Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Going Weightless

Brief service message.
You may have noticed, or maybe not, that a small banner for Weightless Books appeared in the sidebar.
Fact is, I’ve been very pleased with the service provided me so far by this online bookstore, especially the subscription service to digital magazines.
So, I decided to spread the news, and joined their affiliate program.

Weightless Books: all your DRM-free ebooks in one place.

Which also means I’ll be getting a small revenue from sales going through my links, which is mighty good considering that soon I’ll have to pay for this blog’s domain.
As usual, I’ll make sure these ads are not invasive.


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Mars and details

I’ve been spending some time on Mars, recently.
Not only did I take part in the How to Survive on Mars course by Monash University – which was lots of fun – but I’ve been reading about the Red Planet in order to write a story (due in two weeks) for an Italian anthology. They mentioned the wrd contract, which is good, and the editor in chief is an old friend, so I said yes. They’ve been vague enough in their guidelines, so I decided to go and hit them with a Martian story.
It will be hard SF, uncompromisingly optimist. My way of optimism, the one that says that problems exist, and we must work hard to solve them. They will probably reject it, but it’s a risk I’m ready to take.

But the problem right now is, I’ve a wonderful setting, but I have no story. Continue reading →


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“Why did I start writing? The price of pork and beans made it necessary. I just got hungry enough, which is always a good thing for beginners. I was in New York and I knew Jeff Hanley, a red haired reporter on a paper there. I would pound out stuff on the typewriter and Jeff would come home, look my stuff over, say it was rotten, which it was, and make me go ahead doing more of it. Finally, under the stint of his irony I wrote a story and sold it to Frank Munsey.”
— Talbot Mundy.


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From the Bible to the Wild West: Sergio Toppi, a black and white gallery

Sometimes some pieces of the puzzle fall into place when you least expect it.
Yesterday I learned there is a new edition of the works of Sergio Toppi being produced.
Now, when I was a kid, Sergio Toppi was the guy that drew incredible comics, the guy whose name you did not know (as kids, we cared about characters, not authors) but whose style you couldn’t mistake.
Later, when I was in high school, I started paying attention to the artist’s name – and I became a fan of Sergio Toppi.
But at that point, my mother had already thrown away all those old useless comic books that were just gathering dust.

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But about the pieces falling in place… Continue reading →


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16 seconds of Mummy

So I caught the teaser trailer for the new Mummy movie.
You know The Mummy, the franchise starring Brendan Fraser whose third movie actually put me to sleep…
Well, they are rebooting it (who isn’t rebooting something, these days), and it will star Tom Cruise.

And my first reaction has been… uhm.
Yes, there is an attractive lady in tactically ragged bandages screaming her heart out in the wind (ooooh, scary), but all things considered, uhm. Continue reading →