Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Face to face with the Owlbear

I just wrote a short D&D-like scenario featuring an Owlbear.

OwlbearFor the uninitiated, the Owlbear is often considered one of the five silliest monsters in the old Dungeons & Dragons canon. But exactly because of this, I have a soft spot for it in my heart.

I was asked to participate in a project for a free, limited print campaign to celebrate a nice independent retroclone at the next Lucca Comics & Games fair…
The game, by the way, is called Antiche Leggende, and you can find more about it here.
And so they asked, and what the heck, I decided I’d do it.
How long can it take, to draw together a 2000-words maximum scenario in the style of the old Red Box? Continue reading →


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Back to the Dead Lizards

explorer pulpQueen of the Dead Lizards, featured in Pro Se’s Explorer Pulp was the first story I ever pitched to a foreign (to me) publisher.
I had a few articles and game scenarios under my belt, and I had a few English-language stories self-published through Amazon, but pitching a story to a proper publisher?
It was the first.
I did not believe they’d like the pitch, but they did – you really never can tell.
So, when I started working on it, I did myself a crash course in adventure pulp – just to be on the safe side.

TheFireOfAsshurbanipalGregStaples565BI re-read Howard’s Fire of Ashurbanipal and a selection of his El Borak stories.
I dug out two issues of the reprints of Oriental Stories.
I tried to get in tune with the language, the rhythm – I don’t know if I managed to acquire anything of that, but it was an important crutch for my morale.
And then I kept Languages of the Silk Road by Lonely Planet, and Odyssey Books The Silk Road by my side for reference.
Yes, I was scared. But then I got to work… Continue reading →


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Building a better Lost World

It’s been pointed out to me that it’s damn hard finding a paleontologist these days, not to mention a paleontologist versed in science fiction.
I never thought of myself as a rare commodity before.
And as luck would have it, right now I am revising The House of the Gods, my novel of a lost world in the Amazon Forest, filled with dinosaurs and action.
In ten days I’ll send the final draft to my publisher, and then we’ll see.

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But in the meantime, why not do a little paleontology/science fiction post about my preparation work for the novel?
I’m a rare commodity, but I can be had – for a price. Continue reading →


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Quarry

1699714I was reflecting today that a lot of non-fantasy fiction authors I love, I met before in articles and essays than in stories.
Case in point: Max Allan Collins.
I first met this extremely prolific writer in a collection of essays called The Fine Art of Murder – which I bought massively discounted in 1994 in a bookstore that no longer exists, in Turin. The only library I was thrown out of – but that’s another story.

The Fine Art of Murder is an excellent book, by the way.
Just as excellent as much of what I read by Collins.
And I am a fan of his Quarry series. Continue reading →