Zappa e Spada - Founding Fathers and Sons of the Gleba

"Zappa e Spada - Founding Fathers and Sons of the Gleba" is the new collection of short stories published by Acheron Books, which sums up the very essence of Spaghetti Fantasy / i.

Finding ourselves in front of a product, of which some of the authors are known as in the case of "Zappa e Spada - Founding Fathers and Sons of the Gleba“, It is not always easy to give an objective evaluation. It is a fairly human problem after all.

So, as often happens, I find myself making an evaluation that is the synthesis of objectivity and subjectivity.
In the past, on these pages, we have already talked about some products of the Acheron Books (Eternal War - The Armies of Saints e Italian Way of Cooking), today two of these authors are part of the thirteen chosen to walk in the footsteps of the Founding Fathers of literature, linked to the fantastic, which has always been present in Italy.

Not only did they have the honor and the burden of walking the path of the great ones of the past, but together with them we find Mauro Longo, which we got to to interview and to review in past, Roberto Recchioni, that we all know, for better or worse, or have heard of, Vanni Santoni no longer locked up in "The deep room"(Whose book you can find in digital o papery), who signed the introduction, and many others.

Why Founding Fathers and Sons of the Gleba?

The novel of "Zappa e Spada - Founding Fathers and Sons of the Gleba”Is a fun, clever game that mixes cards and stories, as we know them.

For those who are used to reading the great classics of Italian culture, we can see in the stories of the Sons of the Gleba the Founding Fathers, from Italo Calvino, to Ludovico Ariosto, to Dante and Boccaccio and all those who have given a different cut to the literature of the our country.

However, those who have marked the path of fantastic literature today have been, in a way, forgotten. It is certainly a somewhat strong stance, but in our country and beyond, indulging in fantastic literature, at least in the last fifty years, has been seen as a sort of “waste of time”.

When an author "had" to be ostracized, in the past, he was relegated to the science fiction department. A clear example we had with Kurt Vonnegut with his Slaughterhouse N. 5.

The Sons decided to bring the Fathers back into vogue and, in addition to telling their own story, they revived the stories of the giants in their pages.

Zappa and Sword. Structure of the work

As previously mentioned, the book is structured as a collection of short stories.

Thirteen writers have indulged in telling thirteen stories, as thirteen are the zodiac signs and the right seats at the table.

These tales, sometimes written in a sort of vulgar language, or using the most archaic and obsolete terms, tell the stories of knights, of arms and loves, of more or less daring enterprises, of the last ranks of society and of "bouquets of cards ".

A story struck me in a particular way, that of Davide Mana. Do you remember him? We got to interview him about the work he did for Hope & Glory recently delivered to lenders.
Davide with his story "The Queen of Swords"Brings us nearby, if not even inside,"The castle of crossed destinies”Or so I wanted to imagine it. The short story is not only well written and has a structure uroboric, but manages to reconstruct and present Italo Calvino to us in a "new" way, to help the new generations to get closer to one of the old Fathers.

Conclusions and personal opinions (because it was not enough for me before)

Have the Sons therefore decided to follow in the footsteps of the Fathers and be relegated to the fantastic? The answer is yes! I also add a thank you, to them who sacrificed themselves for us and to Acheron Books, for giving birth to a new publication of Zappa e Spada.

It is not easy to stand on the shoulders of giants, but the mere fact of having tried it should convince people, interested in literature in all its forms, to give the book a chance that you can find in both digital and papery.

To conclude, I must be sincere with you. The first volume of Zappa e Spada had not impressed me very much, especially for the fact that I was not ready to accept Italian fantasy writers, but this second work also made me want to re-read the first and look at the work with different eyes, older and, I hope, less obtuse.
They like to call themselves arms ripped from agriculture and unworthily lent to fiction, but in reality they are not. Seeing is believing!