Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Other


by Leave a comment

Keeper of the winds

AeolusAccording to Greek mythology, Aeolus was “the keeper of the winds” – is in this role that Odysseus meets him in the Odyssey.
The bit about being the god of the winds came later – originally Aeolus was just a guy with a job, keeper of the winds.

Now, the Italian version of the keeper of the winds’ name, Eolo, is also the name of a company that provides radio-based web connectivity in those areas of the Italian peninsula where the 21st century has yet to come: the deepest caves where the troglodytes dwell, the most forbidding high reaches in the Alps where the mysterious barbegazi roam, and the Belbo Valley in Astigianistan, home of the bumpkins.

Five days ago we signed a contract with Eolo, and today a cheerful and skilled technician climbed on our roof and installed a small dish receiver, and suddenly we jumped from 80 Kbs per second to 20 Mbs per second.
Just like jumping from 1992 to 2010 in a single mighty leap.

So now here I am, suddenly with the full power of the web at my fingertips – or something equally emphatic.
I am planning a few online activities – like running demo games of my settings, or do online courses.
But the best, and simplest way in which this will change my working days is the fact that now web searches, map-checking and photo-referencing will take a few minutes and not a couple of hours.
I’ll have more time for myself.
Or more time to write.

It’s going to be fun.


by 2 Comments

Non-Native English Writers

Something bizarre just came up.
For the third time in two months, an article was published – this time by no less than WIRED, and penned by Bruce Sterling – about Italian genre fiction available to the English-speaking public, and for the third time my work was ignored.
Even in articles written by Italian writers.
And not just my self-published stories were ignored – which would not be strange1, considering those articles completely ignored any self-published book anyway.
No, even my traditionally published work was ignored, even when the articles talked wonderful things about the other books from my English-language Italian publisher, Acheron Books.
The other books, but not mine.

Which caused me to pause and ask myself…

C’mon, does my stuff suck that bad?

And mind you, that could well be the case – even if I am not convinced.
Not completely, at least.
So, what gives? Continue reading →


by 3 Comments

August the 15th – Ferragosto

51IfSECDQ2L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_I should be writing.
I should be outlining a new story for a possible publisher.
I should be designing a landing page for my stories of The Corsair.
I should be taking care of the vegetation overgrowing my front gate.

But today is August the 15th, Ferragosto, and the country is empty and silent, so I’ll be sitting here and reading, and recharging my batteries.


by Leave a comment

Sam Shepard

I don’t know if I already wrote this here in the past, but anyway… when I was a kid in high school, most of my friends wanted to grow up to be like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.
I did not care about that, and if a fly-boy was to be my model, I wanted to grow up to be like Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff.
Later, I discovered Shepard’s books, and was captured by his way of writing a tale, by his control of his prose, by his economic writing.
I was born too late to really have Steve McQueen or James Coburn as role models, but Sam Shepard was a fine replacement – he was tough but sensitive, straightforward but charming.
And he really could do anything: write, act, sing.

quote-when-you-hit-a-wall-of-your-own-imagined-limitations-just-kick-it-in-sam-shepard-48-20-95

Sam Shepard passed away on the 30th of July, at thje age of 73.
But to me he will remain the sort of zen cowboy I wanted to be when I grew up.
I am still trying.

rs9x