Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Other People’s Pulp


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Gore Vidal’s “Thieves Fall Out”

thieves fall outSo how was it in the end?
Gore Vidal’s Thieves Fall Out was a very fast read, and quite a fun one.
While throwing in all of the clichés of the genre, Vidal was able to build a story in such an oblique way that for much of the story the protagonist – small time crook Pete Wells – does not know what  he is doing, and why.
But he’s being paid, he’s sure he can face the dangers, and so he’s going along with the flow.

Wells is a flawed individual, a complicated mix of arrogance and weakness, and he will get more than a taste of true danger during his wild run through the Cairo underworld. Continue reading →


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Shameless adventures

adventure_19350815Do you mind if I rant?
You see, I don’t always call other people cretins, but when I do, it is usually because they pretend to know what they are talking about when they in fact they do not know.

Yesterday I was told that adventure stories – and genre fiction in general – is a second-rate form of cheap entertainment, aimed at housewives and blue-collar working-class brutes that can’t appreciate a good, solid, proper “real novel”.
And the word cretin erupted through my lips before I could think about something more scathing and cruel.

Then I launched in a long-winded rant the gist of which I will now inflict on Karavansara readers.
Because like a guy once said, I suffered for my art, now it’s your turn. Continue reading →


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Looking for Pauline

MTE4MDAzNDEwNzI0NDIzMTgySome things start just like that…
Despite my very busy schedule, I’m going to try and track me down a copy of The Perils of Pauline, the 1914 serial featuring Pearl White (I guess that was not her true name1).
Fact is, you see, I’ve been told in detail how movie serials were a phenomenon in ’40s and ’50s American cinema, by yet another expert that apparently failed to check out Wikipedia to get the full story.
I heard that and thought… but what of Pauline?2

Continue reading →


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Other People’s Pulps: A… for Assassin

I am proud to announce that my translation of Ernesto Gastaldi‘s award-wining thriller, A… for Assassin, published by Raven’s Head, is available for purchase through Amazon.

a for assassin

Originally an award-winning play, Gastaldi’s story was adapted to the screen in 1966, an original giallo that while forgotten by some, still has its small but faithful cult following.

 

A COME ASSASSINOI had lots of fun translating this unusual, tongue-in-cheek, cruelly amusing work.
The plot is carried most by the witty, crackling dialogue – and short, vivid descriptions hit the reader almost by surprise.
Part old dark house mystery, part family plot, and set in a 1960s England that is a place of fantasy, A… for Assassin plays like a twisted Elizabethan tragedy in which no one is innocent, and hides a nasty sting in its tail.

I really hope that the readers will have as much fun reading A… for Assassin as I had translating it.
It’s not that they don’t make them like this anymore – actually, they never made them like this.
This is a unique tale from a unique author.


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The Swift One: El Borak

el borak 2Today is Robert E. Howard’s birthday, and it seems a nice thing to do to post something about one of the most popular and influential pulp authors of all time.

I discovered Howard – I think I already mentioned it – with Conan the Adventurer, when I was fifteen or thereabouts.
But I’m not here to praise Conan.
In his brief career Howard wrote a huge number of stories, and created an army of characters, and one in particular I always liked, and I consider fitting for Karavansara’s themes and topics.

His name is Francis Xavier Gordon, but they call him El Borak. Continue reading →


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Other People’s Pulps: Chandu the Magician (1932)

While I’m still trying to decide what I will watch for New Year’s Eve, I spent about an hour and a half having lots of fun with Chandu the Magician, a 1932 film directed by William Cameron Menzies and Marcel Varnel.
Maybe not exactly a Christmas movie, but quite a treat1.

chandu-the-magician-movie-poster-1932-1020199670

Continue reading →


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Other People’s Pulps: The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014)

OK, I said I’d do a few posts about Tsui Hark‘s The Taking of Tiger Mountain – so here’s the film review, or an attempt at it.
Let’s start with the plot.
As mentioned in a previous post, The Taking of Tiger Mountain is based on true events: in the winter of 1946, in North-Eastern China, a unit of the Chinese People Liberation Army tackled a local warlord and his army of bandits.

Then, a novel, an opera, a movie – and in 2014, The Taking of Tiger Mountain.

te-takingtigermountain

Tsui Hark’s take on this classic of historical adventure turned Cultural Revolution mainstay is framed as a movie-within-a-movie: in the prologue, Jimmi – a young hotshot Chinese programmer on his way to Silicon Valley – catches a glimpse of the 1970 version of the movie, and decides to re-watch it.
What we see, therefore, is the 1970s movie through the eyes of a post-Communist young man1.
Ergo, the somewhat stiff and overstated 1970 film turns on the screen into a Spielbergesque high adventure entertainment. Continue reading →