Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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I AM ON PATREON

And so my Patreon page is up.
In the end I did not do a welcome video because my system went belly-up.
But you will notice a bright red button in the sidebar, that looks like this.

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By clicking on the button, you’ll come to my Patreon page, and you’ll find out what I am preparing for you should you decide to become a patron of mine, depending on your monthly pledge.

First tier: 

Two exclusive posts per week.
Behind the scenes on my writing.
Notes, character sheets, outlines.
First drafts, deleted scenes.
And I’ll mention you in my self-published books, with my sincere thanks.

Second Tier: 

All of the above but you will also get one new story per month – a 3000-words short in various genres, various styles, delivered at the end of the month. The first one hits my Patrons between Christmas and New Year’s Eve

Third Tier:

You will get all of the above, plus every new ebook I self-publish, straight away, even before I upload it on Amazon. And next year we’d be able to write stories together using **Storium** (about which I’ll do a post later today).

I’d like to do more.
A podcast, most certainly, having the time. But that’s for future development.

And there’s a number of stretch goals – you might get extra stories, and longer stuff. Novelettes, novellas.
Or maybe gaming material.
You’ll have your say on what sort of stuff it is.

So, the Patreon button looks like this…

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What about clicking it and taking a look around?
I’d love you to join my community, but really, just take a look around and think about it.
And let me know what you think! The comments are open.


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AMARNA is ready to start

So here we go – I am about to open the preorders for the first episode of AMARNA.
The first episode will be delivered on the 1st of January 2018, but readers will be able to preorder a copy at a discounted price starting on the 10th of December.

And starting on the 10 of December, I’ll be posting teasers, previews and special contents both here and on my Patreon page. This will include a cover reveal, because the official cover of the project is beautiful.

For those of you that do not know what I am talking about, you can check a full-length preview of the project, or check out the condensed version below.

AMARNA CHEAT SHEET2

To keep up to date subscribe to the AMARNA mailing list (no spam, promised).
Opinions, as usual, are welcome.


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New York and my father

I am putting the finishing touches on a new story, the deadline is two days away. I’m working on another author’s bible, and I’ve enjoyed the writing so far. I like the characters, the set-up, the concept.
As I usually do, I used the web to research a bit the canonical elements. In this case, I used Google Maps to reconnoiter the area in New York in which the main character lives.

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And I found to my surprise that the main character lives about a block away from my father’s place when he lived in New York.
It gave me a weird turn. Continue reading


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Fantomah, Daughter of the Pharaohs

I was talking with some friends, a few days back, about Public Domain comic book characters.
There’s a true army of those – heroes (and villains) that failed to make it big in the heyday of comics, or whose publishers just went belly-up before they could make it big. You can find a list of these gone-but-not-forgotten characters, and details about them, in this Public Domain Super Heroes database.

Among the heroes mentioned there is an old… well, maybe old flame is the wrong word. Let’s say a character I was always fascinated with: Fantomah. Continue reading


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Smile for the camera

unnamedPart of this Sunday morning was spent trying to understand how to shot the presentation video for my Patreon page.
Basically I should do a 2/3 minutes shot, with my face and my voice, explaining my prospect patrons why they should feel like joining my Patreon thing.

I am no videomaker.
I had a hard time enough setting up my podcast (that is bound to return in 2018), imagine me playing with video, codecs, compression formats and the like.
Right now, I have two alternatives – using my webcam and my PC, or using my smartphone. Continue reading


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A small commitment

OK, I’m writing this off the cuff, and I am not really sure of where it will go, or if it will go anywhere at all.

Nazis.
Yeah, right.
I hate these guys.

Nazis are a sort of one-size-fits-all bad guys for a certain kind of entertainment – be it books, movies, comics, games.
Nazis are easy to identify – ah, those iconic uniforms! – and even easier to dislike. Or, Indy-style, to hate. And of course they believed in such a cartload of crackpot theories, that you can drop them in any adventure/fantasy thriller and be sure they’ll fit the bill.
Someone – can’t recall who, sorry – called the standard Nazi “the orc of pulp gaming”. And it’s pretty accurate. Continue reading


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Space Operetta

A friend asked me if flash fiction stories take place on Mongo.
Well played.

And Flash Gordon is particularly on topic, considering there is a Kickstarter going on for the Savage Worlds version of Flash Gordon.
You find the details here.

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Flash Gordon, just like Buck Rogers (the comic series whose success Flash was launched to duplicate), were before my time, and when I was a kid I never caught them in their original form. Continue reading