Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Writing, magic and everything

The first book I ever read by pulp giant Walter B. Gibson was not a Shadow novel, but a beautiful hardback called The Book of Secrets.

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As I think I have mentioned in the past – if I didn’t, I’m doing it now – as a kid, between ten and fourteen, having discovered a big box of magic tricks in my grandmother’s attic, I had developed an interest in stage magic.
I was pretty good at coin, card and sponge balls manipulation, but really I never got anywhere – a modest amateur. But I read a lot of books on the subject, and Walter B. Gibson, to me, was the guy that wrote books about magic I could not read because my English was not good enough.
In the end, my English improved, I stopped doing magic tricks, and I bought me a copy of The Book of Secrets. Continue reading →


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Bookshelf archaeology

51jAwNDM1rL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_I was looking for a book, and I found two.
I did some digging on my shelf for Damon Knight’s classic Creating Short Fiction. As I mentioned, I started talking about short fiction with my friend Claire, and I wanted to check out if Knight’s book held some momentous secret I had forgotten.
For the uninitiated (but then, what are you doing here), Damon Knight was one of the greatest short story crafters in the field of science fiction – he is the author of To Serve Man, that was adapted in what is possibly the most famous episode of The Twilight Zone – and he also was an editor and critic. He was one of the founders of the SFWA, and of the Clarion Workshop.
He is the man that, as a critic, defined the idiot plot.

His writing handbook focuses on short stories, and it is quite good all things considered. It was originally published in the early ‘80s, but it is still well worth a look. Continue reading →


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More writing advice: don’t let them know

When I was young and reckless, I received a piece of advice about writing that later I forgot.
The advice was

Never never never let them know how fast you can write.

It is an excellent piece of advice, but I was stupid, and I forgot about it. And they found out how fast I can write.
Up to 2000 words per hour on a decent first draft – it is a necessity, yu see: when you pay your bills by writing, you have to write a lot to make sure you’ll have enough when the guys from the bank come a-callin’.
So yes, you are fast.
And you were foolish enough to let them know.
And this, as the man that gave me that piece of advice so many years ago well knew, is a problem. Continue reading →


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My Weekend with the Sweetheart

I like those books that can disrupt your tightly-plotted schedule. I hate them too, but mostly I like them. We sometimes chance upon them, and we have to drop everything else and just read.
It happened me this weekend, via a strange discussion wit some online friends about, of all things, wrestling, and an ultra-cheap paperback offer from Amazon.
And so, I took a much needed break this weekend and got in bed with The Sweetheart, the first novel by American writer Angelina Mirabella.
It was a good choice on my part.

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And yes, with that cover, I was for a briefest of moments afraid I was going to wade into MadMen territory – but thankfully I was not. Continue reading →


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11/11/18

Unless WordPress lets me down, this post will go online at 11 am of the 11th of November 2018, exactly 100 years after the signing of the armistice that put an end to the First World War.
It is interesting to note that the peace was ratified only on the 10th of January 1920, but for the men in the trenches and the fields and the mountains of World War One, the 11th of November marked the end of the war.

 

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I am listening to Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem as I write this. I’ve been surprised, in these days, about how seriously I am taking this centenary.
But after all, I belong to a generation that knew personally people that had fought in the trenches. Continue reading →