Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Stained fingers and ideas backup

My fingers are stained black and red. I have just fitted the new ribbon in my mother’s old Lettera 35 – tomorrow afternoon, together with my friend Fabrizio Borgio, we’ll challenge the heat and the fishbowl-grade humidity doing our Burning Typewriters challenge, and we’ll write a story each, in public, in Nizza Monferrato.
I hope someone will take pictures.

And I’m not kidding about the heat – here’s the forecast…

Screenshot from 2018-08-03 12-27-30

Meanwhile, a story proposal I mailed about four weeks ago got a positive response, so I am re-writing/revising the story.
Which leads to an important suggestions for writers: talk about your plot ideas with your family. Continue reading →


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John D. MacDonald in Hell

JDMdeskOne of the writers I like the most, and one from whom I learned a lot (or tried to) is John D. MacDonald. I’ve been a fan of his Travis McGee stories for ages.
So you can imagine what happened in my brain when I chanced upon an open call for a very short story for a small publishing house that had two requirements:

  1. A famous writer
  2. His experiences in the afterlife

And so today I skipped lunch and I hammered out a 1500-words story called The Man with the Red-Hot Typewriter.
In which John D. MacDonald finds himself in the Chinese hell. That it’s not that different from Travis McGee’s Florida: hot, damp, and the cops are crooked.

I hope they like it enough to buy it.
I’ve just sent it off, and now it’s just a matter of sitting and waiting.
That, my friends, is hell.


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Asteria is really back, and needs your help

asteria baseAsteria in the court of the Sun King is finished, and I am revising the text and deciding the final tweaks.
I am also uncertain, at this point, about the format of the publication: a single volume collecting the three novellas, or a new novella every week for this month of August?
Any suggestion is welcome.

And I mention one novella per week, throughout the month, because as I was closing Sun King, I fell back to the habit of closing the story with a hook for the next adventure. And it goes like this… Continue reading →


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Visit Versailles online

I often speak of the joys of research. While I am polishing Asteria in the court of the Sun King I have checked out a few online resources about the palace of Versailles.

Asteria, as I have often said, is not historical fantasy, but more pseudo-historical fantasy. Very pseudo. The model being the old peplums, we don’t care much for authenticity or accuracy.

gg3

But I still like to get an idea of the places, before my characters wreck them and lay them waste.

And while I was researching King Louis XIV’s apartments, I found the official website of the Palace of Versailles.
And I think you should visit the website, and like I do, dream about a visit in person.


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You need to know Jack Hunter

Let’s start with a very simple question: why is Hollywood wasting money on those Marvel comics flicks, instead of finding a good director and a good cast, and start making movies based on the Jack Hunter stories by Stephen Jared?
Or any other book of his, really.
But I’d rather have a Jack Hunter series of movies, thank you.
Three, for starters. Or a good TV series with high production values.
Yes, a TV series would be perfect.
So listen up, Netflix: look at Miss Fisher’s murder mysteries, take notes, then option Stephen Jared’s Jack Hunter books.
Start earning the money we pay you, what the heck.

OK, hyperbole apart, what am I talking about?
Let me tell you… Continue reading →


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The return of Lex Arcana

In 1993, Dal Negro, Italy’s foremost producer of traditional games (cards, chess sets etc), launched a roleplaying game called Lex Arcana. The game had very high quality values, as it could be expected being produced by Dal Negro, and was a big success with the Italian players.

lex-arcana

I doubt anyone ever heard about it outside of our borders, but things are about to change: Quality Games, a game company based (quite fittingly) in Rome, is about to launch a Kickstarter to bring back Lex Arcana internationally, and I was given the opportunity to take a look in advance at the Quickstart rulebook.
So here’s not a review, but more a little introduction to the game. Continue reading →