able to collect the whole run of the Mobil Suit Gundam: The Origin manga, that has been published in a dozen high-quality hardbacks in English a few years ago.
It would be like starting a mortgage, and I already have one pending, so I am quite reluctant, as you can imagine. And talking of mortgages, buying the whole run would mean spending exactly as a monthly payment for my house mortgage.
Therefore, no.
Not straight away, at least.
Not in one go.
But…
Uncharted is both the title of a series of digital games I would have loved to play but never did due to hardware shortcomings and the title of a song I like a lot. This post has nothing to do with either of them (but the song is actually playing in the background as I write this).
In three days it will be the 8th of May, and the third anniversary of my father’s death. The date also marks the moment I became a full-time writer, after a few years spent as a geologist that wrote stories in his spare time. The reason for the shift: no money in the bank, no work, writing to pay the bills turned out to be the only way to keep going.
These three years have been for me a journey through an uncharted territory. I did not have a plan, when I started checking publishers while putting out self-published stories using a variety of aliases, following the old pulp standard of being a lot of people, so I’ll be able to sell more.
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Karavansara 