West of Constantinople, East of Shanghai

The Tumblr of the Karavansara Blog.

[karavansara]

Happy Holidays

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[karavansara]

Arabian Nights November

The experiment of re-reading Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October and writing about it on my Patreon was fun and successful, so I decided to do another experiment.Ever since I started blogging, I had this idea of doing a deep dive into the Arabian Nights, reading the stories in the book and then exploring history, folklore, narrative technique end the connections with film, TV, fantasy…

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[karavansara]

Thanks, Darby

A new review of my novel Dreams of Fire was posted on Amazon. I was initially confused by the mention of Darby – hawing one time been introduced as Daniele Menna instead of Davide Mana (I’ll have to tell you that story one day), I tend to be paranoid about names. But it turns out Darby is the narrator of the audiobook version of my novel – and so I owe them a big thank you, for contributing to…

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[karavansara]

Darby is the best

My name is pretty simple.I am called Davide Mana.I go by Dave in English for the simple fact that that final ‘e’ in my first name scares a lot of people.Because getting someone’s name wrong is fearfully impolite, and as soon as they see that final ‘e’ after David they start overthinking it… my goodness, how the heck is it pronounced? What if I got it wrong and look ridiculous? Why can’t the…

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[karavansara]

A Night in the Lonesome October... again

I found out about A Night in the Lonesome October about twenty years ago, thanks to my friend Eckhard.Which is strange, because I love Zelazny, and yet his final novel had gone unnoticed for almost a decade.I got me a copy, and read it in two days.It was not October. I think it was in April. But the book was great anyway. Written, apparently, on a dare – to show you could write a story and have…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #12 - The Hour of the Dragon

From December 1935 to April 1936, Weird Tales was the home of the only full-length Conan novel by Robert E. Howard, and it feels right to post about it as the last entry in this long Cimmerian September.I have been unable to do one post for every story as I planned – I am somewhat overworked (that’s good, my mortgage will be happy), I have problems with my eyesight, and I feel the tiredness of…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #11 - River, Shadows and Nails

You cannot but feel an almost physical, painful sense of surprise – you run headlong with the fantastical adventures of Conan, and all of a sudden it’s over.And not only that, because Robert E. Howard is no more. Beyond the Black River appears in the May 1935 issue of Weird Tales, that shares with The Flower-Women, by C.A. Smith and a reprint of Lovecraft’s Arthur Jermyn.It is, with little…

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[karavansara]

A box of Dreams

My novel Dreams of Fire will finally be available outside the US, and as a result I received a box with my author copies.So I thought, why not do what all popular writers do online, and post a photo?So here it is.

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #10 - Devil, Circle, Witch and Jewels

It’s been a busy week – and while I kept reading Conan, I had a hard time posting about it.So today I will bundle together a few items. Let’s start with Devil in Iron, a story I normally mix up with Shadow in the Moonlight – we start on an island, there are ancient ruins, and a young woman named Olimpia. Other Howard staples include: an unsavory Turanian nobleman has plans that involve Conan,…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #9 - Queen of the Black Coast

It’s May 1934 and Weird Tales hits the stands with an issue featuring stories by E. Hoffman Price and C.L. Moore and one of the most important stories in the Conan canon – Queen of the Black Coast is a game changer, covering a lot of the biography of the Cimmerian, and more.The story makes the cover, as it should. It’s a young Conan that boards an Argosean ship as he flees arrest after having…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #8 - Shadows in the Moonlight

This is another story I did a few months back for the Conan Re-Read, and you can find that post here. The story was originally published in the April 1934 issue of Weird Tales, and once again shows Howard trying a different structure, this time focusing on the point of view of the female protagonist, Olivia.

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #7 - Rogues in the House

The seventh Conan story, Rogues in the House, shares the pages of the January 1934 issue of Weir Tales with the usual suspects – Seabury Quinn, Clark Ashton Smith, Edmond Hamilton, Abraham Merritt, Howard Wandrey. H.P. Lovecraft appears in the mail section.The Howard story does not make the cover, but has other points of interest. The plot starts out almost hard-boiled – a nobleman is in danger…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #6 - The Pool of the Black One

The October 1933 issue of Weird Tales has possibly one of the most iconic covers of all time, and features the usual selection of stories, spearheaded as usual by Seabury Quinn. Both H.P. Lovecraft and Frank Bellknap Long have stories in the magazine, and Conan is back with the story The Pool of the Black One. The story is not particularly memorable – coming after The Tower of the Elephant is…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #5 - The Slithering Shadow

This is where I come in.The comic book adaptation of The Slithering Shadow marks the first time I became aware of Conan.The story was originally published in September 1933 issue of Weird Tales – and again made the cover. The Howard piece was the opener of an issue jam-packed with great stories: Edmond Hamilton and Seabury Quinn, Hugh B. Cave, Jack Williamson and Frank Bellknap Long. The story…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #4 - Black Colossus

And finally, in June 1933, Robert E. Howard and Conan finally make the cover of Weird Tales.The story is Black Colossus, and after the cosmic wonders of Tower of the Elephant, Conan is back to his initial formula. A kingdom in peril, an evil wizard, and a mighty battle. Awakened after 3000 years of undeath by a thief, the evil wizard Thugra Khotan, under the alias of “Nathok”, builds an army and…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #3 - The Tower of the Elephant

The Weird Tales issue for March 1933 hits the readers with yet another installment of Otis Adelbert Kline’s Buccaneers of Venus (that by now has got me curious enough that I’ll probably read it in October), yet another novelette by Seabury Quinn featuring Jules de Grandin, and then two stories by Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith. As luck would have it, The Tower of the Elephant and The…

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[karavansara]

Cimmerian September #2 - The Scarlet Citadel

January 1933 brings a new issue of Weird Tales, featuring the works of Murray Leinster, Edmond Hamilton, Seabury Quinn and a new installment of Otis Adelbert Kline’s Buccaneers of Venus (that again gets the cover). The letters section includes one from Jack Williamson.And halfway through the issue we find a new Robert E. Howard story featuring Conan the Cimmerian, the novelette The Scarlet…

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