Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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The lost Flash Gordon

294080There’s a strange story behind Flash Gordon, The Greatest Adventure of All – the movie I watched last week to counter the desert of Christmas-time TV.

Originally conceived in 1977 as a live-action adaptation of the classic Flash Gordon strips1, the project was deemed too expensive, and reworked as a feature-length animated movie, produced by Filmation (the same guys who did the Star Trek animated series, and …e hm, He-Man).
While working on the movie, the gentlemen at Filmation brought in Dino De Laurentiis as a financer – and he jumped at the opportunity of striking a deal that would allow him to make the “too expensive” live action flick, which duly premiered in 1980.
As a result, the movie being on its way, Filmation decided to rework yet again the animated feature, turning it into a Saturday Morning cartoon series, airing in 1979 and paving the way for the live action movie.
Finally, in 1982, the original Flash Gordon animated movie was released – but it did not get a wide circulation.
And that’s a pity. Continue reading →


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My second novel – outline and structure

And so, while I keep piling up notes and resources for my new roleplaying game project (the thing is getting huge), I also started working on my new novel1.

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The outline’s done – I’m letting it cool off, and tonight I’ll send it to the publisher, and barring strong objections and possible redesigns, I’ll slot the outline in Scrivener, and I’ll start jotting down the first draft.
In the meantime, I’m also mind-mapping the setting and the characters2. Continue reading →


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Party music for Aculeo & Amunet

On the 22nd of September 2014, we had a party, over at the Facebook place, to celebrate the launch of the first collection of Aculeo & Amunet stories, The Hand of Isfet.
It was great fun 1.

A&A collection banner text

I’ve been toying with the idea of making some of the music played at the party available to Aculeo & Amunet fans – especially to those that missed the party.
So here goes – a tape with some of the songs and music we danced to, way back in September.

Enjoy!

Screenshot from 2015-01-03 19:54:44

  1. so much fun, in fact, that I’d like to set up a Shanghai-nightclub-style launch party for The Ministry of Thunder. Might be even more fun – what do you think?
    Watch this space. ↩


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A book is a book (sometimes)

With 2015, a new European Community regulation come into being, stating that VAT on digital contents will be calculated based on the country of purchase.
This is extremely stupid – as it hits small businesses, cottage companies and small publishers, forcing them to keep a separate accounting for VAT based on the countries in which their products are sold.
This, because European Community countries do have each a different VAT regime for digital contents – ranging fro 4% to 23%.

The new rule was apparently introduced to solve the problem of Amazon’s tax dodge (Amazon being VAT-registered in Luxembourg) but the effects are horrid – and do not hit Amazon, but readers and publishers.
In Italy – where I live – VAT for ebooks used to be a staggering 22%.
No matter where I purchased my ebooks, that would be the extra for me to pay. Continue reading →


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My best failures of 2014

Failed Stamp Showing Reject Or FailureI’m stealing the idea for this post from Mike Brooks, and his podcast about his five biggest failures of 2014.
Mike notes that…

Of course I don’t see failures as a negative. To me failure is simply a necessary part of success.

It’s my sort of thing – I’m good at failure.

So – where and how have I failed in 2014?1 Continue reading →


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A drying up of the soul

51H8S032BHL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_I was doing the usual three-cards trick on my shelves, trying to slot more volumes in the same old space, and while trying to find a place for the old London Gazzeteer, I found myself with no place for Peter Ackroyd‘s Albion.
And as it happens, I sat down a while and browsed through that 500-odd pages hardback.

For those that missed it, Ackroyd’s Albion is a book about “the origins of English imagination” – that is to say, a catalog and discussion of those elements that make up the imaginary matter of Britain, that complex collection of legends, images, clichés and stories that is the basis of so much literature, music, art and what not.

Now the interesting bit is I was discussing, two nights back, with my friend Lucy among others, what we perceive as an increasing impoverishment of the imaginary matter backing what’s sold as fantasy, as horror, as science fiction. Continue reading →