Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Other People’s Pulp


by 7 Comments

Vampirella: Blood Invasion – a short review

I mentioned it yesterday, and I read it last night and today as I sat around a doctor’s waiting room – Vampirella: Blood Invasion, the first Vampirella novel written by Nancy A. Collins and published by the fiction branch of Dynamite publishing is a very fast read, and a fun one.

For the uninitiated, Vampirella is a character created fifty years ago as a host for a series of anthology magazines, that later evolved into an indie comic-book character in her own right, with her own universe, recurring characters, timeline and everything.
Often dismissed as a vampiric rip-off of Barbarella, and criticized by its open sexiness, the raven-haired and very scantly clad vampiress is a lot more than just a pin-up. She has in fact quite a nice track record, as comics characters go, with some great story arcs through the decades, and some excellent art and writing by some of the industry’s best names.

Continue reading →


by 6 Comments

I never wrote a vampire story

It’s something I realized a few nights back, while watching the new BBC adaptation of Dracula.
It was the classic realization thing in three movements, like a symphony, that’s often mentioned in writing handbooks:
first movement – damn, I can write better stories that this!
second movement – hey, I actually never wrote a vampire story! Never, in all these years…
third movement – opens a new folder and a new file in Scrivener.

Which of course leads to the question… why not?

Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Hits and Misses

I’ve spent the last two days working in the morning (I’ve got a translation to deliver, and that’s overdue) and watching TV series in the afternoon, while nursing a bad case of cold.
I’ve also been writing, but not as much as I’d have liked. But I consider myself on vacation until the 6th of the month, and I’ll be recharging my batteries and feeding my idea box with stories.

I’ve been watching two old TV series – one old, the other very old – and two pretty new ones.
So here’s some quick notes.

Continue reading →


by 2 Comments

Bill Shakes in 2020

Because I needed something different to do (boredom can be a terminal illness in these hills), I have just joined the Shakespeare 2020 Project, a bunch of like-minded individuals that will read the whole of William Shakespeare’s works in the year 2020.
We begin tomorrow, with, quite obviously, Twelfth Night.

In case you are interested in joining the initiative, here is the link.

I think I will post about my adventures in Shakespeare – my brother suggested a podcast, but the more I think about it, the more I understand that I HATE talking to myself in public.
So I’ll write.

And as I am at it, here is the list of what I’ll keep handy throughout the year:

  • The Oxford Complete Works of William Shakespeare
  • The Rough Guide to Shakespeare
  • Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare, in two volumes

It’s going to be fun.


by 1 Comment

Are you by any chance the guy that…?

Yesterday something happened that had never happened before to me: I was discussing a comedy sketch with a friend on her Facebook profile, and one of her contacts joined the discussion. It was all very civil and amusing, until this new person I did not know suddenly went…

No, sorry, wait a minute, are you by any chance the guy that wrote The House of the Gods?

And I could only confess that yes, I am the guy that wrote The House of the Gods, but I did not do it by chance, it was premeditated. I did it on purpose.
She went on to say she had greatly enjoyed my novel, and we sort of became Facebook friends and all that.

It’s the first time I am identified by a total stranger as “the guy that wrote the book I liked”, and it’s strange, and funny, and sort of feels like a milestone.
This writing thing is really starting to go the way it should.
Another fifty years, and I’ll be a household name. And beyond that (fanfare) brand recognition!

But I am just being stupidly flippant – it was good, and it saved an otherwise average day.