Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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Leonard Clark

There was a time, when reality was damn well unrealistic.

The happy-go-lucky adventurer is a mainstay of adventure literature and movies.
You know the kind of guy – treasure hunter/soldier of fortune, seeking wealth, glory and assorted kicks south of the border, or east of Constantinople.

g_hovitosNormally, when it transpires that you read (or write!) adventure stories, somebody will feel compelled to point out that it’s all so unrealistic.
Unrealistic normally leads to childish, and further snubs follow.

Jumping from planes, soldiering under ten different flags, escaping the headhunters by defeating their shaman in a test of magics, seeking and finding ancient gold, defying ancient curses, running guns across the border…

Nobody, but nobody, does that in Real Life!
Reality, we are told by the Guardians of Reality Itself, has little patience and even less space for such individuals.

That’s why I find Leonard Clark such an endearing fellow. Continue reading →


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The Treasure Hunter (2009)

Set in “the great desert northwest of China”, The Treasure Hunter, a Taiwanese fantasy adventure feature from 2009, is a fun movie with some minor drawbacks.

The story steals happily from a number of classics – from Indiana Jones movies and the Mummy franchise (unscrupulous archeologists, lost cities), with major nods towards Romancing the Stone (the shy woman involved in an outrageous plot), Highlander (some pretty Kurgan-ish warriors), the old Army of Darkness (a certain Raimi-esque use of camerawork), to old Spaghetti-western (costumes, sets). Continue reading →

A quick note

This blog has now also a Facebook Page.
You can Like it, check out what’s being posted there, post there yourself…

The Karavansara Experiment continues.


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Ebook file formats

Ok, let’s do a request.

Friend allsho wrote

Maybe in one of your next posts you might tell us why you keep your options open about mobi and epub and how you choose from time to time between them.

Nice question.

I’ll begin by saying that, as a writer, my purpose is reaching the widest audience possible among those parties that might be interested in what I write.
The last bit is – to me – essential, as I do not believe in bombing the whole world with my ebooks, as I know the whole world is not interested in what I do.
I prefer to focus my energies and meagre resources on “my readers”, while keeping my options open.

So far, it seems to work.
My ebooks have a good enough ciurculation – being in Italian and all that, I can claim a few thousand copies for a total of eight titles, four non fiction and four fiction.
Circulation depends on publicity, platform and – especially for small acts like mine – file format.

So, let’s talk formats. Continue reading →


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Afghanistan in the 1960s

A short extra post.
The Denverpost.com blog just published a selection of photos from Afghanistan, shot in the 1960s by Dr William Podlich.
These are great images, and provide much food for thought.

Check them out.

More photos by Dr Podlich can be found here.


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Free Ebook

In 2006 I wrote a novella, called Gli Anni del Tuono (The Years of Thunder) – Renaissance warfare in a world in which Frederic II had developed mecha or, if you like, mobile suits.
In the 16th century, chivalry means being a good mathematician and engineer, riding a fulminate-powered big robot in battle, surrounded by your peers.
But not all campaigns turn out for the best, and back at home, the serfs are restless.

thunder cover titleThe story – heavily influenced by a great “what if” article by Matthew Rossi – was published the following year in Alia Italia, a short story anthology published in Turin by Coop-Studi.
My piece – which received good reviews – was graced by a beautiful painting by my friend Dalmazio Frau, a fine artist and a well-respected illustrator.

Two years later, together with other Alia conspirators, we were offered the opportunity of having some of our works read by the editors of a Chinese SF magazine.
We picked what we thought was our best work, and I translated the stories in English.
I re-edited my Renaissance mecha story, and changed the title to Clad in Steel and Thunder, which I thought was rather fitting.

As it normally happens (I guess) when an author translates his own work, translation also meant editing.

Continue reading →