Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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The Lauren Bacall Blogathon: Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs

Today is Lauren Bacall‘s birthday, and to celebrate this beautiful, talented and iconic star of thesilver screen, a blogathon has been set up by the blog In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood – follow the link, and you’ll find the full list of all the blogs taking part in the blogathon.

lauren-bacall-blogathon1

Karavansara is proud to be part of this event.
And being fans of old classic pulp entertainment, we have decided to go for an oddity in the Lauren Bacall catalog – her participation in a double episode of the classic TV series, The Rockford Files.
Enjoy…

The_Rockford_Files_(title_screen)

This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave your name and message, I’ll get back to you.
[Beeep]
This is Betty Farnell. I don’t know who to call, but I can’t reach my foodaholics partner! I’m at Vito’s on my second pizza with sausages and mushrooms; Jim come and get me!

Continue reading →


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Other People’s Pulps: Krimi, Giallo & Slasher – a Guest Post (part 1)

91I was asked by a reader, a few weeks ago, about a post on the European tradition of crime movies and “Giallo”, and the connections thereof with pulp stories and later slasher films.
Great topic – but I’m not the right man for the job.
The right man is, actually, a woman – my friend Lucia Patrizi, that blogs the movie blog Il Giorno degli Zombi, and is currently writing a book about the evolution of horror movies. I asked her for a guest post, and she was so kind she donated the chapter about Kriminalromance and Giallo from her forthcoming essay.
The text – quickly translated by yours truly (and any mistake is solely my responsibility) – will be published as a series of posts.
Here goes the first.
Enjoy! Continue reading →


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Delta Green: Extraordinary Renditions

156628And so it is out.
Extraordinary Renditions, the latest collection of stories set in the Delta Green lovecraftian conspiracy universe, is available through RPGNow1, and various other platforms.
The volume was edited by Shane Ivey with Adam Scott Glancy, and it includes the following tales, covering the story of Delta Green through the 20th century …

“The Color of Dust” by Laurel Halbany.
“PAPERCLIP” by Kenneth Hite.
“A Spider With Barbed-Wire Legs” by Davide Mana.
“Le Pain Maudit” by Jeff C. Carter.
“Cracks in the Door” by Jason Mical.
“Ganzfeld Gate” by Cody Goodfellow.
“Utopia” by David Farnell.
“The Perplexing Demise of Stooge Wilson” by David J. Fielding.
“Dark” by Daniel Harms.
“Morning in America” by James Lowder.
“Boxes Inside Boxes” and “The Mirror Maze” by Dennis Detwiller.
“A Question of Memory” by Greg Stolze.
“Pluperfect” by Ray Winninger.
“Friendly Advice” by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.
“Passing the Torch” by Adam Scott Glancy.
“The Lucky Ones” by John Scott Tynes.
“Syndemic” and an introduction by Shane Ivey.

Extraordinary Renditions was developed as part of a very successful Kickstarter campaign – and I’m extraordinarily proud of being part of this project.
I love the Delta Green setting, and being one of the contributing authors feels like going home.
I made my first sale in the gaming business with a contribution to Delta Green: Coutdown.
I started writing stories in English on the Delta Green Mailing List.
The line up of this collection features a group of excellent writers, some of them good old friends, and some personal icons of mine.

So, yes, I’m extremely happy – and hope you’ll be happy to read this book, too.
It’s a killer.

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  1. the package includes mobi, epub, azw3 and pdf versions of the book, so everybody will be happy. ↩


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Everything must go

giving upI hope you don’t mind if I wax philosophical for a moment.
Here on the side is one of those memes1.

I fully subscribe the idea – I’ve been told an awful number of times that I would not make it, whatever it was I was doing.
And I proved them wrong.

An example?
The English teacher that on the first day, in high school, told me I would never learn English, never speak it, never understand it.
I thought about her a lot while I was living and studying in London.

So yes – I often feel like quitting, but then I remember the people out there waiting for me to quit, and start cheering.

And before you say paranoid, believe me, I’ve been there, and heard the cheers. Continue reading →


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Masterless men

I found this, here, yesterday, doing a research for something completely different.
I’m just sharing, because it is significant, and on topic, I think, and resonates with me.
Comments welcome.

“There are two paths a samurai can walk: that of a clan member, and that of a ronin, a lonely warrior. The former is highly esteemed in Japan, the latter is bitterly detested. Continue reading →