fantasy | Karavansara

16 November 2015
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Eating the Dragon

I’m having lots of fun reading “Heroika – Dragon Eaters”, a massive, highly entertaining collection of fantasy stories edited by Janet Morris and published by Perseid Press.

I like very much the central concept of the anthology – collecting stories in which men (and sometimes gods) pit their strength, spirit and wits against the power of dragons.
This is a welcome return to stories in which the dragon was the adversary, an expression of power hostile (or alien) to our mindset and civilization.
After so many stories of good dragons portrayed as an endangered species¹, it’s good to have the dragon back as the bad guy.

Continue reading →

18 June 2015
by Davide Mana 3 Comments

Five Things I learned Writing “The Ministry of Thunder”

My first novel, The Ministry of Thunder, is six months old this week, and I thought it was high time I did some new post to bore you to death about it.
This will be a week of celebrations.

In case you missed it, The Ministry of Thunder is a pulp/fantasy novel set in 1936 China, in which a stranded Italian mechanic tries to recycle himself as an Indiana Jones-style adventurer.
Cue to mysterious artifacts, beautiful women, evil masterminds, Taoist magic, Chinese ghosts, lost cities, and the Ministry of Thunder and Storms.
And ninja.

So, I normally say that everything is part of the learning process – what did I learn (if I did), writing The Ministry of Thunder? Continue reading →

26 May 2015
by Davide Mana 6 Comments

Tanith Lee, 1947-2015

I just learned of the passing of British author Tanith Lee.
This was shattering news – I an a great fan of her writings, and The Birthgrave was one of the first books I read in English.
Some of her novels – Don’t Bite the Sun/Drinking Sapphire Wine, Volkhavaar, the Paradys sequence… but I could mention many others – stand very high in my favorites lists, and her style was always a source of wonder and frustration – because I’ll never write like that.

Lee was a master storyteller, often breaking the boundaries between genres, and defied categorization.
Her catalog is full of extraordinary stories, beautifully told.

This is really a chunk of my life that goes away.
I am very sad.

18 May 2015
by Davide Mana 3 Comments

Raphael Ordoñez’ Dragonfly, a biased review

I promised a review and here it is.
I spent the weekend immersed in one of the most intriguing, baffling and intelligent books I read in a long while.
The book is Raphael Ordoñez’ Dragonfly, a novel I discovered thanks to the Black Gate blog.
The review published by Black Gate promised much – and the novel delivered in full, and possibly more¹.
What was an impulse purchase, based on a great review and a great cover (by the author himself), turned out to be one of the best reads of this year.

The novel takes place on the Counter-Earth at the Cosmic Antipodes, whatever that may mean, and indeed much of the setting is shrouded in mystery.
Is this the past, the future, some place else or our own world? Are the strange individuals the hero meets aliens, members of different human branches of evolution, or something completely different? Continue reading →

6 May 2015
by Davide Mana 1 Comment

Boxing with Engelbrecht

Sometimes I feel stupid.
What, you say, only sometimes?
Yeah, laugh all you want.

Consider this – back in the ’90s I got myself a copy of Cawthorn & Moorcock’s Fantasy, the 100 Best Books. It was a great read, and an excellent tool for discovering new books to read.
I therefore started working through the list, checking out the books I already knew (about half of the list), and beginning a hunt for the remaining titles.

Of them all, one was so weird, I suspected for years the authors had simply made it up as a prank.
The book was Maurice Richardson‘s The Exploits of Engelbrecht – a 1950 collection of stories, it was supposedly (?) last published in 1977¹, and the basic reaction of book dealers, in those pre-Amazon years was something like

no way, man!

And when finally finding books online became easier, I discovered that Continue reading →

20 April 2015
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Clark Ashton Smith on Fantasy

Clark Ashton Smith (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been perusing the wondrous halls of The Eldritch Dark, a website devoted to the writings of Clark Ashton Smith.
Sometimes I like to go back to Smith’s fantasies, as his voice and his approach to prose – while impossible to equal – are a great source of inspiration.
The Eldritch Dark collects the stories and poetry by Smith, but also an ample selection of his letters and essays.
The following is a short recap of the author’s position regarding the narrative of the imagination.
It is well worth reading. Continue reading →

13 April 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

What do they take home at the end?

I’ve been thinking about what a reader takes home, so to speak, from a story.
Now, while I do not put much stock into message-laden stories, stories that push agendas and so on, I know that when I write I have a few things I’d like my readers to get: the attitude of my characters to certain issues.

I was pretty surprised, for instance, when a review was posted, way back, of one of the Aculeo & Amunet stories, the reviewer commenting passingly, and enthusiastically, on the lead’s breasts¹.
The review was very positive, and it was pretty obvious the reader had enjoyed my story very much.
And I’m very happy and proud of this.
And yet I was surprised because I did not think I had placed that much attention, writing the story, on certain details of the lead’s anatomy, nor I ever described Amunet’s … ehm, physical assets as particularly impressive²: Amunet’s striking in many ways, and she’s certainly fascinating and attractive, but, well, her chest is not… ok, you catch my drift. Continue reading →