While with my brother we were on the hunt for the field mice that have taken residence in the darker corners of our house, and while we were trying to ascertain if it is a hedgehog or something larger that has been raiding our trash bin, the local news informed us that the number of sheep and fallow deer attacked by wolves in our area is increasing.
The countryside is going wild.
Continue readingBrian Keene’s novel The Lost Level was published in 2015, and a few friends told me wonders about it, but only this week I was able to finally crack my copy open and read it, fully aware of the fact that in the meantime The Lost Level has turned into a series.
In a nutshell: occult dabbler Aaron Pace finds a way to travel the multiverse through occult means, but then stumbles into the Lost Level, an inter-dimensional Sargasso Sea, a cul-de-sac from which there is no way out, where the dregs of infinite worlds and timelines get dumped for all eternity.
Faced with telepathic snake-men, dinosaurs, giant robots and other horrors, and in the company of a beautiful woman and a two-fisted cat-man, Aaron starts his exploration of the Lost Level.
I went through one of my usual bouts of insomnia, last night, compounded by my pollen allergy giving me the first troubles of the season, and so I did a bit of reading. The first book I picked from the Hard Case Crime Humble Bundle I mentioned yesterday is the graphic novel Normandy Gold, written by Alison Gaylin and Megan Abbott, with art by Steve Scott. The reason for my choice, I liked the cover. So sue me.
The plot (without spoilers): after a very hard start, runaway girl Normandy Girl (she was to be called Victory, then her dad died in the D-Day) has pulled herself together and is working as a sheriff in Oregon. When her half-sister dies in Washington DC, Normandy starts her own personal investigation, opening up a plot that mixes corruption, blackmail and espionage. But Normandy is out for vengeance anyway.
Continue readingThis year my birthday came twenty-eight days earlier than expected, thanks to the generosity of my brother and an unexpected Humble Book Bundle. As I mentioned in the past, the Humble Bundle is a great way to keep reading quality books while being broke – usually with as little as 80 eurocents you can get a handful of books in a variety of subjects (both a blessing and a curse if you are an omnivorous reader or just plain curious about a lot of different things), and at the same time help a charity.
And today I was notified the start of the bright new Pulp Fiction Humble Bundle, in collaboration with Titan Books and Hard Case Crime, and even before I checked the contents I knew I was in for a purchase.
As a writer and a long-time reader of fantasy I like to take a look sometimes at the state of the genre in the place where I live – in part because it’s a good strategy to keep an eye on the market, in part because this is, after all, my tribe, and I like to see what the tribesmen are doing.
Being irremediably old, I have no problem mentioning the fact I find the current over-excitement of a juvenile part of the public for what Ian McShane called Tits & Dragons somewhat tiring. When somebody pops up and tells me they like Robert E. Howard for the relentless violence, the explicit sex scenes and the obscenities peppering the dialogues, I despair about the state of the genre and for literacy in general.
But together with the fixation for “fantasy of hard knocks” – basically an alibi for writers to write to the minimum common denominator – there is a new trend that is not new but is positively scary: the derailment of fantasy on the part of politics.
Continue readingWhy is it that good ideas always come when our schedule is completely full? I think it’s because our brain, as we are working hard on a couple of projects, shifts gear, so to speak, and generates a surplus of ideas. Talk about hyperactive imagination.
So last night, while I was taking a break after dinner, I did the only thing one can do in such a situation – I opened a Scrivener file, I gave the thing a title, and typed a general idea and then a tentative outline for something that would work great as a novel, if only I had the time to write it.
It is indeed an idea, for what I would call a folk horror, that has been tumbling through the dark (and deserted) corridors of my brain for a while now, but as it usually happens, now some bits and pieces have clicked together. What I don’t have is time.
But as I was putting all the bits and pieces together to save for later, I also noted down a few links and stuff for background research.
I was quite surprised at how nicely the ancient goddess Cybele (aka Kubaba, aka the Magna Mater) fits my plan – and I found quite funny the bit on Wikipedia that says…
In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception.
Sort of like a rock band or an art movie.
On the plus side, having stuff I want to write makes me more focused on what I need to write – and helps me work faster, better (hopefully) and with a stronger motivation.
Today I went and bought me a digital copy of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London, the first volume in a long series of British urban fantasies I’ve been eyeing for a while with mixed interest. On one hand, I read some great reviews, and the London setting I find fascinating, on the other I’m not so hot about urban fantasy or modern fantasy.
What got me decided today is a mix of three different reasons:
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Karavansara 