The Ministry of Thunder | Karavansara

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 →

19 February 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

The Ministry of Thunder Scrapbook

As I often mentioned in the past, I use Pinterest as a tool for collecting visual references while writing.
I did so while working on The Ministry of Thunder, setting up a secret Pinboard to keep all my visual references in one place.
Now that the novel is out (both as an ebook and a paperback), I no longer need to keep my reference material secret – so here’s a selection from the aforementioned Pinboard.

Enjoy.

17 February 2015
by Davide Mana 8 Comments

The Bug in the Ministry, and an apology to my readers

I repost here the official communication from my publisher.
I’ll add a few lines at the bottom.

Dear readers,

like all start-ups, in Acheron we are working 24/7 to keep the artistic and technical quality standards we have set for ourselves. From the early results, we think we are getting a lot of positive feedback from both our readers and the professionals in the field.

And yet, we remain fallible, and we did actually make a mistake. The novel The Ministry of Thunder was published with parts of the text missing. Acheron is a software company, and in software development “bugs” happen.

In this case, the bugs required us to do a new version of the ebook. For this reason, the defective version of the file has already been replaced by a new, bug-free version of The Ministry of Thunder.
We feel it is our duty towards our readers to inform you of these facts.

If you bought your copy of The Ministry of Thunder from an online store before February the 3rd 2015, please get in touch with us at info@acheronbooks.com, and we will replace your ebook. Those of you that bought the ebook on our website at http://buff.ly/16WUaHj will be mailed the correct files in the next few days.

We blundered. This should not have happened, but it did. This is inexcusable, and we want to apologize to our readers. Rest assured that this will only make us more vigilant in order to make this kind of problem impossible from now on.

Acheron Books – the team and the author.

I can only add that I feel personally responsible for this – and that I am extremely sorry that my readers were given a buggy version of my book.

Currently, both the ebook and the paperback are bug-free – and I think anyone that bought the ebook through Amazon may set his file straight by synchronizing it with the latest version. Otherwise, just get in touch with the fine guys at Acheron Books.

As a further way to apologize to my readers, I hope they will accept a free copy of my new story – which was originally intended only for the participants at my Facebook party. It seems to me the least I can do.
I will post a link for the download in a few hours.
Thank you for your patience and support.

17 February 2015
by Davide Mana 5 Comments

Character Profile – Felice Sabatini

“Don’t overestimate me.”

Things are moving fast. Time to talk about the hero of The Ministry of Thunder, the big guy himself, Felice Sabatini.

The official version states that the character of Felice Sabatini came to me after I found out about the Chiang Kai-shek government contracting a squadron of Italian fighter pilots in the 1930s, in a strange dress rehersal of what would be the adventure of Claire Chennault‘s Flying Tigers.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it – but it’s only part of the story.

Let’s see… Continue reading →

16 February 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

New Story Cover and #Giveaway

So, as you read this I’m writing the last 1000 words or so of my new story, a prequel of sorts to The Ministry of Thunder.
Then I’ll inflict it on my wonderful editrix¹, and once she’s cut it with her steely knife, and I’ll have revised it, I’ll turn it into a .mobi and an .epub file – so everybody will be happy.

The short story will be given away for free to the friends that will join us on the 19th (or 20th, depending on your time zone), for the online Ministry of Thunder party on Facebook.

We’ll be celebrating the new paperback version of The Ministry of Thunder, and the Chinese New Year.
And give away as many copies of the new story as possible.

Not sure yet?
Well, maybe you’d like to take a look at the cover of the new story. Continue reading →

14 February 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Tientsin, 1934

Know what?
I’m writing.
And believe it or not, despite what I said before, I’m back in China in the 1930s.
But not in Shanghai.
Somewhere up north and east instead.

Tientsin – which today is called Tianjin – was a Treaty Town, back before the Second World War: the eight countries that had fought against the Boxers in 1901 each got a piece of the city, and maintained there a concession enjoying extraterritorial status.
And this included Italy. Continue reading →

10 February 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

The Ministry of Thunder in paperback

Just a quick heads-up to inform all interested parties that my first novel, The Ministry of Thunder, is now available in paperback through Amazon.com¹.

The book is a hefty 350 pages trade paperback with Antonio de Luca’s gorgeous cover and, underneath that cover, a story that’s not half bad, if I do say so myself.

It goes for less than fifteen bucks, which is pretty reasonable.
And if you’re feeling cheap, you can still get a copy of the ebook for a third of that price.

Now we have something else to celebrate at the all-nite-long Virtual Shanghai Party I’m throwing online on the 19th of this month, right at the beginning of the Year of the Goat. ↩