Sometimes we get the hint. Like, as a belated – but much appreciated and welcome – gift for my birthday, I just received a bundle of sourcebooks for All for One: Regine Diabolique, the roleplaying game of musketeers fighting the Gothic horrors that haunt a not-exactly-historical 1636 Paris. And yes, I got it.
I mentioned the Ubiquity-powered All for One in a previous post (I am sure WordPress will put a link to it down below). I like the Ubiquity system, and I like the setting, with its swashbuckling heroes facing unspeakable horrors to defend the honor of the King.
What I just got will allow me to set up a proper game, one of these nights, for the delight and amusement (hopefully) of my players.
I am happy to report that the massive two-volume collection published by Belanger Books and presenting a wide selection of mysteries and adventures featuring Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectivesis available both in paperback and ebook through Amazon.
In these stories, Holmes must work with some colleagues of his that are better versed in the ins and outs of the occult and the supernatural, while not relinquishing his powers of observation and deduction.
The first volume includes my story The Case of the Manchester Mummies, the first outing of the delectable miss Valerie Trelawney. More adventures of miss Trelawney will hopefully see the light in the future. But it all starts here.
I hope you’ll check out these books – they are absolutely fabulous.
In the early spring of 2020, Italy went in total lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the situation was dramatic in the cities, and the body-count skyrocketed, the countryside had it relatively light. It’s just a matter of waiting for the curve to flatten.
Holed up in his battered trailer in the old junkyard outside of Nizza Monferrato, Buscafusco is set to weather the pandemic with a big stash of old paperbacks, a selection of jazz records, and some prime provisions for his lonely dinners. Quiet and relax at last, at least for a while. But trouble, just like rust, never sleeps. And now everybody’s wearing a mask.
BUSCAFUSCO: Health & Safety
A global pandemic is not enough to keep a good man down.
April crawled into the hills of Astigianistan, bringing rainstorms and a preview of the summer’s heat and humidity, and everybody was suddenly feeling the desperate need to hug somebody, or go out for a drink with some hypothetical friends or, missing that, to call someone on the telephone and waste their time. “What are you having for dinner?” Matilde Ciambotti’s voice was tired, and raw. The voice of someone that’s done too much face time over the web. “Bacon fraze,” I said. I placed the bowl with the batter on the table by the phone, and looked around for the spatula. “Sounds unhealthy,” she said. “I don’t care for the sound, I’m here for the taste.” “Very funny,” she said. She did not sound amused. “What do you need?” “A vacation,” she replied. “Don’t we all…”
The fourth Buscafusco novella features two intertwined cases for the only man the hill tribes fear.
This morning I woke up and I wrote a story, in 35 minutes flat. Not a long story, of course – 1200 words. I spent about an hour straightening it afterwards – moving words around, and doing all the little checks and tweaks one does before submitting. Then I formatted the five pages in the Shunn format took a deep breath, and mailed the story to the editor. Now the wait begins.
I submitted the story to a very quirky, high-profile anthology – and should it be accepted, it would mean being published together with authors I respect a lot. The story is called Fugue a deux, and it’s a short piece about make believe, the purpose of fantasy and love – or at least that’s how I described it in the cover letter. It came out more or less spontaneously, and it’s pretty raw, and silly. It might be “inspired by real events”, but that’s a detail.
Today I have mailed off to the editors two more stories – a 1700-words piece and a 4600-words one – bringing the total count of this year’s submissions to 20. Which makes 4 stories per month. One story per week on average. Of these, five have been sold so far – which is a nice 25% sales rate. Good, but I can do better. Now I have two 8/10.000-words stories to write – having been contracted to write them – in the coming month. If I want to keep my average of one story per week, I’ll have to mail away two more. Thankfully, the opportunities abound, and there’s no shortage of ideas – but right now I am rather low on energy, and somewhat overworked. A job I should have closed in April is likely to drag for another six weeks at least. Bummer. But so far, as the guy said, so good. And now I can start and plan dinner.
And so the day of my 53rd birthday is coming to an end. I’ve celebrated with a quick jaunt to the last pizza place open in the area, and I’ve had dinner with my brother and a friend. The rest of the day, I spent reading – because it was my birthday, and I received a lot of books as gifts.
And I might as well share, so, here’s a list of all the wonders my friends gave me. In no particular order…
This morning I saw a snippet, posted online by a contact of mine, off a school anthology book. Now, school anthologies are often the first impact with literature for a lot of kids. They know fiction through movies, and comics, and cartoons, but especially these days, the written word, the textual storytelling, may come late in a kids life.
And this snippet made it clear that (i quote from memory)
one must distinguish between serious literature and the simple fiction whose only purpose is to amuse and entertain
… and from there it went on to explain to the out-of-luck kid that might chance to read this sort of crap, that basically…
if you like it because it’s fun then it’s gotta be rubbish
if it’s prop’r litch’r’chure you should not have fun reading it, and you’re not smart to get it anyway
Karavansara 