Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Mind over matter: Detective L (2019)

A very Holmes-esque mystery series set in 1930s Shanghai?
You know I’ve got to see it.
And I did.

Detective L is a 24-episodes Chinese drama series set in 1932 Shanghai, and distributed on the streaming platform Tencent Video. Newcomer Qin Xiao Man, a woman graduate from a provincial police academy, comes to the big city to serve in the local constabulary, only to be swiftly paired off with Luo Fei, a detective that sometimes acts as consultant for the police.
A Watson-Holmes dynamic ensues, with an extra of romantic tension, as mysteries are solved and a shadowy character, the Moriarty-like “Captain” emerges to provide an overarching metaplot.

The series is a rather classic Chinese serial product, with good actors, great costumes and a somewhat limited budget locations-wise. The 1930s Shanghai is brought to screen via a mix of back lot sets, actual Shanghai villas and mansions and a lot of CGI.
But it’s OK.
Granted, this Shanghai is strangely devoid of Westerners of any kind, and a few glaring errors, prop-wise, caused a laugh-out-loud moment or two (one word: the gramophone turntable), but really, this is light entertainment, not a documentary. So it’s OK.
Even the quirky anachronistic soundtrack really works.

The leads are charming, and the idea of developing a mystery over an arc of three episodes allows a modicum of welcome development. These are classic locked room mysteries, more puzzles than in-depth investigations of the human soul, and it’s fine like that.
Even the comedy manages to be classy – not a given, with Chinese series and Western tastes.

If you are interested, you can find the whole series on Youtube, in mandarin but with English subtitles.
It’s a nice way to spend half an hour before dinner.


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Liberation Day

We are approaching the end of a month that’s been particularly complicated, and painful. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and let’s hope it’s not the incoming train. In the meantime, today is April the 25th, and in my country we celebrate the Liberation from the Nazi occupation and the Fascist Regime.

As I think I mentioned in the past, my grandfather was one of the men and women who came down from the mountains where they had been fighting as partisans, and took control of our cities, waiting for the Allies to roll in. On this day he met his old friends, they remembered, and they cried, and it was weird, as a small kid, seeing big grown up old men crying.

This morning, as I wandered on my socials, I got the usual rubbish – a well known politico suggesting we celebrate less the Liberation day and “work more”, and also a friend, that posted a long piece about how he will not celebrate, because he was born free and we that are celebrating are the ones whose freedom is an illusion.

That gave me pause.
Because it is absolutely true – my friend was born free.
And he was born free because the people we celebrate today laid their lives on the line, and risked everything, not only for their freedom, and the freedom of their families, but for our freedom, the freedom of those that would come.
And indeed, had they not done what they did, probably posting on the socials about our freedom, and our choice of not observing a national celebration, would be met not with a shake of the head and a post on some backwater blog like mine, but with a bunch of guys in black shirts, armed with truncheons.
Maybe, who knows, there would be no socials.
Maybe there would not be us.
The same goes for the dork recommending us to work instead of celebrating – the Regime he likes so much would never allow him or his friends to step out of line.

And finally there is the young woman I’ve been knowing since she was in middle grade, that posts about “history being written by the winners.”
Oh, baby, we should thank our good stars that the winners were those men and women that cried along with my grandfather, all those years ago.


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Another cover reveal: Water

Today I can finally show you the cover, by Ashley Walters, for the anthology Water: Selkies, Sirens and Sea Monsters, edited by Rhonda Parrish as part of a series of elemental-themed collections.
The book will be available soon, and you can preorder now.

The cover is absolutely beautiful, and the anthology includes a story of mine, a short called The man that speared octopodes.

You can read more on the book – and find a complete list of contributors – on the editor’s own blog.


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In my previous life

I was on my friend’s G. Facebook profile, a moment ago, and she was posting some old photos of her on some coral reef somewhere, surrounded by brightly colored fish, and diving alongside a shark, and other adventurous things like that, because she’s always been an adventurous woman, and she described these pictures as

memories from another life

And that gave me a strange shiver.
We’ve been knowing each other for something like forty years, and we’ve been in and out of each other’s life, maybe not always there but somehow never gone… what was I doing while my adventurous friend was diving in some hot tropical ocean, I wondered?
Where was I?
What have I to show of my previous lives?
Are they any different from the current one?
Where are my adventures?

Continue reading →


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Give it a spin

It started because of the podcast I am producing and co-hosting with my friend Lucy. After we recorded the last episode, we started talking about a cancelled project for a spin-off series, and we both agreed we would have watched the hell out of such a spin-off. But there is not a hope in hell we’ll ever see it. Dang.

But of course the obvious follow-up was that if no official spin-off is made, a writer could always take the basic concepts, change the registration plates, give it a new paint job, and then give it a spin.
I mean, you can’t copyright story ideas, you can only copyright the way they are executed.

And so, after spending five to eight hours a day on my current ghostwriting gig, I decided to see what would happen if I spent one hour after dinner jotting down a few ideas.
Throw in a few other influences, change this and that… throw in a little John Carpenter, a little George Miller.
Add a political twist, but classy. Add a few original characters.
And I had to spend a while researching how much blood you need to lose in order for your heart to fail. fun stuff, what?

And now I have the first draft of a six-thousand-words story in the can, and two outlines for other two stories – one of which I dreamed, believe it or not … first time this happens to me.
And so I am seriously thinking whether it would be better to try and pitch the finished stories to a magazine, or self publish them. And again, self-publish as three shorts, or as a three-stories volume?
And where do I get a cover, or three?
And considering it’s been over one year since my last self-published ebook, will anybody be interested?
Ah!
But it’s fun, and it’s a relaxing exercise, because there are no strings attached – I am doing it for the best reason there is for writing: because I’d like to read these stories myself.
The result is pulpy good fun, without too many complications.
And the great bit is, these stories are starting to look like they are set in the same universe of my other project, the science fantasy adventure one. Which is fitting.
I might have a big thing here going, and no time to really work on it. As usual.


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No rest for the wicked (or something)

April started with uncertain weather, the shift to Daylight Saving Time, showers, a number of problems and headaches, and the typical springtime weariness that makes sleeping the best apparent option.
But there is no time for that – or at least for over-sleeping.

I am currently working on the double to close the ghostwriting job I’ve spent the last six weeks working on. The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight, and it’s a good thing, because there are unexpected expenses on the horizon, connected with my mother’s grave being moved – a service that used to be free, and now that the Turin cemetery has become a for-profit company costs in the order of fifteen hundred euro minimum.
It’s great to live in an ultra-liberist society, what?

But things are moving, more or less in the right direction.
I have a lot to write – apart from the ghostwriting gig – and there might be interesting stuff coming.
Watch this space.

And because as usual when I am overworked I get ideas that I’d like to put to paper instantly, a friend just pointed out to me a connection between Hammer’s Captain Kronos Vampire Hunter, and and the anime movie Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. One that it would be great to explore in a story or six.
But let’s jot down a few notes, and save that for the long sleepless nights of summer.