Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology

And while talking about our neighbours to the north, Charles Tan has an anthology of Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction on offer for just 99c if you use this code NG66N at Smashwords. The special runs until the 25th of October.  So, come on 99c peeps that is quite seriously pocket change.  That’s 99 cents to check out some different perspectives.

Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology

 

 

 

 

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Filipino Specfic on the Horizon

I have just finished my regular quarterly column for International Speculative Fiction.  I have reviewed Dean & Nikki Alfar’s The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005-2010 (provided by Mr Charles Tan) - I will let you know when it’s published. 

In the meantime if you are curious about stepping outside of the mainstream Anglo-centric genre and reading some great Filipino SpecFic then Cheryl over at Wizard’s Tower has some easily accessible ebooks by Dean Francis Alfar and a fantasy anthology edited by Paolo Chikiamco.

Cheryl also recently recorded a Blue Planet Episode with Dean and Charles Tan.

If you still haven’t had your fill I suggest wandering around the Rocket Kapre site.

Feel free to link to any other great sources of Filipino SpecFic talent in the comments?  Authors, bloggers or commentators.

 

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eBook Review – Asymmetry by Thoraiya Dyer

Asymmetry is the latest of the top shelf Twelve Planets series to emerge from Twelve Planet Press.  It continues what I have found to be an outstanding showcase of Australian women writers in the speculative fiction field.

Thoraiya has been well supported by the team at Twelfth Planet Press for some time; she appeared in the anthologies, New Ceres Nights and Sprawl(her short, Yowie, won an Aurealis), had a novella, The Company Articles of Edward Teach (which won the Ditmar Novella Category in 2011) published as part of a double with Matthew Chrulew and now she’s produced Asymmetry.  Thoraiya also picked up a Ditmar this year for her The Wisdom of Ants published published in Clarkesworld.

So as you would expect this collection of shorts is worthy of someone who is generating a lot of good work.  There’s four stories, that showcase Thoraiya’s versatility within the genre and I would be stretched to find a less than brilliant one amongst them:

I fell into After Hours, a story of a young vet attached to a practice that has a special relationship with the nearby military base. They house and train “special” dogs.  It’s a sign of very good writing that a novel, let alone a short can draw you in and immerse you when you are tired. I had a distinct yearning for more of the interesting the world and characters Thoraiya has delivered here.  Very smooth and subtle writing, great characterization and a tantalizing idea. It’s hard to pull off a werewolf tale and make it fresh but Thoraiya does.

Zadie, Scythe of the West, could not be further from the setting of After Hours.  Thoraiya gives us a female dominated warrior society where to participate in battle a woman must have given birth for every life she takes.  This set up is not as desirous as some might think though and the emotional core of this story comes from the tension that this society creates around relationships and that despite having to give a life before you take one, war and killing is still horrendous and perhaps unjustified.  This short could I think spawn an entirely original Dark Fantasy series if Thoraiya were so inclined.

Wish Me Luck somehow manages to fuse a  steampunk-ish future with trans-dimensional travel where you pay your way with physically manifesting luck. It felt very Final Fantasy to me a fusion of science and magic, with pseudo-victorian trappings. Again entirely different to the preceding stories.

And rounding out the quartet is Seven Days in Paris, which is partly about counter terrorism and partly about human cloning.  It raises questions about the acceleration of organisms (tips its hat toward current issues on GMO) and what boundaries governments will cross when they think it necessary to save lives.  Somewhat evocative of the questions raised by Blade Runner.

I would be very surprised if this weren’t on the awards list next year.  The only regret I have after reading it was that it was so easily consumed. For a collection that is thematically about imbalance, Twelfth Planet Press has produced one of the most balanced collections I have come across in recent times.

 

Kudos to Amanda Rainey for cover design and Charles A. Tan for the eBook layout.

This review copy was made available by the publisher at no cost.

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Other Twelve Planet Reviews:

eBook Review–Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren

Book Review–Showtime by Narrelle M Harris

Book Review–Bad Power by Deborah Biancotti

Book Review–Thief of Lives by Lucy Sussex

Book Review–Nightsiders by Sue Isle

eBook Review–Love and Romanpunk by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Book Review–Cracklescape by Margo Lanagan

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This review is part of the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2013.  Please check out this page for more great writing from Australian women.

 

 

 

 

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World Fantasy Award Ballot Out

Obviously the organisers were spurred on by The Coode Street Podcasts last airing.  But without further ado, please cast your eyes over the following:

Edit: A special shout out to Lisa L Hannett  (a South Australian) published by Ticonderoga (from Western Australia). Not forgetting Charles Tan, blogger and commentator from the Philippines.

 

World Fantasy Award Ballot

Novel

• Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman (Ace)
• 11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
• A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
• Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
• Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Novella

•  "Near Zennor", Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
•  "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong", K.J. Parker (Subterranean Winter 2011)
•  "Alice Through the Plastic Sheet", Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors)
•  "Rose Street Attractors", Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight)
•  Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press; Clarkesworld)

Short Fiction

•  "X for Demetrious", Steve Duffy (Blood and Other Cravings)
•  "Younger Women", Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Summer 2011)
•  "The Paper Menagerie", Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
•  "A Journey of Only Two Paces", Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
•  "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees", E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11)

Anthology

• Blood and Other Cravings, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Tor)
• A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed. (Jo Fletcher Books)
• The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Harper Voyager US)
• The Weird, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Corvus; Tor, published May 2012)
• Gutshot, Conrad Williams, ed. (PS Publishing)

Collection

• Bluegrass Symphony, Lisa L. Hannett (Ticonderoga)
• Two Worlds and In Between, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press)
• After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)
• Mrs Midnight and Other Stories, Reggie Oliver (Tartarus)
• The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon)

Artist

•  John Coulthart
•  Julie Dillon
•  Jon Foster
•  Kathleen Jennings
•  John Picacio

Special Award Professional

•  John Joseph Adams, for editing - anthology and magazine
•  Jo Fletcher, for editing - Jo Fletcher Books
•  Eric Lane, for publishing in translation - Dedalus books
•  Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine Publications
•  Jeff VanderMeer & S.J. Chambers, for The Steampunk Bible

Special Award Non-Professional

•  Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan & Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld
•  Cat Rambo, for Fantasy
•  Raymond Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
•  Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker blog
•  Mark Valentine, for Wormwood

Info on the award can be found here

 

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