Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Tag Archives: Shanghai


by 2 Comments

The Mysterious Orlandini

The Karavansara Challenge 2016 has yet to start1, and already strange connections are beginning to appear.
On the first page of her Forbidden Journey, Ella Maillart writes (my translation)…

Finally, the Italian Orlandini, having spent one year in China, was ordered away from the Xinjian frontier[…] He covered great distances by bicycle, an ideal means of transport in Central Asia, and tells a curious story, according to which, having been mistaken for a spy, he risked being poisoned in Inner Mongolia.

And that’s it.
An Italian, traveling through Central Asia and Xinjian (or Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkestan) on a bicycle, and being mistaken for a spy and almost poisoned?
How comes nobody ever told me his story?! Continue reading →


by Leave a comment

The Nightwalkers

51eIMmQpg3L._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_Archaeologis and Chinese art expert David Armour disappeared in 1941, in Peking.
He resurfaces in a mission hospital in a rural Chinese province in 1947, with no memory of the previous six years.
He can’t remember anything and nobody seems to know what happened.
There’s stories, though – some say he collaborated with the Japanese occupation forces, others claim he became a guerrilla leader fighting the Japanese.
Back in Shanghai, David will have to patch together the events of his missing years – meeting his estranged wife Adrian, feeling the pressure of a number of parties that want to use him, or take control of his life.
Then there’s the story about the four missing T’ang bronzes whose whereabouts he might know – and have forgotten.
And his other wife – the one he doesn’t remember.
Continue reading →


by 3 Comments

Five Things I learned Writing “The Ministry of Thunder”

acheron_the__ministry_of_thunderMy 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 →


by Leave a comment

Back to Old Shanghai

Shanghai-IncidentAnd just when it looked like I was well on my way to spending the next six months solid reading and writing about India (and steampunk) for GreyWorld, the Paris of the East lures me back again.

I’m currently doing some very preliminary work on a new project that promises to bring me back to old Shanghai1.

And yes, it does feel like some kind of obscure Oriental curse.

Obviously, first I’ll have to nail shut the box of my second novel, and my work on GreyWorld will continue, writing both the game setting and some setting-based stories.
And yes, there’s the minor matter of a new Aculeo & Amunet story, and one – or possibly two – new stories in the Asteria series.
Oh, and one, maybe two small-but-sweet gaming-related projects.
And a pitch I really need to have ready by August2.
But while all this stuff is cooking, I’m taking the Shangai books and maps and notes, photo references and everything else out of the storage box.
It will be fun.
Who needs sleeping anyway?

  1. and no, dear reader, it is not a new Sabatini story. ↩
  2. yes, I’m keeping busy. ↩


by 2 Comments

Leaving Shanghai for a while

GoddamnedShanghai1I’ve been too long in Shanghai – in my head, at least.
The research and the writing of my book have caused me to spend many hours, daily, thinking about Shanghai in the ’30s, reading about Shanghai in the ’30s, writing about Shanghai in the ’30s.
Lucky me, only the first half of the novel takes place in that city*.

I realized I need to take a break from Shanghai two or three days back, as I sat down to read a novel called – you guessed it – Shanghai. Continue reading →


by 6 Comments

It’s over (almost)

victoryAnd so it’s finished.
Clocking in at close to 68.000 words, my pulp/fantasy novel of high adventure set in Shanghai and parts east in the year 1936 is done.

Well, actually I’m doing the final revision – or the post-revision revision, if you will.

I did my writing in Scrivener, and it was a really pleasant experience.
But now I’m exporting it and I’m making a LibreOffice .odt file for my editors to be able to go through it at their leisure. Continue reading →