Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Hitting the road

As you are reading this, my brother and I are braving the cold, the rain and the snow to reach some friends 120 kms away.

 

yak-cows-snow-valerie-mcintyre

Photo by Valerie Mcintyre

 

We’ll spend the day together chatting, eating good food and playtesting the first episode of the forthcoming Hope & Glory plot point campaign. I’ve printed the character sheets, I’ve a bunch of notes and I’m still wondering if I might need a map or not. Probably not.
Due to a number of personal misadventures (most of which you know about already), the Hope & Glory ebooks are still in publiser’s limbo, that place where books hover in darkness waiting for the presses to churn them out.
But I’m continuing working on the big one, and testing the scenarios is part of the developing process.
And fun.
God knows we both need a vacation.
So, if we don’t get lost in the blizzard, see you on Monday.
Otherwise, send a team of sherpas to look for us.


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The end of the story

It is not often that we get the opportunity of seeing ourselves through the eyes of others.
When it happens, it is usually disappointing, but it’s also an important learning experience.
I caught a comment about yesterday’s post, the one about the Day of Memory. Found it by chance on Facebook, yesterday evening.
It went more or less like this…

Nice post.
But by tomorrow he won’t remember anything, and that’s it.

indexNow this got me thinking.
Because this was a comment by someone that doesn’t know me, does not read this blog, nor my Italian blog. Never met me, never read my books. He chanced on a link to my blog on one of his contacts’ profile, read my post, found it good, and also thought I’m a hypocrite, a liar, an opportunist.
Which I generally try not to be.
And as someone that mostly expresses himself through the written word, the way in which what I write is perceived by the readers – the way in which I am perceived through my writing1 – is really important to me. So I re-read my post, to see if it carried any hint at my flawed character, and found nothing – but would be really happy to learn about anything I missed, so please use the comments.

But maybe the problem is another.
Because you see, that blasé attitude, that schoolyard cynicism is nothing personal2.
It’s not about me, or my post, my family, my story. It’s not about the Day of Memory, or Christmas, or Mardi Gras or the the 24rth night of September.
It’s about the idea that people might be, you know, a little bit better.
Not much, just a little bit.
That’s unacceptable. Because we’ve been sold this weird idea, that thinking the worst, always, makes us look cool, it makes us feel badass.
Badassery is very important on the social networks, you see3.

Which I find interesting because my post, yesterday, talked about what happens when someone arbitrarily decides that some people are wrong just because.

So now I’ll tell you the second part of yesterday’s story, to make a point, to show that my memory does not come and go with fashions, and because a good story pleases everybody, while a fuck you!, no matter how heartfelt, does not.
Here goes… Continue reading →


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Magic, art & science in the city: Passing Strange

41jzvod73kl-_sy346_And then something happens that disrupts all your plans and your timetables, and it0s OK like that.
In this case, the something was a quick message from my friend Marina, that suggested I check out a book called Passing Strange, by author Ellen Klages.
The book, Marina said, came with the recommendation of Caitlin R. Kiernan.

If the recommendation and the gorgeous cover weren’t enough, I then checked the blurb on Amazon…

San Francisco in 1940 is a haven for the unconventional. Tourists flock to the cities within the city: the Magic City of the World’s Fair on an island created of artifice and illusion; the forbidden city of Chinatown, a separate, alien world of exotic food and nightclubs that offer “authentic” experiences, straight from the pages of the pulps; and the twilight world of forbidden love, where outcasts from conventional society can meet.

Six women find their lives as tangled with each other’s as they are with the city they call home. They discover love and danger on the borders where magic, science, and art intersect.

Inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy, Passing Strange is a story as unusual and complex as San Francisco itself from World Fantasy Award winning author Ellen Klages.

Yes, inspired by the pulps, film noir, and screwball comedy.
Could I not invest two bucks and a half in this book?

And a great investment it was, just as it was a good idea spending a few hours in these two nights to read the book and enjoy its mix of class, elegance and ideas.
Part of the (excellent) series of Tor.com novellas, Klages’ book is a historical fantasy1 set in 1940, and touches on a number of subjects, from topology to weird menace pulps, while tracing the lives of six characters in the shadow of the incoming war and in a society i n which they have a hard time fitting.
Elegantly written, with great dialogue and great characterization, Passing Strange reads like a breeze, and is hopefully a sign that 2017 will be an excellent year for fiction, if nothing else.
Highly recommended.

  1. remind me to do a post about why lots of current fantasy fans wouldn’t recognize Klages’ story as a fantasy, and why this is an absolute tragedy. ↩


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White Mughals and Others

Today I’m not well – a bad cold that doesn’t want to go. So despite the ten thousand things I need to do by the end of the month, I’ll write this post and then curl up under a thick blanket with a good book.

white_mughalsI am currently reading a great book by William Dalrymple, called White Mughals. The tag-line Love and betrayal in eighteenth century India might sound like this is some kind of bodice-ripper, but Dalrymple is a solid writer about Asia, and his is a very interesting study of British-Indian relationships in the 218th and early 19th century.

Focusing on the life of James Achilles Kirkpatrick, the man representing the East India Company in the Mughal court of Hydebarad, Dalrymple traces the evolution – or rather, the involution – of the relationship between two peoples, as the British shift from a general acceptance and integration of Indian attitudes and beliefs to an increasingly aloof and basically racist attitude. Continue reading →


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Live to fight another day

I was thinking about running away, today.
Not specifically, but as an idea in itself.
Bear with me while I explain: I did a post on my Italian blog about what I would do were I a kid of 17 getting ready to end his high-school.
In a word: I’d forget about school grades as our school system’s disqualified. I’d look for an online certification in the subject I’d love to be my career, and then I’ll leave the country and pursue an education abroad. I closed my post observing that there is no dishonour in retreat if we retreat to save our life and our loved ones’.

evasione

My suggestions have been called defeatist – it is better to hold our ground against impossible odds and be blasted to hell, I was told, than run and fight another day.
Which of course sounds impressive on paper, looks great on film, but in real life is suicidal. Continue reading →