Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Like Outer Mongolia, but without all the perks

And so we got our traditional three-days Internet blackout, for causes still to be defined.
And the orchard’s iron gate was ripped from its place by a passing tractor.
And we are snowed in, under a nice 1 foot snow cover.
And it’s cold as hell.
Basically, just like being in Outer Mongolia, without any or the plus sides.

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In all this, I should be writing like hell, and I can’t find the energy – bad health, short of breath, and my hands are icy-cold. And I can’t type in wool gloves.
But apart from this, everything’s fine, as me and my brother hurl towards the first Christmas without our father.

These are not-so-bright days in more sense than one.
But we’ll hold on.


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Rogue One

OK, so I went and watched Rogue One (just like everybody else, I guess) and I quite enjoyed it. We went with my brother at the Lux Cinema in Nizza Monferrato, braving the fog and the cold, and came away quite happy with our decision.
It’s a pity the Italian dubbed version is pretty lame, but all in all a fun way to spend two hours.
And no, I won’t post spoilers1, I hope, and I will not make a series of comparisons and a hit list, to decide whether this is the best film in the franchise, the second best, the third best, or whatever.

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I’ll just post a few considerations. Continue reading →


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Decopunk

Well, Christmas is getting closer, and I’m getting some early gifts.
And why not brag about them?
The postman just dropped by and delivered a book from my friend Alex, and what a beauty it is.
It’s called Deco Punk, The Spirit of the Age, a collection of dieselpunk-ish stories edited by Thomas A. Easton and Judith K. Dial, and published by Pink Narcissus Press.

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The cover alone is breathtaking, and the contents are very very promising, being a selction of stories by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald, Shariann Lewitt, Linda Tiernan Kepner, Sarah Smith, William Racicot, Paul Di Filippo, Melissa Scott, Edward M. Lerner, Catherine Asaro and Kate Dolan, Duncan Eagleson, Jeff Hecht, and Rev DiCerto.

And of course, dieselpunk is just pulp misspelled, and of pulp fantasy there is never enough, so this is really what the doctor ordered for New year’s Eve – a night of reading about a past that never was.

Oh, and yes, I’d love to write something in the decopunk subjenre – some science fiction/adventure thing, maybe with a noirish edge, set in what has been called *The Age of Elegance.
I might even have an inspiration image here at hand…

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Who knows?
So much to write, so little time…


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Listen to the radio. Any radio. Now!

I tend to reminisce a lot here on Karavansara, these days, which is not cool, because I’m a fan of the future, and as the poet said, the past is something that never got in my way.
Who knows, maybe it’s the winter, the cold, the darkness.
But there is still room for the future, even when I reminisce.

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Fact – just like Journey, I was raised on radio. Back when I was a wee lad, TV was something you turned on at 5 pm to watch Scooby Doo and then The Avengers or The Saint, or I Spy. You get the picture.
Throughout the day, doing my homeworks, reading my books or playing, there was this constant background of radio transmissions, because my mother would keep the radio on for company while doing her chores.
So I am a fan of radio, too. Continue reading →


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To Be like Buzz

A quick short post because… because.
I was reading an account of Buzz Aldrin’s latest adventure, his attempt at reaching the South Pole, and related medical consequences.

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You can find the piece here.

And a funny thing came up as I was discussing it with some friends.
Because you see, I grew up in the ’70s, with adventure books, National Geographic, and documentaries about Thor Heyerdahl, Jacques Cousteau and, yes, Buzz Aldrin.
I belong to the space age generation (for a very thin margin – I was born in ’67), and when I was a kid in school, I basically wanted to grow up and be like Buzz Aldrin.

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Now, I’ll be 50 in six months, and the weird bit is, I still want to grow up and be Buzz Aldrin.
Which to me is a sure sign I have chosen the right role model all those years ago.
Because he still is a role model.
Something I cannot say about, for instance, Zorro, or Tarzan.


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Worldbuilding, in fantasy long and short

This is going to be long.
As readers of this blog might have noticed, I have sort of a personal interest in worldbuilding – both for professional reasons (building worlds pays mt bills) and as a sort of hobby of mine. I like imaginary worlds, which probably explains why I read and write imaginative fiction, or the other way around.

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Now, as I was browsing the web in search for some documentation, I chanced upon an old article from The Guardian, whose title caused me to pause and take some time reading.
The article, that was published in May 2015 and you will find here, is called Fantasy cannot build its imaginary worlds in short fiction.
To which my basic reaction is, really? Continue reading →