Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Amunet?

I found by pure chance this beautiful image, part of a stunning photoset by Captain Irachka Cosplay, that captures1  just my mental image of Amunet, from my stories in the Aculeo & Amunet series.
It was shocking, in a very pleasant way.
The photo is absolutely gorgeous (in case you thought I didn’t notice) and I take it as a sign that it’s time to start working on a new story about Aculeo & Amunet.

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In the next few days, I’ll try and get in touch with this lady, because it would be a wonder to be able to get one of her photos for the cover of the next Aculeo & Amunet collection. She also has a Patreon page, in case you guys should feel like giving her your support.

  1. unwittingly, of course. Let’s be serious, my stories are not so popular they could inspire a cosplayer. ↩


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Myrna

Turns out yesterday was Myrna Loy’s birthday.
She’d be 112 years old.
Loy was one of the many black-and-white beauties that completely fascinated me as a kid.
Her role as Nora Charles in The Thin Man and its sequels is the first thing in which I remember seeing her, in a late cycle dedicated by the Italian TV to the Powell/Loy mystery comedies.

51eVjQLu-+L._AC_US218_And as I am, I might as well plug Reid & Wickliffe’s Thoughts on The Thin Man: Essays on the Delightful Detective Work of Nick and Nora Charles, that is a delightful book indeed.

But my veneration for Myrna Loy’s beauty and skill is based essentially on three pre-Code movies that are certainly very much on topic here on Karavansara. Continue reading →


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And after Felice Sabatini, Leo Martin

chasing the mermaid cover smallChasing the Mermaid, the first of the Corsair stories, hit the shelves on the 25th of March 2016. It was the first time I worked on a series designed specifically to appeal to a certain kind of readership, and it seemed to be working – I was having fun writing the stories, and my publisher believed in Leo Martin’s potential as a new pulp hero.

Within three months, all was in shambles: first in May, following a long illness, my father died, leaving me and my brother in a disastrous situation. Then, almost exactly two months later, Michael Hudson, my friend and my publisher, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.
At the time of his death, Michael had been putting the finishing touches on the second adventure of Leo Martin. We had programmed three stories per year, and The Devil Under the Sea was planned for the summer, while I worked on two new stories.
Michael’s death, and my family problems, relegated Leo Martin to the limbo. Continue reading →


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Sam Shepard

I don’t know if I already wrote this here in the past, but anyway… when I was a kid in high school, most of my friends wanted to grow up to be like Tom Cruise in Top Gun.
I did not care about that, and if a fly-boy was to be my model, I wanted to grow up to be like Sam Shepard in The Right Stuff.
Later, I discovered Shepard’s books, and was captured by his way of writing a tale, by his control of his prose, by his economic writing.
I was born too late to really have Steve McQueen or James Coburn as role models, but Sam Shepard was a fine replacement – he was tough but sensitive, straightforward but charming.
And he really could do anything: write, act, sing.

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Sam Shepard passed away on the 30th of July, at thje age of 73.
But to me he will remain the sort of zen cowboy I wanted to be when I grew up.
I am still trying.

rs9x


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A postcard from Hanzhong

acheron_the__ministry_of_thunderWhen I wrote my first novel, The Ministry of Thunder, it was originally called Beyul Express. It was the first in a hypothetical series, and I had written the first draft in eight days. The second draft took six months, and expanded from 48.000 words to 78.000.
The book got some great reviews, and was generally well-received.
Later, I wrote another story featuring Felice Sabatini.
A lot of people had asked to learn more about Helena Saratova, Sabatini’s old partner, and Cynical Little Angels, set about two years before the events in Ministry, described the first meeting between the Italian pilot and the blue-haired adventuress.

angelsTwo nights ago I was going through one of my usual bouts of insomnia. This has been a rough time for me – rougher than usual. Lots of thoughts and stuff. In the last ten days I’ve been unable to write anything good – and you may have noticed my posts on Karavansara became erratic and short.
So two nights ago, nursing a hell of a headache, at about 2am I fired up a txt file, and started writing.
Write to the block, write through your worries.
At 6am the neighbor’s dogs started barking their hearts out at the dawn, and I found myself with 3500 words of The Ministry of Lightning, the sequel to Thunder, taking place in Shanghai, about six months after the last page of the first novel.

As the story opens Felice Sabatini, having walked the 7000 miles back from the Taklamakan desert, rolls back in Shanghai in the sidecar of a stolen motorbike driven by a Korean expatriate. The city is getting ready for trouble – there are sand bags in the streets, and lots of soldiers carrying weapons.
The motorbike enters the Italian-style garden of a mansion on Bubbling Well Road.
“Are you sure this is the place?” the Korean asks, looking dubious.
“I’m sure,” Sabatini replies.
He knocks on the door. A girl in a sailor uniform opens the door, stares at him, starts screaming, and slams the door shut.
Sabatini gives a reassuring grin at the Korean guy, that looks even more dubious.
Then the door opens again, and it goes more or less like this… Continue reading →