And so the twelfth chapter has to be rewritten.
Oh, well, it’s part of the job.
Fact is, my content editor pointed out a hole – the sort of hole through which a zeppelin might fly.
Basically – chapter twelve: our heroes escape from their cell and wreak havoc in the bad guy‘s (the bad gal’s, actually) base.
Enter the content editor: how comes they are prisoner and the bad gal locks ’em up together?
Implied question: is the bad gal stupid? Continue reading
It took more than one man to change my name to Shanghai Lily.
Roger Ebert called this line from Joseph von Sternberg‘s Shanghai Express “a masterpiece of understatement”.
Von Sternberg went to Shanghai, in order to research this movie. He described his experiences in a book called Fun in a Chinese Laundry.
Weird chap, that von Sternberg guy.
The story is set on the Shanghai-Beijing Express, in the thirties, as was and revolution rage across China.
But war and revolution are not as shocking, for the travelers on this train, than the presence among them of notorious prostitute Shanghai Lil.
Then one of them finds out she’s his former girlfriend. Continue reading
Our story has nothing to do with the present.
There is this card, at the very beginning of Joseph von Sternberg’s The Shanghai Gesture – a simple card, that shifts the action of this unusual pulpish noir shot in 1941 from the real world to a parallel dimension.
The card was placed there upon request by the censors – that were afraid the movie could have some bad effects on the morale of the men fighting in the Pacific.
It was 1941.
That card is one – but only one – of the many elements that make it one of the films I like to re-watch.
It’s stylish, cruel, as dark and as they come, and wildly exotic.
More musical references for my novel.
A selection of “fusion” from the ‘1930s and 1940s Shanghai musical scene.
A pity I can’t find and post the complete performance.
But anyway, enjoy!
Who were Maurine Karns and Pat Patterson?
I don’t have much information on this strange duo, but the fact that in 1936 they published a guide to Shanghai that’s one of the most cherished (and fun) pieces in my collection.
The book (which was reprinted a few years ago by always reliable Earnshaw Books) is called Shanghai – High Lights, Low Lights, Tael Lights.
And it is absolutely outrageous.
In a good way, mind you! Continue reading
It sometimes happens that I fall in love with my support characters.
Now, every series should have a handful of characters the hero can call upon when he gets in trouble – as heroes will.
Not properly a sidekick, more like a recurring character.
Think Marcus Brody and Sallah in the Indiana Jones movies.
Such characters provide support, continuity, and quite often an element of comedy that the hero can’t bring himself (being heroic AND funny is hard work indeed, for both hero and author).
More generally, they can voice the feelings and the thoughts the hero, for a number of reasons, can’t.
They can act as conscience, provide wise suggestions, or quite simply hand the hero the tool he needs, when he needs it.
The Battle of Shanghai is the sort of big, fat chunk of history that somehow gets lost in the fury of the years just before the start of WW2. I learned about it doing research for my novel.
But for all its pulp trappings and Chinese fantasy elements, what I’m writing is still a historical fantasy.
To me, historical fantasy means that history as we know it stays in place, but fantasy happens in the dark corners and hollow places that history books don’t cover.
I can’t change the course of events and still call it historical fantasy – it can be pseudo-historical fantasy, it can become a form of uchronia*, but historical fantasy it can’t be anymore.
Continue reading
Karavansara 