Pulp hero’s library | Karavansara

24 September 2014
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

Desperate Stratagems – The Beauty Trap

In Sun Tsu’s classic Thirty Six Stratagems (that Sun Tsu may or may have not written), my favorite chapter must certainly be the Sixth and last, which is called Desperate Stratagems.
Great title.
After all, I love adventure fiction.

I was re-reading Sun Tsu, last night, and I thought the stratagem called Měi rén jì (The Beauty Trap) is absolutely splendid from the point of view of fiction, as a starting point for a story – and also offers an excellent insight on the sort of ruthless bastard Sun Tsu was* … Continue reading →

19 September 2014
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Talk like a pirate!

Hoy, cammarados!
Now stab me if it ain’t the bawcocky Talk Like a Pirate Day, on this nineteenth of September in the year of Our Lord 2014!

This being so, methinks I’ll make ya savvy ’bout a nice fine book that will leran you the pirate lingo proper.

Mark this, The Pirate Primer, by the esteemed George Choundas, printed by the Writer’s Digest Books press and sold by pamphlet peddlers and book-stalls everywhere along the Main.
Good solid hardback, this, well worth your silver.
470 pages of Oaths, Commands, Epithets and assorted piratical lingo, with grammar and notes, serious enough to be good reference for pen-pushers, fun enough for common ruffians looking for a good time.

I reccommend it, heartily.
And with this, I wish you a very fine day, and good luck to ‘ee.

Oh, yessir, and Arrgh!

4 September 2014
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Manly advice

A few years back, when my brother went to live on his own, I bought him two books as house-warming presents – a book about vintage-style bachelor-pad lifestyle (lots of tikis and cocktails and lounge music), and a copy of a book called The Art of Manliness.

For the uninitiated, The Art of Manliness is a “a blog dedicated to uncovering the lost art of being a man”, founded by Brett McKay in 2008.
I used to read it occasionally – I love their posts about campfire cuisine – and while some of the topics are baffling to my old European mind, I find the blog generally entertaining and often informative.

The book compiled by the blog’s contributors looked like a nice tongue-in-cheek gift – and being the curious sort myself, I got me a copy, too*. Continue reading →

3 September 2014
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Swords (and much more)

I’m doing a quick post, here, to point out to interested parties three excellent resources I found about ancient (and not-so-ancient) combat.
Swords.
But also shields and daggers and polearms.

I believe in plausibility when writing my stories – plausibility over overkill.
I’m not writing handbooks, I’m writing fiction – and I want my stories to be believable without clobbering my readers with too much detail.

One thing I learned is, listening to someone passionate about a subject is often better than going through arid web-pages and treaties.
And mind you, I love doing research for my stories, but as I said in the past, there is such a thing as too much research.
So I apply the old Doc Savage methods for becoming an instant expert. Continue reading →

19 July 2014
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Ancient Masters – Peter Kolosimo

My generation was primed for adventure by Thor Heyerdahl and Folco Quilici, for space exploration by Carl Sagan and yes, for mystery and deep time by Peter Kolosimo.
We were the lucky ones.

So I thought I’ll do a series of posts on these maitres a’ penser of our own.
Books fitting in a pulp hero’s library.

And I’ll start with Peter Kolosimo.
I miss Peter Kolosimo. Continue reading →

4 July 2014
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Albert Einstein, Pulp hero

Not a prompt, today, but certainly much food for thought.
I learned too late about this project to join the Kickstarter, but I think the world must see this gorgeous fake movie poster.
And just think about the possibilities!
(there’s links at the bottom of this post, should you need to learn more about the project).

7 April 2014
by Davide Mana 6 Comments

Brushing up my Egyptian Magic

Cover of Egyptian Magic

The question might be phrased like this – do I read for fun anymore?
Some days it seems I do not any longer.

Back when I was a student – a BSc student, then a PhD student – I found myself reading an awful lot of geology-related books… not just for study, but for the fun of it.
Indeed, some of my teachers observed I was reading too much geology, and getting strange ideas, like this was the ’80s or the ’90s and not, as they seemed to believe, 1958.

And ever since I started working seriously on my writing, I also started reading a lot of stuff which is great fun indeed, but can still be filed under “research”.

Case in point – I’m reading Egyptian Magic, by the venerable E.A. Wallis-Budge.
Wallis-Budge was for a long time the leading authority on Egyptian magic and religion, and I’ve got a few books of his – including a wonderful thing that’s called The Mummy: A Handbook of Egyptian Funerary Archaeology.
As I said, this is actually fun reading… no, really!

Continue reading →