Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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A way point, and new projects

aquariusThe first half of the first draft of my new novel is in the hands of my editor, while I hammer out the kinks in the second half.
The going is good.
I like the story, I like the characters, and I’m writing about good ideas in a way that I like.
Nice and smooth.

As it usually happens when I’m very busy doing a lot of things, nice ideas start popping up almost everywhere, and it feels really bad to put them on the backburner, or to bury them in my tiger-striped notebook, waiting for a moment to work on them.

So, while my science fiction novel is rounding the half-way buoy and my steampunk game is getting in shape, I’m setting aside two other ideas, not knowing when I’ll be able to work on them. Continue reading →


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Time travel and Arabian Nights

2457-1Ted Chiang‘s The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate is a novelette originally published by Subterranean Press.
I spent a few hours reading it during the weekend, and as it usually happens with stories by Ted Chiang, I was overawed by the author’s skill and finesse.

I will not spoil the plot here (as I know there’s a reader of this blog that has a copy of the book on her ereader).
Suffice to say that this is a time travel story, set in the world and told with the style of The Arabian Nights.
And readers of this blog probably remember I am a fan of the Arabian Nights.

This being a time travel story, it probably qualifies as fantasy1  – even if, despite the setting and the language, Chiang slips in his narrative a rather plausible science fictional rationale.
But matters of classification really are beside the point2, as we are dealing with a wonderful and poignant story, masterfully designed and perfectly told.
The sort of story that deserves a second reading to try and learn how the author did it.

  1. and as an Oriental fantasy at that! ↩
  2. I was exposed to the classic I don’t read fantasy because I love science fiction just a few days back, and thus I discovered I cannot suffer the fools any longer. ↩


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When the power fails

lightning-1… and so the lights went out – ZAP!1

As a result, my PC shut down, the CPU fan fizzed and not only I lost a lot of my work, but also had to perform open-heart surgery on the PC to try and get a fan working again.

Can you tell it was a swell Sunday afternoon and night, followed by a bleary-eyed Monday morning?
It was.

So now I’m back a few days on my schedule, but I’m also pretty happy to inform the world that I’m not dead yet.
I still live! like John Carter used to say.

And I even got an idea for a new project…
But I’ll tell you about that another day.

  1. the sort of thing that happens when the neighbour decides he’ll do some mantainance work and just plugs the wrong box. ↩


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Writing Prompt – Something Different… and Important

Some very different graphical inspiration for writing, today.
I’m linking here, and I recommend you all go and read, Lauren Panepinto’s great post on the Muddy Colors collective blog.

PirotessRedesign-ElifSiebenpfeiffer

It’s called What Women Want… in Women Characters, and it features some wonderful art to go with a strong, intelligent take on women and fantasy.
Please, read it.


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Deeper in India

16349Yesterday was a good day – the friendly postman dropped on my doorstep a very used but quite fine copy of Gordon Johnson’s Cultural Atlas of India, a 1996 book that will be indispensable for my work on the GreyWorld Project and that, from a cursory browsing as soon as I pulled it out of its package, is also a fine read.

Basically, Johnson’s book follows the twin tracks of India’s cultural unity and diversity while tracing a history of the sub-continent. It is a wonderful resource for my work: the volume is very thorough, with a lot of box-outs for special interest features, full of gorgeous pictures and a wealth of maps.
It will make for a fascinating read in the next few nights1. Continue reading →