My friend Mauro (who also happens to be a fine game designer and an equally fine writer) just turned forty and he made a long list of fantasy novels he intends to read or re-read in the next five years.
I suggested a few additions to his list, and was absolutely impressed by his commitment and his ability to plan ahead.
Or by his cheek.
But let’s say he’s much more committed than I am,and much better at planning and sticking at it.
Could I do something similar? Continue reading
There is a concept in imaginative fiction that has been intriguing me ever since I learned of its existence: pariah elite.
I found the definition in the classic Encyclopedia of Fantasy by Clute & Grant:
A group which, though despised and rejected by society, remembers and preserves the secret knowledge necessary to keep the world from ultimate Thinning. In other words, members of PEs are despised and rejected precisely for that which they retain: their knowledge of the Secret History of the World, their Talents, their memory of the Elder Gods, their familiarity with the old True Names and the real Map of the territory (which allows them to escape the minions of the false king), their direct descent from the Elder Races, their memory of the way through the Labyrinth, their access through Portals to the Golden Age … But they sometimes do more than retain the past; it is always possible that the PE may be the Secret Masters of the world.
A lot of stories I enjoyed as a young man discovering fantasy and science-fiction hinged on the idea of a pariah elite: the Morgaine Books by C.J. Cherryh and the Birthgrave books by Tanith Lee, the old Foundation books by Ike Asimov, the Uplift books by David Brin in which the whole of humanity is sort of a pariah elite.
I sometimes toy with the idea of writing something based on this idea. Continue reading
The Imaginary Girls experiment has been going on for one month now, and I have published on my Instagram and on my Patreon five 100-words short-short stories associated with five photographs:
The idea was to experiment with the format and do something a bit different with my Instagram, attracting a few new subscribers to my profile, and maybe to my Patreon.
The first month has turned out a 50/50 success: my Instagram (where you get the photos and the stories in English) saw a good increase in subscribers, while my Patreon (where you get the photos, the stories in both English and Italian and brief notes) basically did not cut it.
But a 50/50 success is more than I expected, and now that I have taken confidence with the format, I think I’ll be able to flex my genre muscles, and do a few science fiction, fantasy, horror, thriller and assorted pulpish adventure shorts in the coming months.
If you are interested, please check out my Instagram profile.
Or my Patreon (hey, it’s worth a try, right?) – there is even a dedicated pledge level, called the Imaginary Girls Mezzanine.
And now, here is a gallery of the first five images, plus the publicity banners I created for the launch of the project.
Enjoy!
My grandfather was a simple man.
He was born in the countryside in the last years of the 19th century – and the Piedmontese countryside in the 19th century was not very different from the countryside in the 18th, 17th and 16th century. My grandfather’s first brush with the twentieth century was the Great War, in which he fought as part of the Mountain Artillery.
The shock was terrible, but he survived, and moved to Turin, the industrial hub of the country, to become a mechanic. He worked in a factory by day and attended a night school to get his certification as a professional mechanic.
When the Fascist Regime took power in Italy, soon my grandfather lost his job, because he refused to join the Party. He did some small freelance jobs as a mechanic and a general handyman, but during his free time, he sat down and read the whole encyclopedia, from cover to cover. Continue reading
One should never brag about projects as they are still in the development phase, but this one is good and looks solid, so I’ll write a bit about it here.
I am discussing a series of stand-alone novellas, basically fantasy/sword & sorcery, to tie in with a popular small press roleplaying game.
I am currently drawing up a full pitch/proposal, with a general concept, sketches of the four recurring heroes, and a detailed outline of the first four episodes.
I am pretty excited about this, because this is the sort of fun project that’s ideal to take my mind off more complicated matters.
And what I find really exciting about this is, the publisher asked me to make the series friendly to younger readers, but also to subvert cliches and expectations and make this a sword & sorcery fit for the twenty-first century.
I think I’ll have a lot of fun with my characters.
And I get to create my own monsters. How cool is that?
So, right now it’s a new Scrivener file opened, basic publisher requests noted, and it’s time to apply my own wisdom – after all, I sell a course on pitches and proposals, it’s time to put my money where my mouth has been.
I will keep you posted on the developments, and in the meantime… wish me luck.
Summer is drawing to a close, and as usual I enrolled in a few courses to increase the number of reasons because of which my CV will be rejected due to overeducation.
But really, screw them.
I like learning new things, I like trying new activities.
So I went and I enrolled in a course by the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas. The course is called Listen up! How to launch and grow a hit podcast, and it will hopefully help me get back on track with my podcasting experiments.
The course is fun, the instructors top notch, and I am really happy with what I’ve seen so far. Continue reading
And finally the Asteria in the Court of the Sun King ebook is available also on Amazon.
It took a while, but now everything should be set.
I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Feedback of any kind is, as usual, very welcome.
Karavansara 