Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


by 5 Comments

John Brunner’s Traveller in Black

For many years the John Brunner stories featuring The Traveller in Black were very high in my Need to Read list. John Brunner was more famous as a writer of science fiction than as a fantasist, and he wrote some of my favorite SF novels (in particular, The Squares of the City and The Productions of Time). I often read about the series, and there was an edition in my country in 1996 – but I actually never saw a copy of that one, and I always considered missing these stories as a grave hole in my CV as a fantasy reader and writer.

So I was quite happy when a gift from one of my Patrons brought to my Kindle The Compleat Traveller in Black, a volume that collects the five stories of the cycle: “Imprint of Chaos“, “Break the Door of Hell“, “The Wager Lost by Winning“, “The Dread Empire“, and “The Things That Are Gods“.

Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

A hot tea and an aspirin with Jerry Cornelius

And having spent the cold afternoon reading one of the English Assassin’s latest exploits, I curled up under a thick blanket, with a steaming cup of tea and an aspirin, and re-watched Robert Fuest’s The Final Programme, the 1973 movie loosely based on Michael Moorcock’s novel of the same title.

And this seems to be Fuest’s week here in my house – after the two Dr Phibes (from 1971 and 1972), now The Final Programme (1973) – and it becomes easy to spot the common themes in Fuest’s work: the surreal set design (Fuest was not only the director, but also the screenwriter and the set designer for Programme), the use of music-hall style music on the soundtrack, certain repeated camera angles.
So, what’s this all about?

Continue reading →


by 2 Comments

A day in the cold with Jerry Cornelius

I had to spend one day on the town attending various things, and I got a copy of Michael Moorcock’s Modem Times 2.0, a book that includes a Jerry Cornelius story, an essay by Moorcock on the London in which he grew up, and a lengthy interview with the author.

It was almost forty years ago (1981? Probably) as, on a Saturday afternoon, some state TV guy, forced to sit in office on the weekend to decide what was going to play, decided to pass Robert Fuest’s The Final Programme – and I was rather baffled in seeing that the weird movie that was starting on the telly was based on a work by Michael Moorcock… quite obviously the same Moorcock that had written the Elric stories and The Land That Time Forgot screenplay.
I watched the movie, I was confused, and I first met Jerry Cornelius.

Continue reading →


by 2 Comments

The Occult Detectives are back

I am passing this along because it’s great news – the new issue of Occult Detective Magazine (formerly Occult Detective Quarterly) is currently available in print on Amazon. An ebook edition is forthcoming.
This is a big fat mag filled with supernatural thrills, and it’s just what the doctor ordered to have some fun for the end of the year.

And no, there is no work of mine on this one – but hopefully I’ll be able to sell some more stories to this fine magazine in 2020.


by 2 Comments

Oh, well…

A story I submitted last month just bounced back… because the magazine I submitted it to went out of business. This is the second time this happens to me – in the first case, it was a story I had already sold – between the acceptance letter and the publishing, the publisher went belly up.
I could be cynical and say that’s the reason why you should always aim at paid-on-acceptance markets, but really it’s no laughing matter.

Every time a magazine or a publisher goes out of business, we, as writers and as readers, are a little poorer.

The only up side of this last sorry matter?
I had mistakenly mailed the same story to two prospect markets at the same time. Now tat problem’s solved.


by Leave a comment

What, no RPGs for Christmas?

It’s been pointed out that my list of Christmas gifts for the masses was fearfully lacking in the Roleplaying Games department. To set that straight, I’ll post here three suggestions for the roleplayer that has everything.
Because what’s better than spending Christmas day reading a new RPG handbook?
Here goes…

Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

Gifts for writers, readers and other adventurers

Wool socks, scarves and other knitwear, that’s what Christmas is to a lot of us. Case in point: as a Christmas gift, my brother just bought me a wool cap to replace the one that got picked from my pocket a few days ago while we were in a crowd.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, wool cap thieves are a thing.
But what about a list of gifts for readers, writers and in general the sort of people that reads Karavansara?
My marketing guru assures me these posts have a huge impact during the festive season.
Let’s see if he’s right.
Oh, and yes, there’s affiliate links in this post – feel free to ignore them.

Continue reading →