Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Other People’s Pulp


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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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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 →


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Thriller of the Week!

I am quite happy to announce that Pro Se Press’ latest project, The Pro Se Thriller of the Week has been launched today with the publication of the first HARRIDAN story.

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“PRO SE THRILLER OF THE WEEK,” says Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions, “is a marriage of prose storytelling with a model that has worked for decades, first in radio, then in tv and even in comic books. Regularly scheduled ‘episodes’ of stories released once a week, spotlighting four different series. Ebooks allow for publishers to do so many unique things, and Pro Se intends to take full advantage of that, setting up our own network of sorts with scheduled ‘programming’ that will appeal to fans of all types and create an excitement for all the stories to come. We are very excited ot kick this concept off with PRO SE THRILLER OF THE WEEK and have so much more to come.”

Featuring a fantastic cover as well as digital formatting and logo design by Antonino Lo Iacono and Marzia Marina, HARRIDAN: SACRIFICIAL LAMB is available for only $1.49 at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0776M2KPF/ref=sr_1_1…. The PRO SE THRILLER OF THE WEEK is also on Kindle Unlimited, meaning members can get each episode for free.

And yes, hopefully you’ll see something of mine in this series, too.


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On the tracks of the vampire queen

As you may remember – or maybe not – I manage a small service, together with my brother, called RE:CON. We do bibliographical and documentary research for writers, game designers and, basically, anyone who’s willing to pay our very cheap fees.

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It’s a fun job, one that gives us a little extra to pay the bills, or to have a pizza once a month, and it can be lots of fun.
Because we so far have worked chiefly with game designers and comics writers,and their requests can be really weird.
Like today, that we were hit by a request for a short report on N’Gobi and its vampire queen.
Wow. Continue reading →


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Kiss of the Cobra

7102346I’m having a lot of fun reading Kiss of the Cobra, a horror story by Peter Tremayne originally published in 1984, and recently reprinted by Venture Press.
Tremayne – the alias of Cornish writer Peter Berresford Ellis, famous for his historical mysteries featuring Sister Fidelma, also has a solid track record as an author of horror thrillers.

Kiss of the Cobra is a very straightforward horror, classic in the way the old Hammer and Amicus movies were classics, or old Cannon Films summer features tried to be. And it has an Indian setting, which is a bonus – I can’t remember many Indian horrors apart from Dan Simmons’ masterful Song of Kali. Continue reading →


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Too old for Young Indiana Jones, too young to die

Yesterday I mentioned that there are things in the past that should be let to rest – case in point, the pseudo-science/UFOs/ancient mysteries books of the seventies, that I loved as a kid and now find insufferable.

Another case in point – The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, the spin-off series telling us the early exploits of Henry Jones Jr., before he went looking for the Lost Ark… and even before a number of the tie-innovels.

I re-watched the a few episodea yesterday night.
Goodness was it boring! Continue reading →


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Quarry

1699714I was reflecting today that a lot of non-fantasy fiction authors I love, I met before in articles and essays than in stories.
Case in point: Max Allan Collins.
I first met this extremely prolific writer in a collection of essays called The Fine Art of Murder – which I bought massively discounted in 1994 in a bookstore that no longer exists, in Turin. The only library I was thrown out of – but that’s another story.

The Fine Art of Murder is an excellent book, by the way.
Just as excellent as much of what I read by Collins.
And I am a fan of his Quarry series. Continue reading →