Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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No Sword and No Sorceress

And so I didn’t make it.
I didn’t finish Children of Shadow in time for the Sword & Sorceress submission (12 hours left, not enough).
The fact that I spent the best part of a day walking up and down a golf course is certainly one of the reasons why I wasn’t able to nail the box of the new Aculeo & Amunet story shut.
By the time I was home yesterday night it was well past nine and I was completely spent.

There is a thing I was discussing with my friend Hell Greco1 two nights ago, that really has something to do with the unfinished Aculeo & Amunet story, that I thought may interest someone out there.
Or maybe not, in which case, skip this post. Continue reading →


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Sunshine Blogger Award

So I got nominated for a Sunshine Blogger Award.
And already I hear you say, Man, this is Karavansara, we’re all adventurers and swashbucklers here!
This blog once got a Boomstick Award!
What’s a Sunshine Award? Some kind of touchy-feely new-agey thingie?

But Jessica Bakkers, the freelance writer that owns the eponymous blog (), did nominate me and Karavansara, and I’m quite happy with it. So here I will try to follow the rules and do my part – once again thanking Jessica for her kindness.
So…

What is the Sunshine Blogger Award?

The Sunshine Blogger Award is given to those who are creative, positive and inspiring while spreading sunshine to the blogging community.

How Does It Work:

Thank the person(s) who nominated you in a blog post and link back to their blog
Answer the 11 questions sent by the person who nominated you
Nominate 11 new blogs to receive the award and write them 11 new questions
List the rules and display the Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or on your blog

Easy – even if I will have to rack my mind to find 11 blogs here in this neck in the woods. Continue reading →


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Other People’s Pulps: Belphègor, the Ghost of the Louvre

product_thumbnail.phpOK, this is a weird post, and I’ll ramble a bit.
It all started because there is a new book out called Scarred for Life, a 750 tome about entertainment in the ’70s (specifically in Britain, but we in continental Europe got most of the same, maybe with a one-year delay). The book looks like a lot of fun, as it focuses on all the scary and traumatic TV series, comics, books, toys and movies of that decade.
In case you are interested, you find it on Lulu.com.
As kids, my generation was exposed to pretty scary stuff, without many filters.
We survived, and thrived, and I sometimes blog about those old scares we got.

So I was discussing this book with some friends, and something popped up that cast dread into our old cold hearts: Belphégor! Continue reading →


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Lawrence Block’s lives in crime

It has been observed—I forget where or by whom—that only kids have heroes. I’m not entirely sure that’s true, but I do think you have to stop being a fan in order to become wholly a professional. You can continue to admire and delight in the work of another writer, but if you’re slavish in your devotion, if you’re stuck in the role of full-blown fan, your own growth will be limited.

51O0k6c2kXL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_I can really relate to that.
It’s taken from The Crime of Our Lives, an excellent book by Lawrence Block, collecting the author’s essays, introductions and columns about his colleagues and his experiences in the field of genre fiction. It is not as one might think, an autobiography (and I realize the title of this post is misleading), but a collection of personal reminiscences about other people1.
It’s quite a good read – but then, I am a fan… or rather, I admire and delight in his work, without giving in to slavish devotion, and I consider Block’s Telling Lies for Fun and Profit one of the best books about writing I ever read2. And I did read a few.

Continue reading →


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A turning point and the Legion of Space

OK, I already wrote about this, a few years ago, on my Italian blog, but I thought I’d do a reboot.
Fact is, in a few days I’ll turn fifty, and I’m getting a bit melancholic and all that, and then a discussion popped up in which our earlier readings came up, and one thing led to the other, and here we are.
Anyway…
Legion_of_spaceForty years ago exactly I was about to turn ten.
As I think I have mentioned frequently, I was a kid that loved adventure TV series, who soaked up documentaries about space and dinosaurs and aquanauts and what else, and I loved reading – comic books and mysteries.
As my birthday was approaching, my grandmother Maria went to the bookshop two blocks from her house and asked the guy there to suggest her a good book for a kid of ten that loved reading.
And the guy suggested The Legion of Space, by Jack Williamson.
The book is considered one of the landmark stories of science fiction – it was originally serialized in 1934 on Astounding Stories.
Continue reading →