Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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C. Aubrey Smith

This is very very circuitous.
I was looking for details about A Night in Cairo, a 1933 movie better known as The Barbarian – a pre-Code movie that features Ramon Novarro and Myrna Loy.
The reason is simply explained.
First, of course, there is my veneration for Myrna Loy, especially in her younger roles. And second, the movie is set in a Cairo hotel that is a pretty close reconstruction of the Shephaerd’s Hotel… that is the place in which the first episode of AMARNA opens.
So, research, and Myrna Loy – and her famous bath-tub and rose petals scene…

Annex - Loy, Myrna (Barbarian, The)_01

While I was looking for more details about The Barbarian, I checked out the cast listing, and I found a name that’s well known to lovers of old movies: C. Aubrey Smith.
And I thought, what the heck, I might as well do a post about the old chap. Continue reading →


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Worlds of the staircase

You are a gamer – and sometimes a game designer – and your friends know what to do as Christmas approaches: they hit you with games. This is what happens to me every year, and 2017 is no exception. Yesterday a new game arrived, and I can already see I’ll have lots of fun with this baby.

 

9781494977528-usLords of Gossamer and Shadow was developed a few years back, in 2013 in fact, and financed with a Kickstarter. The game is  the ideal heir of the old, legendary Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game – a game based on Roger Zelazny’s Amber novels.
Now I know and I have held in my hands a copy of Amber Diceless, but I have never played it, and this is absolutely shameful for a Zelazny fan.

But now I have the opportunity to make up for lost time, and it will be great to finally try that system with this new game. Continue reading →


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Darker than you think, 1948

41YM1RXTFGL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Let’s admit it – of all the possible editions of Jack Williamson’s Darker than you think, I own the one with the suckiest cover.
It’s a fact, as you’ll see form the other images illustrating this post.
Fact is, I’ve been contacted by a friend, that asked me whether I was planning a post on Jack Williamson science-fantasy masterpiece. Which surprised me somewhat, as I was absolutely certain I had posted on this novel already.
But I was wrong.
False memories and all that.
So, to make up for my omission, I’m posting about Darker than you think both here and on my Italian blog.
It’s about a 1948 novel featuring werevolves, naked women and a sabretooth tiger. We can’t go wrong with that, right? Continue reading →


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Francis Frith’s 3D Egypt

francisfrithMore synchronicity.
I’m following an online course – a MOOC – about Victoria-era stereographic photography.
As a geologist, I was introduced to the principles of stereographic photography as part of my job – it’s good for cartography and aerial imaging observation – and I decided to learn more about the history of this technology, and its artistic applications in the Victorian era.
And so I discovered Francis Frith. Continue reading →


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The Chopping Squad on Patreon

The guy with the sandy hair and the Yankee accent ordered a second serving of pie and some more coffee.
“Thank you,” he glanced at her name tag, “Lucy. Best pie I had in a while.”
She smiled back at him, and walked back behind the counter. The bell on the door chimed and three kids walked in.
“What are you doing here, kids?” Lucy asked. “Skipped school today?”
Suzy Johnson was the older of the three, in a Shirley Temple get up, her knees dirty and her socks bundled around her ankles.
She ignored the waitress’ question. Her brother, Billy, was pointing at the man eating his pie.
“That’s him,” Billy said.
Her brother and the other boy in tow, Suzy walked to the stranger’s table.
Lucy crossed her arms and leaned on the counter.
Suzy stood by the table, staring seriously at the man.
“He says you a magician,” she said, in a confrontational tone.
The man turned and stared at her, then at the boys. He shrugged. “I used to be,” he said.
“Show me some trick, then.”
He put down his fork and closed his eyes.

A big first today: I’ve just sent a story to my Patreon supporters.
And I’m a bit nervous.
This being the Christmas season and all that, I chose a 6300-words horror/thriller set in 1930s New York and called The Chopping Squad.

Grand-Central-Terminal-NYC-1930s

The story was written for an anthology that never happened. Later, I expanded it to pitch it to another publisher, that liked it enough to ask me to try and expand it to short-novel length.
And I’m working on it.
In the meantime, I hope my Patrons will like it.
Now we are finally cooking with fire.