Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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My girl’s gonna be popular soon (well, maybe)

I wonder if this will have any impact on my sales.
Yes, I’m as mercenary-minded as they come, but really, bear witrh me.
Here are the trailers for the forthcoming reboot of the Mummy franchise.

Now, to be completely honest, my interest in this movie is not very high – I liked the first Brendan Fraser Mummy movie, great pulp entertainment, but the rest of the series bored me somewhat.
This new one does not tickle my fancy.
Oh, I’ll see it, one way or another, sooner or later, because, you know, it’s in my field and all that, but I’m not overly eager to buy a ticket.

But now turns out the mummy of the movie is the mummy of an evil Egyptian queen called… Amunet.
And that sort of rings a bell, so to speak. Continue reading →


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Somewhere, I’m sure, the future is bright: big enough dreams

I stumbled on something that looks like it’s been made for me, the other day.
It’s called Sapiens Plurum:

Sapiens Plurum (Latin for “wisdom of many”) was named to reflect humankind’s evolving connected intelligence. Our mission is to inspire us — the first species that can intentionally impact its own evolution — to aspire beyond what was humanly possible. The rising generation, the Sapiens Plurum generation, will have the power of gods of ancient myth: to heal, to transform, to battle and to better the future of humankind, to overcome problems that have plagued civilization for millennia: thirst, hunger, disease, pollution, brutality, tyranny and environmental degradation.

Now it’s easy to act cynical and blasé, but I think these are worthy aspirations.
So where do I start pushing to help get this thing on the road?

It turns out they are having a contest. A literary contest, called 2017 Earth-Day Short-Fiction Contest.

Sapiens Plurum is seeking writers who can plot amazing outcomes. Our Earth Day Short Fiction Contest this year challenges authors to dream big enough dreams. Tell us of a future: In your imagination, can we evolve humanity to a better place? Or will we, like Icarus, end up too close to the Sun?

The idea is to submit a short piece, 1500 to 3000 words, a positivist, optimistic story about how the future will be better in a big way.
That I can do. Or try to.
I love optimistic SF, and 3000 words, while hard (actually harder than 4500, so sue me) can still be done in two evenings.

But as I took a walk to get my brain working, I hit a brick wall.
The bright future awaiting us… Continue reading →


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Philip Marlowe, Private Eye

These last two nights I took some time to watch a few episodes – that you can find on Youtube – of Philip Marlowe Private Eye, a mid-80s TV series by HBO starring the late Powers Boothe in the titular role.
Back when this aired in my country for the first time I watched maybe two episodes and let it go: it was late at night, it was dubbed awfully, and Boothe was nothing like Bogart or Mitchum.

But later, when I caught it in original, I was much more positively impressed.
Boothe’s deadpan voiceover fits nicely the Chandler style, and Boothe is a good Marlowe all things considered, nicely physical and at the same time both classy but cheap. Continue reading →


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Explorer Pulp – out now!

So it’s officially out and apparently, somebody already had the opportunity to read it: Explorer Pulp, the latest collection of stories by Pro Se Press features four pulp stories of adventure and exploration… and one of them is mine.

You can get the book through Amazon, or the publisher’s own website, or through Smashwords.
It’s available both as an ebook and a paperback, and it features a great cover and three great stories by three excellent writers.
And then mine – Queen of the Dead Lizards.
Check it out, and let me know what you think of it!


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Karavansara Free Library: 5 by Sir Aurel Stein

Aurel Stein was a man who obsessed about Alexander’s expedition in India, and as a consequence became the trailblazer in the rediscovery of the Silk Road at the turn of the 19th and 20th century.
Explorer, archaeologist, ethnographer, geographer, linguist, map-maker, Stein was born in Budapest in 1862 but later moved to England and became a citizen in 1904.
He was Sven Hedin‘s major competitor in the exploration of Central Asia and the Silk Route, and was probably also a spy in those areas in which British and Russians played the Great Game.
He discovered an unprecedented wealth of documents in Dunhuang (including the world’s oldest printed text), and also the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas.
He died in 1942, at the age of 80, and is buried in Kabul, Afghanistan.

His production of works was enormous – maps, photos, articles and books, the latter often aimed at the general public.

What follows is a very small selection found in the Internet Archive.

1904 – Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan

1912 – Ruins Of Desert Cathay

1929 – On Alexander Track To The Indus

1933 – On Ancient Central Asian Tracks

1949 – Old Routes Of Western Iran


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Neo-mythology: Translating the peplums

The true problem, of course, is that I get mortally bored when I translate something I wrote. I think it is because I already know how the story is going, and so there’s no fun in translating it. But we’ll talk about this later. Maybe.

Because you see, considering that right now about 90% of my Amazon income comes from English-language sales, I’ve been thinking about translating some of the things I published in Italian, to see how they would work on the international market.
Right now I’d like to give it a try with my Asteria series of sword & sandal novelettes, but here I crash against two problems.
The first, as mentioned above, is the fact that I find translating myself mindbogglingly boring.
The second is the matter of the titles.
Which brings us to Maciste – or Samson,or The Son of Hercules, as it was sold in the US of A. Continue reading →


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Hope & Glory: Number the Brave is now available

I told you there would not be long to wait: Number the Brave, the second novelette in the Hope & Glory series is out and about on DriveThroughRPG, where you’ll get the epub, the mobi and the gorgeous pdf version in a single neat bundle.

If Glass Houses, the first Hope & Glory story, was an espionage thriller set in a steampunkish Indian Raj, Number the Brave is a war story set in that same universe, but in Northern Africa1.
It owes a debt both to old Foreign Legion pulp stories, and to Zulu, one of my favorite war movies, but it turns the premise on its head: what if the besieged defenders are African warriors, surrounded by an overwhelming force of ruthless, savage Europeans?

All the stories in the Hope & Glory series are self-contained and stand-alone, and can be read (and, hopefully, enjoyed) in any order. Each volume includes an appendix providing extra information about the Hope & Glory setting, and gaming statistics for the major elements in the book.
Because let’s not forget it, Hope & Glory will be a roleplaying game, powered by Savage Worlds.
And what better way to discover the gaming universe, than read a few stories?
Two are out, more will come.

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  1. the idea being that each Hope & Glory novelette will explore a different sub-genre, to show the full potential of the Hope & Glory gaming setting. ↩