#Spooktober 1: Vetala Panchavimshati

October 1, 2022

The Vetala Panchavimshati, also known as The Twenty-five Tales of Baital (Baital Pachisi) is a collection of Sanskrit tales and legends placed within the frame story of king Vikrama who promises a sorcerer (vamachari) that he will capture a creature. The collection of tales has been known at least since the XI Century and its stories are very popular up to these days.

The set of tales, with the main prompt being the capture of the creature, provides the oldest account of this ghoul-like spirit who hangs upside-down from a tree and interacts with the material world by possessing corpses, known as the vetala.

Vikramāditya (the king) tries to capture the creature several times, but each time the vetala tells a story and the story ends with a riddle: if the King proves unable to solve it, the creature flees capture. Eventually, it will turn out that things are not as they seem when it comes to friends or foes.

Read about it on my Patreon!

books and literature

The Bicentennial Man (and other stories)

If not for the single story where they cure depression by blasting jazz against brainwaves (not how depression works, I’m afraid), one of the best collections I’ve read so far. It has the sequel of “Marooned off Vesta”, one of Asimov’s the best stories of

July 12, 2026 9:00 am

books and literature

Rebecca Ferrier’s The Salt Bind

Rebecca Ferrier’s The Salt Bind is a historical fantasy novel, set on the storm-lashed Cornish coast and steeped in folklore, sea magic, and women’s lives on the edge of the sea. It follows Kensa — daughter of a smuggler and with a regularly-complicated relationship with

July 11, 2026 9:00 am

art and fashion

Andrea Pazienza — They Don’t Always Die

At the beginning of this month, I was in Rome with some friends: we had heard that Danny Elfman himself was going to be on stage at the Auditorium, performing some pieces from his soundtracks, and we’re hardcore fans (I have mixed feelings about the

July 10, 2026 9:00 am