Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Tag Archives: Aculeo & Amunet


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The Hand of Isfet (the cover)

The Hand of Isfet, my new collection of stories about Aculeo & Amunet will be released in ebook form on the 22nd of September (as you can see from the nifty count-down thingie here in the sidebar) – but it can be pre-ordered through Amazon as of now (and you save a buck on the final retail price).

The book has been long in the coming, but I’m quite proud of the final result.
It features a great cover, and it lines up five good tales (if I say so myself).

I’ll do a pair of posts on the stories, the characters and all the rest, but for starters, here’s the cover… Continue reading →


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Amazon Kindle pre-orders and peace of mind

asteria 1So, now Amazon lets me offer my ebooks for pre-order*.
Basically the idea is, I upload my files like I always did, and then I can set the publishing date as far as 90 days later.
You can buy straight away, but it will be delivered to your reader on the set date.
Nice and smooth.

I did a small experiment, in August, using a novelette I wrote, in a new series of sword & sandal stories for the Italian market – it’s called Asteria alla Corte di Minosse.
I talked about this story when I was writing it, as part of a bet with a friend and colleague.
The response was good, so much so that my ebook made the Amazon top 100 in the Fantasy category on the strength of the pre-orders alone.
Now that was heartening.

On the other hand, a lot of readers expressed some perplexity – what’s the purpose of pre-ordering an ebook?
After all, the good thing about ebooks is, I see something I like, I click and I’ve got it on my reader straight away.
No delivery times, no waiting, no hassle.
Why wait up to 90 days to get the file? Continue reading →


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The Anciet Worlds in 3D

It’s Friday, but today I will not post an image for a prompt, but rather a link to a full website filled with wonderful images.

Doing some background research for my Aculeo & Amunet stories*, I found AncientVine.com – a huge repository of information, images and video abut life in the Ancient World.

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Go check it out.
It will leave you speechless.

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* Yes, it’s again the old story of the swape/shadoof…


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An Aculeo & Amunet Spin-off?

One never knows.

bobhoskinsI was putting the finishing touches on one of the Aculeo & Amunet stories that will be collected in the next A&A ebook (coming in september, barring accidents), and I noticed that a number of throwaway characters had proved to be tougher and much more fun to write about than expected.

Centurion Nennius Britannicus is a short, balding man that looks somewhat like Bob Hoskins in my mind’s eye – a second-tier officer with a tendency to get on his commander’s nerves.
When we meet him in The Hand of Isfet (the immediate sequel to Bride of the Swamp God), he’s on patrol duty in the streets of Alexandria.
He’s not exactly enjoying the ride. Continue reading →


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Choreographing violence in stories

I said I was going to take the day off, but in the end I spent a fair part of yesterday afternoon planning and choreographing a big complicated action scene in the next Aculeo & Amunet story.

The hardest part, for me, when writing A&A, is the part about the fights.
Maybe I already mentioned this.

Fact is, I don’t like violence that much, and I’m not very good at describing it in an entertaining way because… well, because I don’t find it entertaining, I guess.
With some exceptions.

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And yet, considering my Aculeo & Amunet stories are sword & sorcery, there are to be swords in there somewhere, and someone got to use’em.
And Aculeo, being a soldier, is supposed to be the one trained in the use of swords (Amunet takes care of sorcery – nice and smooth). Continue reading →


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Writing on a dare

CornettoEtCappuccinoOk, it went like this – I was wasting time yesterday morning, on Facebook, having a friendly chat with some author/publisher friends, here in the old C Block of the Italian Blogsphere.
We were talking original ideas, imitation as tribute and nuisance, and all those things, while each one of us was having breakfast at home (isn’t this web-thingie just great?)
Anyway, we were chatting away and sipping cappuccinos, and I really don’t know how it happened, honest, but one thing led to another, and…

So I bet the guys I can write a fantasy novelette in a weekend, and self-publish it on Amazon Kindle in less than a week.
And not only that!
Being an overconfident fool, I bet I can write a novelette that will be the first in a series, featuring a new setting and a new character.

And yes, this is stupid.
I mean, it’s the weekend, it’s summer, there’s 40+ degrees and 90% humidity, I have two deadlines approaching…
Ah! Continue reading →