Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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The smith’s son

We were talking with some friends, the other night, while having a much welcome cup of ice cream, about how come that there’s always a guy called Kowalski that’s tough and military-trained in movies.
From Stargate to Gravity via Madagascar to end with Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino, there’s always a guy called Kowalski.

Kitty_KowalskiAnd what about Kitty Kowalski in Superman Returns?
I don’t care about the movie, but Kitty Kowalski was played by Parker Posey, and that’s enough for me.

Now, Wikipedia tells me Kowalski is the second most popular family name in Poland (the first is Nowak), and it comes from the word kowal, meaning smith.
So Kowalski is basically “the smith’s son”.
The name was probably made popular with writers by A Streetcar Named Desire, even if this does not explain the military angle. Continue reading →


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Crowdfunding

cookI’m currently reading Kicking It by Monte Cook and Shanna Germain. A nifty little guide to crowdfunding projects, that goes to complement the crowdfunding course I followed two years ago.

The book came with a nice bundle of game-design related handbooks, and is the right book at the right time.
The text is clear, and offers examples and pointers and instruction on how to plan a crowdfunding strategy.
How to think about crowdfunding, if you will.

I have two crowdfunding campaigns under my belt – the first, started as a lark, that resulted in a huge success, and the second, accurately planned, that failed to reach 50% of the target.
It is time to rethink my strategies.
I still believe that crowdfunding is the way to go for a lot of small creators – a category in which I think I belong. Crowdfunding a project is a great way to try and dare a little more: better cover art, professional editing, extra contents.
But for me, right now, crowdfunding requires more work, and more study.
So, let’s try and learn from the best.


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A boy and his shark

MV5BNGU4ZWQ0YWMtMjI2My00YmJmLWFjNDAtM2U1NThlYTAyMzkzXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODcwODg0OQ@@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,388,1000_AL_It was because of my friend Lucy, that is growing restless while we wait for The Meg to hit the screens.
She did a post on an online magazine about shark movies, and she mentioned something that crawled back from my memory like a celluloid ghost – Ti-Koyo e il suo pescecane, a 1962 movie by Folco Quilici, known in the English-speaking world as Tiko and the Shark.
I had very vague recollections of the film, that I saw sometimes in the early ‘70s, when I was 7 or 8 years old.

I checked out Wikipedia for more info about the movie, and found a snippet of the original review, published in 1962 by La Stampa, the daily newspaper of the city where I grew up.

With its fairytale background, the film often has an intoxicating airiness, a pungent kindness; but it could and should become saturated with only the friendship with the shark, as a symbol of an escape from time. Instead, it gives the protagonist the second company of a beautiful little Chinese woman, who for love of the beautiful boy embraces the wild life. This is a coup out of Tarzan; Quilici charged too much the spectacular side of his film proposing a consortium man – woman – shark, really utopian for those who know the true female character. Just like he abused monologues.

The bit about the true female character and its connoisseurs, plus the snub aimed at Tarzan, convinced me that I needed to rewatch the movie, and write a post about it. Continue reading →


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Plans and changes thereof

The old song Nothing Ever Goes as Planned by Styx should become my theme tune.
As I think I mentioned elsewhere, I have been writing like mad and I still am – lots of deadlines, lots of bills to pay.
Ugly.
And last night I finally decided that it’s thumbs down for Counterspinner, my hard-SF novella aimed at Tor.com.
The story is solid, and I like the way it’s shaping up, but quite simply I will not make it in time for the narrow submission window available.
Whichis a damn pity, but it is important to recognize one’s own limits.
I will still write it, but not now.

And on the other hand, renouncing an opportunity like an unagented submission for Tor.com is simply crazy.
But… Continue reading →


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Asteria in the Court of Minos

I know you guys are eager to learn what happened yesterday in Nizza, when I crossed typewriters with my friend Fabrizio Borgio for four hours of intense fiction writing.
And I’ll tell you, but not right now.

Right now, I am happy to announce that the first episode in the resurrected series The Adventures of Asteria is out and about, finally in English. You can buy it right now on Gumroad (epub, pdf, mobi) and it will be up on Amazon in a few days1.

asteria 1 eng

Asteria in the Court of Minos pits the gray-haired amazon against the king of Crete, and his sinister counselor, the scientist-magus Aischyuras.
Danger.
Intrigue.
Violence.
Minotaurs.
The Serpent Cult.
Giant robots.

Inspired by the old peplums and sword & sandal movies that were Italy’s own brand of fantasy film-making in the ’50s and ’60s, the Asteria stories play with time and space and historical accuracy, and often end with a big explosion.
I hope you’ll enjoy them.

All of Asteria’s adventures are stand-alone, novelette-length stories, and can be read and enjoyed in any order.

Next week…

Asteria in the Cour of the Great Khan

ADDENDUM: Amazon was faster than ever, and in about six hours made the ebook available. You can get it HERE

 

  1. my patrons have already received their free copy or their discounted copy, depending on their level of pledge. It’s good to be my patrons (or so they say). ↩


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Typewriter

So this is the day – in a few hours, as the thermometer reached 94°F, I’ll sit in front of a local bookstore with my mother’s typewriter and spend four hours (more or less) writing a story, based on prompts randomly picked from a bowl, where readers have put them.
I will not be alone, because Fabrizio Borgio will be with me. We even made the local news.

38391721_10215248580840865_5599696146260819968_o

What were we thinking when we proposed this?
Four hours for a story?
Using mechanical typewriters?
On the hottest afternoon of the year?

But we’ll make it. Continue reading →


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Spicing up the evolution of the mathematical sciences

Spices, mathematics, and trade routes.
Great article.

thonyc's avatarThe Renaissance Mathematicus

When we talk about the history of mathematics one thing that often gets forgotten is that from its beginnings right up to the latter part of the Early Modern Period almost all mathematics was developed to serve a particular practical function. For example, according to Greek legend geometry was first developed by the ancient Egyptians to measure (…metry) plots of land (geo…) following the annual Nile floods. Trade has always played a very central role in the development of mathematics, the weights and measures used to quantify the goods traded, the conversion rates of different currencies used by long distance traders, the calculation of final prices, taxes, surcharges etc. etc. A good historical example of this is the Islamic adoption of the Hindu place value decimal number system together with the associated arithmetic and algebra for use in trade, mirrored by the same adoption some time later by the Europeans…

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