Press cuts: Red Desert series

This is a list of articles, interviews, and reviews related to my science fiction series “Red Desert”.
New articles are added on the top.
Check them out!

Interview with Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on Nicolas Lemieux website (15 November 2022):
https://www.nicolaslemieux.com/post/rita-carla-francesca-monticelli

Review of the Red Desert series on Nicolas Lemieux website (6 July 2020):
https://www.nicolaslemieux.com/post/point-of-no-return

Review of the Red Desert series on SciFi Mind (14 May 2020):
https://www.scifimind.com/red-desert-series-by-rita-carla-francesca-monticelli-a-review/

Audio interview with Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on Origin: Stories on Creativity (9 May 2018):
https://youtu.be/l-vmO81v09Q?si=0EMll3EjQ_7EVWuX

Review of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Rae Of Light (13 April 2018):
https://raestoltenkamp.blogspot.com/2018/04/indie-intro.html

Review of Red Desert on The PanFuture Society (24 August 2016):
https://panfuture.org/blog/index_files/red-desert.html

Interview with Anna Persson (main character in Red Desert) on The Protagonist Speaks (20 July 2016):
https://theprotagonistspeaks.com/2016/07/20/anna-persson-of-red-desert-by-rita-carla-francesca-monticelli/

Review of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Jay Michael Wright II’s Writing Page (10 June 2016):
https://jmw2author.wordpress.com/2016/06/10/red-desert-point-of-no-return/

Review of Red Desert – Back Home on Knight Mist’s Blog (5 October 2015):
https://knightmist.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/red-desert-back-home-book-4-by-rita-carla-francesca-monticelli/

Review of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Readers’ Favorite (2 September 2015):
https://readersfavorite.com/book-review/red-desert

Review of Red Desert – Invisible Enemy on Knight Mist’s Blog (10 July 2015):
https://knightmist.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/red-desert-invisible-enemy-by-author-rita-carla-francesca-monticelli/

Writer In Progress: Red Desert – Point of No Return, written by Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on Come Walk on the Darke Side (28 February 2015):
https://darkeconteur.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/writer-in-progress-red-desert-point-of-no-return-written-by-rita-carla-francesca-monicelli/

Review of Red Desert – People of Mars on Knight Mist’s Blog (23 September 2014):
https://knightmist.wordpress.com/2014/09/23/people-of-mars-by-autor-rita-carla-francesca-monticelli/

Review of Red Desert – People of Mars on Laura of Lurking reads (1 September 2014):
https://lauraoflurkng.blogspot.com/2014/09/red-desert-people-of-mars-by-rita-carla.html

Video review and reading of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Doug Turnbull’s YouTube Channel (31 July 2014):
https://youtu.be/pRjC3oJc1sE?si=_AY4oTFFzlCxvdEn

Review of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Laura of Lurking reads (21 July 2014):
https://lauraoflurkng.blogspot.com/2014/07/red-desert-point-of-no-return-by-rita.html

Ten Plus One Questions with Author Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on Knight Mist’s Blog (14 July 2014):
https://knightmist.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/ten-plus-one-questions-with-author-rita-carla-francesca-monticelli/

Author Spotlight with Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on Fire & Ice Book Reviews (11 July 2014):
https://www.fireandicebookreviews.com/2014/07/author-spotlight-with-rita-carla.html

Review of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Just a storyteller (6 July 2014):
https://giovanniventuri.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/red-desert-point-of-no-return-by-carla-rita-francesca-monticelli/

Review of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Luca Rossi’s Blog (1 July 2014):
https://www.lucarossi369.com/2014/07/red-desert-point-of-no-return-by-rita-monticelli.html

Review of Red Desert – Point of No Return on Knight Mist’s Blog (30 June 2014):
https://knightmist.wordpress.com/2014/06/30/red-desert-point-of-no-return-by-author-rita-carla-francesca-monticelli/

Interview with Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on Mary T. Bradford’s Blog (15 June 2014):
https://marytbradford-author.blogspot.com/2013/06/all-author-blog-blitz.html

Interview with Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli on Now, Y’all (14 June 2014):
https://reginagarson.blogspot.com/2014/06/all-authors-blog-blitz.html

Learn more about the Red Desert series on www.reddesert.eu

New year, new resolutions: 2023

This thing of reviewing the year that just passed is getting a little stressful. Could it be because the further we go on the more it seems that twelve months go by in a flash?
Okay, kidding!
It’s not that stressful. On the contrary, it’s actually useful for me to collect my ideas, realising that deep down (very deep down) I did something again this year and therefore giving myself a virtual pat on the back, thanks to which it’s easier for me to continue to carry on my many resolutions.
Then, thinking about it, this 2022 seemed a little longer than the previous ones. Just a wee bit, huh! Without exaggerating.

But let us leave these pseudo-philosophical (?) considerations aside and return to the facts. You may be wondering whether or not I managed to complete the resolutions I declared a year ago.

To tell the truth, I made this task quite simple, since I had only one resolution, that is to complete the preparation of the English version of the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy.

Well, the first book in the series, “TheMentor”, was released on 30 November. The editions of the second, “Syndrome”, are all ready and the book is already available for pre-order. It will be published on 28 February 2023. Some editions of the third, “Beyond the Limit”, are also ready and available for pre-order. I still have to finish preparing the print ones, but there is no particular hurry, since the publication date is 31 May 2023.
So I can say that, as regards the preparation of the books and their publication, I have respected my intentions. Yay!

On the promotion front, however, I’m a bit behind.
In an ideal world, I should have had all the editions ready and available for pre-order as early as August, so that I could use the following three months to arrange the promotion and arrive prepared for the release of the first book.

Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world.
In reality, I only received the manuscript of the last book from my English proof-reader in May. I worked hard to complete the corrections and finally, after the umpteenth re-reading (also of the previous books), I found myself with the final version of the text.
And then summer arrived, with so many things to do (like going in holidays) and at the same time a lot of translation work to do.

Moreover, I started updating all the e-book editions of my books, in order to have a single epub version, with all the latest information inside, including all the necessary links (some didn’t work anymore). It was a job I had been carrying out since the beginning of the year and in some cases I also had to update the print versions.

Then, in May, I started experimenting with the possibility of making hardcover editions, so that I was prepared for when I would have to use this format with the English trilogy.
The object of my experiment was “Affinità d’intenti” (Italian book), which, being my shortest novel, allowed me to create a version in this format at an acceptable printing and list price.
For the occasion, I made a brand new cover based on the concept of the old one, but this time using photos. In particular, I used two shots by a Dutch photographer who lives in Sicily. This new cover has also become the official one for the e-book.

By the way, for the occasion, I created my new logo, which for now you can only see in the site icon on your browser and in a few other real (including the aforementioned hardcover edition) or virtual (like my YouTube channel) places.

The next step was adapting the cover also to the English edition, “Kindred Intentions”, both for the e-book and for the hardcover version. I also used it to create a second paperback edition, which is distributed via Ingram.
You can find out more about this edition and see some photos of the Italian one in the article you can find at this link.

The point is, in August I found myself with only the manuscripts of the trilogy in English in my hands and some ideas for adapting their covers (starting from their Italian version).
Since, in order to do things, you also need to know what you have to do, I sat down in front of a blank sheet (actually, a OneNote page) and drew up a detailed list of everything I should do to preparing books for publication and promoting them. Some entries then gave rise to new adjoining lists, until I finally got a real plan, which is still in progress.

At that point it was already September and I had to prepare my “Self-publishing laboratory” (a workshop) and a lecture for “Scienza & Fantascienza” (Science & Science Fiction), which I would then give in October.
At the beginning of October I finally returned to Varese to personally teach the workshop at the University of Insubria, after three years. How nice it was to be able to look students in the eye again!

(The first photo was taken in Varese, and you can see me together with Sara Simoni, a former student of my laboratory and now a fellow author.)

And two weeks later, I attended the conference, albeit remotely, since it was not possible to organise it during my short stay in Lombardy.
I have dedicated a separate article to the workshop and the conference that, if you wish, you can read at this link.

All this talk was to say that, basically, I turned around, and it was already November. And I was supposed to publish the first book within a month. Argh!
At that point, I really had to work hard.
Just think that the book has only one e-book version, but five different paper editions, each with a slightly different cover (two in the hardcover version and three in the paperback version). This is due to the fact that I have used multiple platforms to ensure that the book gets the widest possible distribution. It’s just that each platform has slightly different templates even for books in the same size.
In short, a long work!
But I’m glad I did it, because the covers came out really well. Check them out on the English trilogy mini website at this link.

However, all of this meant that I could only start promoting seriously after the release of “The Mentor”, so three months later, compared to the original plan.
Fortunately, self-produced books never expire.
So my main occupation at the moment is planning promotions and testing advertising platforms. I hope to see the first outcomes of all this work before the publication of the second book, in order to have a good domino effect on the third.
At the same time, I’m exploring other possibilities to exploit my rights, but I don’t want to go into details now. I’ll tell you more about it in the future if I see any opportunities materialise.

As you may have noticed, I didn’t mention any prequel to the trilogy (“La prova”, which in English would be “Evidence”). Well, as I feared, I didn’t have the time to deal with it at all. Not that I really wanted to write it, mind you, but even if I had fancied it a little, it wouldn’t have been of any use.
I have not completely ruled out the possibility of writing it in the near future, also because I always have the outline of the book ready in the drawer (it is literally in a handwritten sheet stored in a drawer), but if I just want to think of doing that, I must first complete the work started with the trilogy. We will see!

On the positive side, of the many entries on those lists that I mentioned earlier, at least half have been crossed out, which means I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I swear you I can hardly believe it!

It must also be said, however, that I didn’t spend twelve months always working in front of the PC. Apart from the fact that obviously in the summer, I spent a lot of time by the sea (and here the summer lasts from May to October), in July I went in holidays away from Sardinia (it was about time!) and, incredibly, I set foot abroad, even if only for a few hours.

I spent a wonderful week in South Tyrol, in particular in Puster Valley, from which I made a dutiful stop in Austria.

(The adjacent photo was taken on the cable car that connects Valdaora to the top of Plan de Corones, in the one below you can recognize the Three Peaks of Lavaredo taken from the observation point near Dobbiaco.)

The word wonderful, however, is absolutely reductive in describing how well I was during this holiday. You should know that I stayed there for a long time with my parents for the first time when I was still little more than a child (we are talking about more than three decades ago), in a small village called Villabassa (Niederdorf). I went there again in the mid-90s and then not anymore until last July. I was in South Tyrol again in the 2000s: once in 2001 for two days in Bressanone (to attend a concert) and then a few days in 2007 in Val Gardena, where Cagliari (the football team) was in retreat.

Well, when I set foot there again after a long time, I was delighted to discover that Villabassa hasn’t changed at all. After thoses decades, I remembered everything, I recognised every street (it’s not exactly a metropolis!) and I felt again that great feeling of peace that only the mountain can give you, combined in this case with pleasant reminiscences of a time of my life which was certainly much more carefree than the present.
We had been there for less than a day when my partner and I said to each other: we have to come back!
And I really think we will.

And if you’re curious to know how I spent the remaining time of 2022, in addition to the time spent dealing with my publishing business, translations, my beach life, and my holidays in the mountains, well, I spent it watching lots of tennis!
Eh, yes, it seems that this addiction of mine, which I already mentioned a year ago, continues. But on the other hand, if you have by chance kept an eye on my Facebook page or my Twitter profile or my Instagram stories, you were certainly already aware of it.
On the contrary, this December of abstinence (!) was quite hard. However, I consoled myself with figure skating (!!) and, obviously, with football, even if Cagliari has been making us suffer a bit in recent years.

Furthermore, there was no shortage of good films and especially good TV series to surround everything, with the addition of some good books, even if not many (lately I’ve been reading very little).

And finally, not content with the need to use English more and more, I decided to freshen up my German, now limping after years of little use, even in translations. I’ve been getting back to it little by little since last spring, without much haste. I’d like to bring it back at least to the level it was about ten years ago, to be able to exploit it more in my job as translator (and not only, as I did in July, to eavesdrop undisturbed the conversations between the hotel owner and German-speaking customers during my stay in South Tyrol).
Since I’m here, it wouldn’t hurt if I did the same with French, too.

Am I forgetting anything?
Ah yes, also this year I attended some MOOCs (massive open online courses) on FutureLearn: three in all. I find it more and more difficult to find something interesting that I haven’t already attended, but I don’t give up and keep looking.

Okay, let’s say that the report of the year that is about to end, albeit a bit chaotic, can be defined as complete. Now only the last part remains: setting resolutions for next year.

And this time too I intend to limit myself to the essentials.

1)      Finishing preparing and publishing the English edition of the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy. And being able to get as much as possible from the promotion, without however feeling too much disappointed if I can’t reach as many readers as I would like.
I admit that for me it is already a success to be able to publish it, after all the work done to translate it. Once it’s there for the English-speaking public, I’ll have something tangible to work with to make the most of its rights.

2)      Finishing updating all my sites to be mobile friendly and introducing new graphics, with my new logo. I had already started doing this in 2021. Then, during 2022, I created mini websites for the English editions of my books (including the trilogy and Red Desert). Now I have to convert the main one both in Italian (Anakina.net) and in English (Anakina.Eu) and the Italian one dedicated to the Aurora Saga (or maybe I’ll call it Aurora Chronicles).
I should also take a new official photo, since the one I use now is more than eight years old.

3)      Doing more physical activity. I really want to take this as a serious commitment.

If all goes as expected, I should complete the first two resolutions in less than a year, considering that they are both underway. This means that there will be time for more, but I absolutely don’t want to make plans about it.
In fact, one of my greatest wishes is completing everything, really everything, that I’m doing and finding myself one day with zero projects started. And at that point deciding, based on how I feel at that moment, which will be the next one to dedicate myself to.

Will it happen in 2023?
We’ll see and, hopefully, in a year’s time I’ll tell you all about it.

That’s all for this year, too.
As usual, I close by thanking all of you who follow me: family, friends, readers, colleagues, and collaborators.
Heartfelt thanks for the support you give me.

If you want, tell me in the comments of this article, or of the social networks where I’m sharing it, how your 2022 went and what you intend to do in 2023.
Have a good end and a good beginning!

Self-publishing in Varese and “Scienza & Fantascienza 2022”

After three years of absence due to the pandemic, at the beginning of October I finally returned to Varese to teach my “Self-publishing laboratory in multimedia systems” at the University of Insubria.

It was great to visit the campus again and be in the classroom with the students. In fact, even if teaching at a distance has obvious advantages for those like me who live so far from the place where they teach, first of all of an economic nature, being able to interact in person makes the experience much more rewarding, both for the teacher and for the students. Seeing understanding or doubt in their eyes makes you immediately understand if what you are communicating is being received correctly. Furthermore, the students themselves are more inclined to ask questions and interact, since each of their interventions is made easier by the use of a gesture or a facial expression that unfortunately is not visible remotely.

What made everything more pleasant was the good weather that welcomed me in Varese, which reduced the classic trauma of the transition from swimsuit to coat that each time characterises my autumn visits to this Lombard city.

This year, moreover, the laboratory has reached a real participation record, with 37 students eligible to receive credits/points, plus an auditor. The previous record of 24 in 2020 has been disintegrated to say the least. And this time the laboratory was not taught remotely, with the students who appeared as present while they were comfortably at home. I admit that on one occasion I feared that there was no room for everyone in the classroom! I was particularly pleased with this also because this record was accompanied by the commitment of the participants, demonstrated by the beautiful projects presented in the last lesson.

As always, it has ranged between different literary genres, from thriller to fantasy, from children’s book to cookbook, up to a culinary-tourist guide of Italy. In short, there was no lack of imagination, and the two imaginary book covers shown in this article are just a small example.
But in general, the students showed some interest in the subject. And it was a pity to have had to condense the arguments in just sixteen hours, a time that allows you to do just a rundown on the world of self-publishing without being able to dwell on some aspects that could have stimulated the discussion with the participants, in particular with those whose interest went beyond the mere achievement of eligibility to receive training credits or seminar points.

Also on this occasion, during my stay in Varese, I was given the opportunity by Professor Paolo Musso to talk about self-publishing for two hours during one of his lessons in the course of “Science and science fiction in media and literature”, which is also the only university teaching in Italy on science fiction. Instead, unfortunately I wasn’t able to participate in person in one of the conferences of “Scienza & Fantascienza” (Science & Science Fiction, which is linked to the course), since they started two weeks later. However, I played the role of remote speaker (the image below is a screenshot from Teams, through which I was connected directly from Mars… er… from Cagliari!).

 

In fact, on 25 October there was the inaugural meeting of 2022, in which space was given to the celebration of the tenth anniversary of this series of conferences and of the course, and I was able to give my contribution via Teams. Together with me, in person or remotely, eight other speakers participated: the aforementioned Paolo Musso, Giulio Facchetti (president of the degree course in Communication Sciences), Paolo Luca Bernardini (former director of DiSUIT), Nicoletta Sabadini (current director of DiSUIT), Rosanna Pozzi (professor of Italian literature at the Liceo Scientifico “Tosi” in Busto Arsizio), Gianfranco Lucchi (administrator of the science fiction website UraniaMania), Tea C. Blanc (journalist and science fiction blogger) and Antonio Serra (creator of “Nathan Never” for Sergio Bonelli Editore).

Each of us speakers contributed to celebrating this important anniversary in their own way.
Specifically, I explained the particular importance that the relationship between science and science fiction has for me precisely as the author of hard science fiction novels, that is, of that subgenre of science fiction in which importance is given to scientific plausibility of what is narrated. And in the four times that I have attended this series of conferences, I have treated this subject (scientific plausibility in science fiction) from different angles.
In 2014, I told how I had tried to imagine credible aliens. In 2018, I focused on how Mars and its colonisation are treated in science fiction and especially in my books. I did something similar in 2019 in reference to the Moon. While in 2020, the year in which all the conferences were held remotely, the topic was that of viruses and their positive and negative influence as an element of conflict within science fiction, and obviously in “Red Desert”, too.

In my books, adding real science in the story serves essentially two purposes.

The first is precisely that of the plausibility of the events narrated. This need stems from my scientific background. The scientist who is still in me claims to provide an explanation for everything around her. So, when I started writing science fiction (Red Desert and the following books), I spontaneously imagined a reality set in the near future that would find a possible confirmation in current scientific knowledge, while taking into account the possible technological evolution in 50 years.

To this is added my professional deformation as a teacher (I used to teach at university a long time ago, and now I do it precisely at Insubria) which pushes me towards an informative intent. I don’t use real science just to tell a plausible story, but also to leave something for the reader.
I love to read books that, in addition to providing fun, teach me something, and these are the books I want to write (it often applies to those in other genres). My intent is to be able to offer knowledge while entertaining, so that this knowledge remains even after reading. On the other hand, my stories are in turn inspired by my readings of novels, essays, and articles, typically scientific ones, as well as by the fruition of audiovisual contents that have in some way expanded my knowledge, as well as entertained me.

Then maybe, when I write, I go and double-check the sources (many of which are reported in a short bibliography) to try to be accurate or at least to avoid writing something that is clearly wrong. I’m not interested in going into overly technical details, but I prefer to give an informative cut, making sure to maintain some plausibility. When I insert scientific details, the purpose is to give a sense of authenticity to the story, but at the same time, I make sure that they are vague enough to avoid running the risk of misusing them within the fiction.
In fact, what I do is mix them with completely fictional ones. The mixture of the two means that often the reader is not able to recognise accurately the boundary between reality and fiction, that is, precisely, between science and science fiction.

These are some of the aspects I talked about in my short speech. However, the entire conference was recorded and will be made available soon. In due course I will inform you through my usual channels (Facebook page and other social media) and I will add the link or, if possible, the video to this article.

Finally, I want to thank Paolo Musso once again for the invitation and all the students, both those who attended the conference and, above all, those in my laboratory. I hope that what they have learned will somehow be useful to them in the future, and maybe that someone one day decides to venture into self-publishing for real!

Viruses and self-publishing at . . . a distance

Also in this strange 2020 that has just ended I managed to teach a class titled “Self-publishing laboratory in multimedia systems” for the students of Communication Sciences and Communication Sciences and Techniques of the University of Insubria (Italy) and to participate as speaker at one of the conferences of the cycle “Scienza & Fantascienza” (Science & Science fiction) organised by the same university, only this time I did it at a distance, staying at home in front of my computer screen. It was a different way than usual of dealing with these two commitments, which had both its good and bad sides.

As for the laboratory (from which my Italian book “Self-publishing lab. Il mestiere dell’autoeditore” is based), the fact that I didn’t have to go to Varese allowed me to spread it in a longer time span. We had two lessons a week between 12 and 23 October: two on Mondays and two on Fridays. This also allowed the students to have more time to assimilate the concepts and prepare the publication simulation project.
Another non negligible advantage is the fact that having to participate from home has made participation in itself easier. In my case it meant avoiding travelling from Cagliari and the expenses related to my stay in Varese. In the case of students, it allowed more of them to participate, since they too, in their own small way, no longer going from home to university, from one site to another and from one classroom to another, ended up with more time available. And in fact this year I had 24 students who successfully completed the laboratory.

On the other hand, the disadvantage was the lack of live interaction, in person. Throughout the lesson, they and I were both in front of a screen. I was speaking and I could neither see nor hear them, except when they had a question to ask me or I would ask them something. Silence is the worst thing, but even looking at a screen with icons and names gives only the slightest idea of having someone on the other side who sees and hears you.
I missed to be able to see in their faces how they received what I was talking about and to realise if it was necessary to repeat some concepts. I missed hearing their exclamations, the real-time comments and also the laughs, both during my lectures and the exposition of the other students’ projects; all things that make lessons in person a stimulating and satisfying human experience.
Furthermore, while it is true that having to work from home is comfortable and has made me save money and time, I missed spending a week in Varese, the city, the friends I have made over the years (including a feline one), breathing the air of the university environment, even the campus canteen and the restaurant where you always ended up having dinner. These are all things that give me a great sense of satisfaction, but also of professional fulfilment, and which this year I had to do without.

Despite all this, I am very satisfied with how the laboratory went. Also this year the students showed participation and interest, as much I was able to appreciate that from a distance. And they proposed publication projects among the most varied. Once again spanning among many literary genres.
In the second and third photos of this article you can see two of them, an essay and a novel. These are screenshots (appropriately pixellated for privacy reasons) that I saved live during the lesson.
In the bottom right corner you can also see that I’m there, with my sci-fi background!

And then there was the conference, which was held in the afternoon of 14 October, as part of the series of conferences “Scienza & Fantascienza 2020 - Non solo virus. I nemici invisibili (Science & Science Fiction 2020 - Not just viruses. The invisible enemies)” and titled “Portatori di morte... ma anche no: i virus e la vita sulla Terra e oltre la Terra” (Bearers of death ... but also not: viruses and life on Earth and beyond the Earth”). The topic is that of both negative and positive role of viruses in real science and science fiction.
The speakers of the event, organised and moderated by Paolo Musso, were: Sebastiano Fusco (science fiction critic), Antonio Serra (Sergio Bonelli Editore, creator of “Nathan Never”), Silvia Corbetta (Sergio Bonelli Editore, designer of “Nathan Never”), Rita Carla Francesca Monticelli (biologist and science fiction writer), that is me, and Alberto Vianelli (biologist, University of Insubria).

The entire conference is available in the video below (the first photo of this article comes from that video, where you can also admire, for the occasion, my Martian background), which unfortunately is in Italian.
My speech (starts at 1:19:33), in particular, deals with the role of a virus in the plot of “Red Desert”. I can’t go into too much detail, as it contains heavy spoilers about the series. I can only tell you that I emphasised how the virus represents an element of conflict in the story. It does not generate a pandemic, but it is both a means of a possible alien invasion (it’s an alien virus) and an element that causes an evolution in infected people. The typically negative role it usually plays in fiction is much less clear here and is characterised by more positive shades.
I can’t say more. You will have to read the books of the series and, in the future, as soon as they are available in English, the remaining ones in the Aurora Saga.

The other interventions were also very interesting, but my favourite was that of Alberto Vianelli, who spoke about viruses from a scientific point of view and, even if we had not agreed in advance, his speech connected perfectly to mine.

But I want to say that, as far as this type of event is concerned, remote participation had some unexpected advantages. Even though we weren’t all sitting next to each other, I had the impression at times that we were really facing each other, perhaps around a table. I didn’t see the audience, except in the form of a list of hundreds of names, so it almost felt like we were having a long and interesting chat with friends, despite the distance between us.

In short, all in all it was a good feeling and an undoubtedly positive experience.
But I hope that in the future we can all go back to being in the same room again, to collect in real time the reactions of the audience, the looks, the smiles, the nodding heads and, let’s face it, even the applause.

The Moon and self-publishing in Varese

In 2019, during which the fiftieth anniversary of the first landing on the Moon was celebrated, I returned to Varese to teach, for the third time, my “Self-publishing laboratory in multimedia systems” for students in Communication Sciences and Communication Sciences and Techniques at the University of Insubria. And in conjunction with this course, I spoke at a conference, together with three other speakers, dedicated to the day of the landing of Armstrong and Aldrin on the Sea of Tranquillity, which took place on 20 July 1969.

Compared to previous years, first of all I managed to go to Varese in October, for the first time not just before the end of the semester, which also had a good impact on the students, who were able to attend the course in a much more relaxed way. In addition, I managed to combine everything (course and conference) within one week.

This full immersion was, as far as I’m concerned, very satisfying. I had less time to be a tourist (to be honest, I didn’t have any at all), but on the other hand I was able to create a productive routine, without interruptions, of five days in a row. Furthermore, I saw the same positive effect on the students, who at the end of the course presented, as always, some very interesting projects and who showed that they liked the topic of the lessons and the way it was taught.

In fact, I should say female students, since for the first time ever they were all women!

This surprised me a bit. In past years, men had been at least one third, although the female presence had always been predominant (as it is within the two graduation courses), but this time there wasn’t even one.

As I said, in five days I taught the four lessons and gave my lecture at the conference. The latter, entitled “The day of the Moon”, took place on Wednesday 16 October 2019, just in the middle of that week. Together with me were the journalist Fabio Pagan, Piero Benvenuti (former Italian Space Agency commissioner and former general secretary of the AIU) and, in connection from Paris, the astronaut Franco Malerba (the first Italian astronaut in space!).

The event, organised by Paolo Musso as part of a series of meetings titled Science and Science Fiction 2019, was welcomed by a very large student audience (over 300), partly gathered in one of the largest classrooms in the Monte Generoso pavilion at the Campus Bizzozero in Varese and partly connected in teleconference from Como. As usual, it was recorded and is now available at this link (in Italian).

In about three and a half hours, we had the opportunity to retrace the endeavour of Apollo 11, thanks to the words and images offered by the great Fabio Pagan, who managed to take us 50 years in the past and let us experience the emotions of that time.

Well, in my case, not really, since I wasn’t born yet! But it vividly reminded me of what I felt in the summer of 1989, for the twentieth anniversary, when as a teenager (I was 14 years old) I watched a television special on Rai Uno with the original videos of the landing. I remember that at the time I had felt transported to the Moon together with Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins. My imagination, which had already been made into fertile ground by watching various science fiction films, was stimulated, so much so that I think that from that moment on I changed the way I look at our natural satellite. Perhaps it was from there that my passion for space began to emerge, from a scientific point of view too, which then would have brought me closer to Mars and ultimately to imagine stories set in the future.

The Moon, in my mind, is the symbol of space that we can all see and which at the same time is unreachable for the common person. Not surprisingly, when we desire something impossible, it is said that we want the Moon. Yet we went to the Moon; 12 men walked on it. It is therefore the unreachable that becomes reachable, the impossible that becomes possible.

The other significant part of the conference was the very interesting speech by Franco Malerba who spoke to the audience about what awaits us in the future of space exploration, while Piero Benvenuti and I were asked to have our say on both topics.

In the photos, from above, you can see: Piero Benvenuti and me, Fabio Pagan, me again during my speech and Franco Malerba in connection from Paris. All the photos of the event are available at this link (thanks to Luigi Labate for the photographic support!).

As far as I’m concerned, I wanted to combine the scientific topic with the science fiction one, talking about three relatively recent science fiction novels that have precisely the Moon as one of the main settings.

I started with “Limit” by Frank Schätzing, originally published more than ten years ago, which shows a slightly too optimistic technological advance, being set in this new decade, which however manages to make the reader dream, literally by bringing him to the lunar soil, in hostile, lethal and for this reason mysterious and fascinating places (you can read my review of “Limit” here).

If you think about it for a moment, unlike what happens with Mars, which visually reminds us of Earth (it seems you are looking at photos of an Earth desert), in front of the images from the Moon there is no doubt in our mind that there we are looking at an alien context, in the meaning of non-terrestrial. Think about it: its white/grey ground, the always black sky, whose contrast with the blinding white prevents you from seeing the stars, Earth that seems close but very distant (almost 400 thousand kilometres!), the clear shadows, the days that last 14 Earth days and so the nights, the huge temperature fluctuations, the craters at its poles with the edges so high that they are almost always illuminated by the Sun, while their bottom has not been reached by any light for 4 billion years.

Can you imagine a more terrifying place to be alone?

The second book I mentioned is, of course, “Artemis” by Andy Weir (here you can read my review), published in 2017, which found itself more or less casually (we will never know) to share its name with NASA’s new lunar program.

This novel is also essentially a thriller, but in a very accurate sci-fi context, that of a city on the Moon: a huge pressurised housing structure in which a lot of people live, not all with the best of intentions. Although the vicissitudes of the protagonist are all in all very terrestrial (in terms of motivations), they are however narrated in a much more rigid and dangerous environment than Earth, where a person’s mistake can really kill everybody.

Finally I talked about “Red Moon” by Kim Stanley Robinson (here is my review), published in 2018, which narrates about a Moon divided between Chinese and Americans, focusing however on a Chinese point of view. The socio-political aspect here is more important, but there is also some breathtaking landscape, such as the view of Earth rising in the libration areas (those areas of the Moon that are turned towards our planet only for short periods during the lunar month). Well, imagine being there and seeing Earth popping up from the horizon, very slowly.

It seems incredible, but one day someone will be able to admire that view!

An interesting thing about Robinson’s book is that it narrates about a future in which humans have created bases on the ever-lit edges of the craters at the poles of the Moon (Peaks of Eternal Light), just as NASA plans to do. Except that for the author it will be China the country to grab the South Pole, more suitable for this purpose, which instead is the actual goal of the Americans.

Who knows how it will end in reality?

If you remember, I myself in “Red Desert” imagined a NASA outpost in Shackleton Crater (South Pole), calling it Armstrong Lunar Base. Furthermore, although I have never written (at least so far) a book entirely set on the Moon, I let myself be taken by the old fascination for our satellite and I put some lunar adventures in two other books. One is “Ophir. Codice vivente” (Ophir. Living code; only available in Italian so far). The other is “Nave stellare Aurora” (Starship Aurora), which I am currently writing, and the second part of it, which I had finished writing a few days before leaving for Varese, takes place exactly on the Moon.

I must say that in a sense I still felt there.

And this is the effect that I think ordinary people feel when talking about space travel. We feel a bit part of it. We are fascinated by the mystery, by the ability to reach something so far thanks to science. Even if what we want to achieve is far in space, but also in time (due to travel times), observing what space research has done so far makes us believe that any obstacle that exists between us, as humanity, and that space objective may sooner or later be overtaken.

In this regard, I urged the attending students of Communication Sciences (most from the first year) to understand the importance of being able to communicate space sciences effectively. Those of them who will work in this field of communication will have a fundamental role in inspiring people and in ensuring that a common desire, involving people at all levels, develops and spreads, to carry out this kind of research, even if a part of its outcomes will be enjoyed only by future generations.

I think that everything related to space sciences can only inspire us to do more and more for the development and well-being of humanity. On the other hand, if we were able to send two probes to the border of the Solar System and beyond (the two Voyager probes), who can stop us?

Going back to the course, I must say that I am very happy with the participation shown by the students. They attended it with interest, asked pertinent questions and then proposed extremely interesting projects, from a graphic novel to a historical fantasy (the cover of which can be seen in the last image), from stories taken from reality to a thriller about Lady D (really!), going through a romance novel: a collection of publishing proposals for all tastes and with a considerable dose of originality.

As I have already mentioned to them, I am working on a book that follows and expands the topics of the course. It will be titled “Self-publishing lab. Il mestiere dell’autoeditore” (only available in Italian, as it’s referred to the Italian market). It is a huge volume of over 129 thousand words, in which I try to explain self-publishing to those interested in this publishing model, whether they want to try it in person or not. I think it will be useful both for those who do not know where to start and for those who need to reorganise and expand their knowledge so that they can try to put it into practice. It is also my first experience with a non-fiction work and I admit that I really enjoyed writing it.

The book is currently under revision and will be published by the first half of 2020.

A space weekend in Turin

In October 2018 I had the opportunity to participate in the second edition of the event titled “Signs and Voices of Other Worlds” organised in the headquarters of ALTEC in Turin. It was a fantastic experience during which I was busy for two days in what is defined The Italian Gateway to the International Space Station, as stated in the huge inscription at the entrance, and allowed me to meet many interesting people, as well as talk about my work.

The event itself, the one open to the public, lasted only one day, 14 October, but we (my partner and I), as exhibitors, also went to the headquarters of ALTEC the day before to prepare our booth. It was the first time I attended an event like this. It was nice to arrange all my science-fiction books (eight titles in several copies) on a table, along with other promotional stuff, but also to view in advance the scale model exhibition, which included really extraordinary works of art.

In addition to this, we had the pleasure of making a short private visit to the factory together with Paolo Navone, who led us to see, among other things, the control room, the replica of a module that is part of the ISS and the pool used for astronaut training, and who guided us, explaining the role of ALTEC in the construction of the space station and other international space missions. Among these is that of the ESA IVX mini shuttle, to which Paolo himself participated.

The day ended in a beautiful dinner together with some people who had organised the event (belonging to CRAL ALTEC and Centro Modellistico Torinese ) and others who would participate. In addition to enjoying the company of Marco Ambrosio (who, together with Paolo, invited me to participate in the event) and his wife, we met some of the modellers, among whom I cannot avoid to mention Sandro Degiani, who led the conversation among the people seated next to him (myself included), and Professor Giancarlo Genta, here in the role of author of science fiction novels. The legendary Giovanni Mongini, called Vanni, Italian author and great expert in science fiction, joined the group, who I had met a few hours earlier at the factory and whom I would find myself in the booth across mine the next day.

And then came the day of the event. The first two hours were the easiest part. I had the opportunity to present my “Red Desert” series in the auditorium as part of the speech called “Female Mars”, moderated by Maurizio Maschio. Along with me there was Giulia Bassani, who presented her novel “Ad Martem 12” (and was also my neighbour at the exhibition).

Both were asked how we came into contact with science fiction and what prompted us to start writing it. I said how I grew up among ET, Back to the Future, Star Wars (hence my nickname Anakina), the Visitors and many other films and TV series that have brought me closer to the genre and how it stimulated my imagination. I had many stories in my mind and at a certain point I realised that the only way to make them real was to write them down.

Immediately after the presentation, I returned to my booth, where I welcomed some of the people who had listened to me in the auditorium and wanted to buy one of my books.

As I said earlier, however, the difficult part would come later. Starting from 11.30 a.m. new visitors entered (they were divided into groups of up to 200 people for two hours each, to avoid overcrowding) who did not know who I was. It was up to me to draw their attention.

I think the phrase I used most often was: “Would you like to take a postcard?”

I had with me a lot of promotional postcards of “Red Desert” to offer visitors and I used them to induce people to stop at my booth, so that I could explain them something about my books. Keep in mind that I gave away 54 postcards and for most of them I stopped a person so that I could tell them the beginning of the story of Anna Persson and the structure of the Aurora Saga. I repeated it so many times that my other neighbour, Roberto Azzara, learned it by heart!

I must say that my effort was repaid and I managed to sell more than half the books I had with me. And so I also avoided having to send them back to Sardinia by post.

Throughout the day (the event lasted from 9.30 a.m. to 8 p.m.) I had the opportunity to talk with a lot of people and among these I found myself in front of an unsuspecting reader, who, only after seeing the covers, recognised my books and realised he had in front of him the author of the e-books on his mobile phone. It’s the first time that I happen to come across one of my readers by chance and it was really nice to meet him.

That’s not all. A colleague of mine from Turin also came to meet me: Luca Rossi, independent author of science fiction and fantasy, who is my friend on Facebook since 2012 and who I finally managed to meet in person. I was also delighted to meet Dario Tonani (also a science fiction writer and long time friend on Facebook) and his wife Giusy again, whom I had already met at Sassari Comics & Games 2015.

In all that chitchat and after taking some photos with my booth’s neighbours (Giulia, Roberto and Vanni, which I mentioned before, and Luigi Petruzzelli of Edizioni della Vigna) the hours flew, interspersed with some short breaks to admire and photograph the scale models exposed, and go to observe the Sun and then the Moon at the telescope, thanks to the observation posts set up by Celestia Taurinorum.

In the end, tired but happy, we left. The next day, waiting to take the flight that would take us back to Cagliari, at the Caselle Airport we came across the actual ESA mini shuttle XVI, exposed in the check-in area. A souvenir photo with the spacecraft was the worthy closure of this beautiful weekend.

I take this opportunity to thank once again Marco Ambrosio and Paolo Navone, who invited me to participate in this event. Thank you so much!

Photos (from above): during my speech together with Maurizio Maschio, my booth, entrance of ALTEC, view from inside the replica of a module of the ISS, with Luca Rossi, on Mars (more or less) with Giulia Bassani.

You can see more photos, including those of many scale models on display, on my Facebook page at this link.

New year, new resolutions: 2019

Hey, is 2018 already finished? This time the year passed quickly, perhaps because I was much more busy with projects that have engaged me for several months. And maybe also because I had more fun, especially in the second half.

And so, given that the year is coming to an end, the time has come for my traditional report of the past twelve months.

Let’s start as usual with listing which resolutions of the past year I managed to complete:

- I managed to write and publish (30 November) the Italian book “Sirius. In caduta libera” (Sirius. Free Falling), the fourth part in the Aurora Saga, which is also my thirteenth published book. The work on this novel took me more time than the previous ones, mainly because I had only a few notes put aside and I had to plot it almost completely just before starting the first draft (in mid-February). It was my hardest book to write so far, but it’s also one of those I’m most satisfied with. I managed to unite all the threads of the previous parts of the saga and add the missing link in its story. It is a hard science fiction novel that also represents my tribute to astronautics, a topic that has always fascinated me, as it narrates a story that takes place largely in the Earth orbit, although in a not very near future (in about a century);

- I finished my own English translation of “The Mentor” within the first months of the year, just like I had decided. This new translation, which is already revised, will stay in my computer for the moment. I wanted to start at least the translation of the second book in the Detective Eric Shaw Trilogy, but there was no time to do it. Anyway, I am happy with this result;

- I read longer books and above all I read almost exclusively books that I liked a lot. I have no idea how many, but the number does not matter. The important thing is to have read every day something that amused me, maybe taught me something, and in particular that made me feel good. Because the purpose of reading for me is just this: make me feel good. Therefore it makes no sense to make challenges about pages or books read. They are all nonsense.

A resolution is missing from this list. In fact, those listed at the end of last year were four. I have not finished writing the book on self-publishing that I started in 2017. I didn’t actually resumed writing it, because my time and commitment were redirected to more urgent matters.

What else did I do in 2018?

I translated into Italian another book by Richard J. Galloway, “Saranythia Part 2 - The Varton”, which will soon be released in Italy (I gave him the final translation a few days ago). This is the sequel to “Saranythia Part 1 - The Gates of Setergard”, released in autumn 2017 and in which the protagonists of his previous novel “Amantarra” (released in Italian in 2013) return. The Italian translations of these two books were also made by me.

In October I participated in the event “Segni e voci altri mondi” (Signs and voices of other worlds), which was held at the headquarters of ALTEC in Turin (where half of the ISS was built). I’ll soon publish a report of my participation on this blog (stay tuned).

At the beginning of December, moreover, I also conducted a lecture about Mars (together with two of the Italian scientists who recently discovered a liquid water underground lake on the Red Planet) and I taught my self-publishing class at the University of Insubria in Varese . I’ll also post a report of this experience very soon.

Without considering the duration of my stay away from home, this commitment has taken away much time in the previous months so that I could prepare for it.

I also attended eight MOOCs (mass online open courses), among which the most interesting ones were The Science of Nuclear Energy and The Science Behind Forensic Science. The latter is very well done, as it shows with videos the work of the forensic scientist from their point of view both in the field and laboratory.

Finally, from May on, I started to take more care of the advertising of my books on Facebook, in particular those of the Aurora Saga in Italian. With a view to the release of the fourth book in the series, I decided to concentrate my efforts so as to obtain the best possible result.

And I must say that I succeeded.

I learned to make better use of the paid tools provided by Facebook and at the same time I increased the effectiveness of the free ones in getting a better organic results for my posts. This resulted in a noticeable increase in engagement on my Facebook page and in an evident positive effect on my books’ sales.

I could not do anything else (not that all this is not enough), because the writing from scratch, the revision and publication of “Sirius. In caduta libera” absorbed me practically starting from mid-February (I finished the first draft including 114 thousand words at the end of June) until the release date of the book, leaving little time and especially little energy to use in other projects, also because at the same time I found myself translating a book and preparing a course and a lecture.

On the other hand, I had decided not to cause more stress to myself than what was necessary and I am happy I did less, but did it better.

But now 2019 is coming and it’s time to set some new objectives:

1) complete the first draft of “Self-publishing lab: il mestiere dell’autoeditore”, but this time for real! Most likely I will teach the class in Varese again next autumn and by then I would like to have the book available, although not necessarily in the final version. It will also provide me with the opportunity to partly update the course and offer some more tools to my students;

2) translate “Syndrome” into English and maybe even start the translation of “Beyond the Limit”. I have promised to myself that by 2020, one way or another, I will publish (or start publishing) the Detective Shaw Trilogy in English. Actually, once the Aurora Saga has finished (which will happen in 2020), I want to commit myself to translating and publishing in English all my books not yet available in this language, and in general to make the most of everything I’ve written so far to make it reach a larger audience;

3) start working on “Nave stellare Aurora” (Starship Aurora), the final book in the Aurora Saga. It is a long novel whose purpose is to worthily conclude the story of Anna, Hassan, Melissa, Alicia and Susy, and to do that, I need to work on it in a wider period, in order to make the most of its potential;

4) and then, as always, read many beautiful books. This is always the simplest resolution to accomplish!

Me at ALTEC (Turin).

I have only four resolutions again, but this time I want to complete them all. Will I manage to do it?

There are also other things I’d like to do.

At the moment, I did not impose myself to publish any book in 2019. I need not to set this particularly demanding deadline for at least a while. I’ll decide on the way.

Of course, I want to continue working on advertising and promotion to improve the economic return of my job and make it less dependent on external events on which I have no control.

Also I would like to experiment other ways to use what I have already written and my writing skills to develop new projects of which I still prefer not to say anything (at least until I really start working on it, if I ever do it).

What I feel with certainty is that my seventh year as a self-publisher will be crucial, since it represents the approach to the conclusion of the Aurora Saga, which, with the four books of “Red Desert” and the next four, is undoubtedly my most important series, the one with which my adventure in self-publishing began and which is the main motivation that pushed me to continue it, between highs and lows.

What will happen next is still a mystery, but one of those that don’t scare me, but stimulate me. A mystery which I’m facing with curiosity.

In closing, as always, I thank all those who follow and support me, all my loved ones, friends, collaborators and readers, both old and new.

Thank you for being there.

If you like, let me know your new year’s resolutions with a comment on this post or on the social networks where I share it.

I wish you all a happy 2019!