Demons of the New Year by Karl R. De Mesa
August 2014
I used to be the literary editor for my college paper about three years ago, and I decided that the literary folio's theme is going to be about our fear and fascination of monsters. I maintain that the monsters that plague our lives are mostly products of self-creation; a mere metaphor for our tortured or unsatisfying way of life. In that collection, the stories also got to feature literal monsters, ones that fuel nightmares and hunt us, demanding for blood. I mention this here because it's definitely the reason why this particular anthology published by the UP Press has intrigued me to no end. |
Demons of the New Year had a lot of amazing things going for it. Firstly, it's a horror fiction from my country the Philippines which is already a readily commendable trait, seeing as I've always believed that we have some of the most enticing paranormal lore out there as well as perplexing and creepy superstitions deeply rooted in our collective national consciousness.
This anthology was certainly able to deliver these qualities that I've always loved and appreciated about Filipino horror. Edited by rising-star horror fictionist Karl R. De Mesa (whose fictions are definitely just as enjoyable and disturbing) and Joseph Frederic F. Nacino, this volume is composed of ten short stories and a bonus comic story by De Mesa and illustrated by Gani Simpliciano. It's also a part of the ongoing Strange Fiction series that also published fantasy and science fiction anthologies (The Farthest Shore and Diaspora Ad Astra respectively, which I will read soon enough).
What is offered in this volume are some of the most imaginative, poignant, quasi-religious and uncomfortably exciting tales about demons in general; all of which are uniquely tailored to the things we fear, crave and deny the worst about ourselves.
My absolute favorites are definitely Brother and Sister (a re-imagining of Hansel and Gretel), Salot (a story that I couldn't get out of my head because it reminded me of a few childhood encounters with the unknown), K-10 Mushroom (a parable that tackles if not satirizes malicious intentions of organized religions), The Different Degrees of Night (whose prose personified the city of Manila in a way that's reminiscent of how Scott Snyder did with Gotham for his Batman stories) and Best Served Cold (where 'business of the soul' takes a whole new comedic meaning). The rest were good one-shots (The Kambubulagwhich reads like an entry for creepy pasta; Grotesquerie, Little Hands, Little Feet, Dark Moving Houses andDemon Gaga). The comic story The Magdalene Fist was a surprising supplement that I would want to read the continuation of soon (if there is any).
In a nutshell, this is a worthy addition to anyone's library and a rather delightful reading exercise to be had if you are that eager, preferably during a slow afternoon or, better yet, a solitary night in a quiet corner somewhere in your house. Let the demons in this book come alive.
This anthology was certainly able to deliver these qualities that I've always loved and appreciated about Filipino horror. Edited by rising-star horror fictionist Karl R. De Mesa (whose fictions are definitely just as enjoyable and disturbing) and Joseph Frederic F. Nacino, this volume is composed of ten short stories and a bonus comic story by De Mesa and illustrated by Gani Simpliciano. It's also a part of the ongoing Strange Fiction series that also published fantasy and science fiction anthologies (The Farthest Shore and Diaspora Ad Astra respectively, which I will read soon enough).
What is offered in this volume are some of the most imaginative, poignant, quasi-religious and uncomfortably exciting tales about demons in general; all of which are uniquely tailored to the things we fear, crave and deny the worst about ourselves.
My absolute favorites are definitely Brother and Sister (a re-imagining of Hansel and Gretel), Salot (a story that I couldn't get out of my head because it reminded me of a few childhood encounters with the unknown), K-10 Mushroom (a parable that tackles if not satirizes malicious intentions of organized religions), The Different Degrees of Night (whose prose personified the city of Manila in a way that's reminiscent of how Scott Snyder did with Gotham for his Batman stories) and Best Served Cold (where 'business of the soul' takes a whole new comedic meaning). The rest were good one-shots (The Kambubulagwhich reads like an entry for creepy pasta; Grotesquerie, Little Hands, Little Feet, Dark Moving Houses andDemon Gaga). The comic story The Magdalene Fist was a surprising supplement that I would want to read the continuation of soon (if there is any).
In a nutshell, this is a worthy addition to anyone's library and a rather delightful reading exercise to be had if you are that eager, preferably during a slow afternoon or, better yet, a solitary night in a quiet corner somewhere in your house. Let the demons in this book come alive.
Alternative Alamat by Paolo Chikiamco
August 2014
"Sometimes I feel like there's a tendency--even amongst Filipinos--to view the Philippines as a footnote on the world stage. Yet there's so much that is unique and beautiful in Philippine culture, if only we would take the time to learn it. Philippine mythology has much to offer the world. This anthology, we hope, has opened a doorway. We invite you to step through it." ~Paolo Chikiamco |
This is an anthology that has made me even prouder of my cultural roots, particularly when it comes to a Filipino's ability and capacity for myth-making, and the eleven short stories (plus a supplement comic story) that comprise this volume are testaments to that quality. I absolutely love it when a book manages to not only pleasantly surprise me but also cast a spell on me while reading it and Alternative Alamat knows exactly how to weave magic in the prose of each story and how best to wield its power to entice and hypnotize anyone who reads it.
Each story in this collection is a re-imagined tale of a famous or obscure folklore/myth or figure from the Philippines and I can honestly say that the ones I'm not familiar with are the tales that captured my imagination the most and stayed with me long after I finished them. In Alternative Alamat we get to enjoy the modern interpretations of some of the well-known Filipino myths as explored in stories such as“Conquering Makiling” by Monique Francisco (a playful look at the most popular diwata Maria Makiling and the idea of her taking human lovers); Eliza Victoria's “Ana’s Little Pawnshop on Makiling St.” (which showed how the changing times affected the way of living among supernatural entities); and the tantalizing and enigmatic piece “Keeper of My Sky” by Timothy James Dimacali (that accentuates the poignant dichotomy found in every creation and ending present in the universe).
There are also cautionary stories about losses and gains that result from either bad decisions or an individual's sheer strength of will (“Harinuo’s Love Song” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz is quite reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's Stardust but with a bitter ending; whilst “The Alipin’s Tale” by Raymond G. Falgui is a story that ends with an optimistic challenge in regards to our ability to free ourselves from the enslavement and confines of the status quo). We also have a story (“The Last Full Show” ) written by Budjette Tan, who is known mostly for his comic book series Trese, where he decided to reveal a softer side to the titular character of said series and is surely not to be missed by any Trese fan.
We also have stories that provide us with insights in the manner and inner workings of myth-making and superstition in general (“Offerings to Aman Sinaya" by Andrei Tupaz; “Balat, Buwan, Ngalan” by David Hontiveros; and “A Door Opens: The Beginning of the Fall of the Ispancialo-in-Hinirang” by Dean Alfar) but my most favourite stories of this collection have to be Raissa Rivera Falgui's “The Sorceress Queen” that tells the unique tale of Maryam of Marinduque, a proud monarch who will not bow down to patriarchy or the men who wish to subdue her through promises of love and devotion (even if the price of denying such pleasures is loneliness and desolation), and Celestine Trinidad's “Beneath The Acacia” which interestingly used a folklore as a mere backdrop to tell a detective story which aims to solve a very intriguing crime.
The supplement comic story "Upo" by Andrew Drilon was brief yet quite endearing in its style and execution (it's a story of origin regarding a certain vegetable). I believe that there is an online copy available so you are very much encouraged to check out this anthology. You have my word when I say that reading Alternative Alamat will be an amazing (and gratifying) use of your time.
Each story in this collection is a re-imagined tale of a famous or obscure folklore/myth or figure from the Philippines and I can honestly say that the ones I'm not familiar with are the tales that captured my imagination the most and stayed with me long after I finished them. In Alternative Alamat we get to enjoy the modern interpretations of some of the well-known Filipino myths as explored in stories such as“Conquering Makiling” by Monique Francisco (a playful look at the most popular diwata Maria Makiling and the idea of her taking human lovers); Eliza Victoria's “Ana’s Little Pawnshop on Makiling St.” (which showed how the changing times affected the way of living among supernatural entities); and the tantalizing and enigmatic piece “Keeper of My Sky” by Timothy James Dimacali (that accentuates the poignant dichotomy found in every creation and ending present in the universe).
There are also cautionary stories about losses and gains that result from either bad decisions or an individual's sheer strength of will (“Harinuo’s Love Song” by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz is quite reminiscent of Neil Gaiman's Stardust but with a bitter ending; whilst “The Alipin’s Tale” by Raymond G. Falgui is a story that ends with an optimistic challenge in regards to our ability to free ourselves from the enslavement and confines of the status quo). We also have a story (“The Last Full Show” ) written by Budjette Tan, who is known mostly for his comic book series Trese, where he decided to reveal a softer side to the titular character of said series and is surely not to be missed by any Trese fan.
We also have stories that provide us with insights in the manner and inner workings of myth-making and superstition in general (“Offerings to Aman Sinaya" by Andrei Tupaz; “Balat, Buwan, Ngalan” by David Hontiveros; and “A Door Opens: The Beginning of the Fall of the Ispancialo-in-Hinirang” by Dean Alfar) but my most favourite stories of this collection have to be Raissa Rivera Falgui's “The Sorceress Queen” that tells the unique tale of Maryam of Marinduque, a proud monarch who will not bow down to patriarchy or the men who wish to subdue her through promises of love and devotion (even if the price of denying such pleasures is loneliness and desolation), and Celestine Trinidad's “Beneath The Acacia” which interestingly used a folklore as a mere backdrop to tell a detective story which aims to solve a very intriguing crime.
The supplement comic story "Upo" by Andrew Drilon was brief yet quite endearing in its style and execution (it's a story of origin regarding a certain vegetable). I believe that there is an online copy available so you are very much encouraged to check out this anthology. You have my word when I say that reading Alternative Alamat will be an amazing (and gratifying) use of your time.
The Farthest Shore by Dean Francis Alfar
September 2014
Published by the University of the Philippines Press, the Strange Fiction series is a trilogy composing of anthologies on the horror, fantasy and science fiction genres. I finished the horror anthology entitled Demons of the New Year last month and it was an absolute favorite volume of mine. For this fantasy collection composed of twelve stories, there are so many imaginative and intriguing worlds here that I found myself very fortunate enough to explore; while there are a few others that I just couldn't connect with in a deeper level. Still, what each writer brought to the table is commendable; their lush descriptions of landscapes, characters and themes truly gave life to the pages they were written in.
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Edited by Dean Francis Alfar and Joseph Frederic F. Nacino who are actually certified speculative fiction authors themselves, The Fathest Shore is a hefty exploration of mythical and fantastical stories that can be distinctly Filipino or generally otherwordly. The stories that for me illustrated captivating and vivid tales are Alfar's Strange Weather whose lyrical prose is both hard-edged and tender in scope, demonstrating the author's great command of language and symbolism; Nikki Alfar's Emberwild which tackles the indulgences and ills of societies, particularly how women have to be in servitude of such bad habits; the uncomfortably piercing satirical piece by Eliza Victora entitled The Just World of Helena Jimenez which readers need to pay close attention to in order to fully enjoy the story (As a growing fan of Victoria's work, I was surprised by this piece's verbosity which is so unlike her usual style, yet ultimately it worked wonders for the story).
Finally, my most favorite piece has to be Light by Kate Aton-Osias which stayed in my mind for days because of the potent nature of its prose. It's about anthropomorphic beings in league of Neil Gaiman's character Dream from The Sandman, and the whole thing definitely leaves readers wanting for sequels. It's simply one of those short stories that warrants an expansion, possibly into a full-length novel. It was that intriguing and multi-dimensional.
Notable stories that I enjoyed are Queen Liwana's Gambit Rodello Santos (which was an amusing take on making deals with devils); the feminist deconstruction of a fairy-tale-like story, They Spoke of Her in Whispers by Bessie Lasala and Vincent Simbulan's poignant In the Arms of Beishu. Unfortunately, I found it often difficult to fully engage with the rest of the stories (such as Crystal Koo's Wildwater and Rite of Passageby Dominique Cimafranca, whose brevities felt slightly anticlimactic; and the equally confounding stories,Spelling Normal by Mia Tijam and J.F Nacino's Brothers in Arms). I would admit that though Siege of Silenceby Paolo Chikiamco had a daring premise, my interest started to dwindle as the story progressed which is a shame because I did want to enjoy this story but certain details just take me out of it.
Although the last batch of stories received quite a lukewarm response from me, they may be your cup of tea so you might as well check them out as well. But I assert that Strange Weather, Light, Emberwild, and The Just World of Helena Jimenez for me are the best that the anthology has offered. Now I'm pretty excited to read the last volume of the Strange Series trilogy which covers science fiction written by Filipinos.
Finally, my most favorite piece has to be Light by Kate Aton-Osias which stayed in my mind for days because of the potent nature of its prose. It's about anthropomorphic beings in league of Neil Gaiman's character Dream from The Sandman, and the whole thing definitely leaves readers wanting for sequels. It's simply one of those short stories that warrants an expansion, possibly into a full-length novel. It was that intriguing and multi-dimensional.
Notable stories that I enjoyed are Queen Liwana's Gambit Rodello Santos (which was an amusing take on making deals with devils); the feminist deconstruction of a fairy-tale-like story, They Spoke of Her in Whispers by Bessie Lasala and Vincent Simbulan's poignant In the Arms of Beishu. Unfortunately, I found it often difficult to fully engage with the rest of the stories (such as Crystal Koo's Wildwater and Rite of Passageby Dominique Cimafranca, whose brevities felt slightly anticlimactic; and the equally confounding stories,Spelling Normal by Mia Tijam and J.F Nacino's Brothers in Arms). I would admit that though Siege of Silenceby Paolo Chikiamco had a daring premise, my interest started to dwindle as the story progressed which is a shame because I did want to enjoy this story but certain details just take me out of it.
Although the last batch of stories received quite a lukewarm response from me, they may be your cup of tea so you might as well check them out as well. But I assert that Strange Weather, Light, Emberwild, and The Just World of Helena Jimenez for me are the best that the anthology has offered. Now I'm pretty excited to read the last volume of the Strange Series trilogy which covers science fiction written by Filipinos.
News of the Shaman by Karl R. De Mesa
September 2014
"...a privilege of the haunted, radiant against colossal dark. Loud as can be."
I only knew Karl R. De Mesa because he was the lead editor for the Filipino horror fiction anthology from the Strange Series trilogy, Demons of the New Year. This is the first time I have ever read a fiction work of his though I've seen two of his collected essays in the shelves of the nearest bookstore from where I work. I've already been captivated by a certain Filipina fictionist (Eliza Victoria) since last month, and I figured that I could still make room for one more, especially since De Mesa has a very intriguing literary background (he works as a journalist and is also a musician), and seems to share my passion and almost scholastic interest for tarot card-reading. This collection of his is composed of four novellas, each mind-boggling and intricately written, all of them somehow interrelated with one another. |
The first noticeable thing about De Mesa's prose is that it more than matches the strangeness and otherwordly quality of his plots and characters. The descriptions are potent and have a hard edge to them are not always a pleasant or an easy thing to peruse through. From the very first story entitled Angelorio, De Mesa's world of fiction seems to be overcrowded with unknowable creatures, each with a unique perspective to share. I haven't read a story as fun and yet just as confusing as this one, honestly. I was taken into very surreal landscapes and seemingly paranormal events as seen through the eyes of two characters; a rich man/former junkie with a terminal illness who wishes to make an unexpected deal with the creature that lives in this mysterious club called Club Angelorio; and a veteran photo journalist, hoping to make a comeback by capturing some of the club's more prestigious and even mythical aspects. I have enjoyed reading this story a lot even if the last few scenes leading to that anticlimactic ending were confounding. It certainly felt like I was missing something (which, luckily enough, was a purposeful direction by the writer himself.
The next stories have a vague connection with this first story.
Still, there was no reason for me just yet to connect things yet. The second story, which is the titular New of the Shaman of the collection, was probably the most interesting of the bunch, given its literary style where De Mesa made use of fictionalized radio interviews, television news coverage, newspaper clippings, etc. as the vehicles to tell the story. I have never read anything like if before save perhaps Chuck Palahnuik's Rant (which, from what I recall, is composed of pages of pages of witness accounts about a certain person of interest) and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (on the aspect where the events unfold in Gotham through the news coverage to give the effect of urgency and realness as the violence escalated in the city, as if the readers are the citizens themselves). That's exactly how the second story made it seem and it was a very invigorating reading experience because of that, considering I myself have a broadcast journalism background, so it was fun for me to read a fiction story through the use of scripted dialogue alone.
Basically, News of the Shaman follows the media coverage of the trial concerning a very famous 'shaman' (medicine man) named Don Cruez who allegedly murdered the legal representative of a certain powerful business corporation (that was also clashing with said shaman because Don Cruez is a self-proclaimed freedom fighter and activist who had been trying to take down said corporation). The most stand-out aspect of this story had to be the radio interviews hosted by a leftist station who seemed to politically align themselves with Don Cruez. I think it's safe to say that this story is the one with the most striking style because it wasn't prose which made it really enjoyable to read.
The third story once again featured the photo journalist from the Angelorio story as its sole narrator. I must confess that as disturbing and grim as Faith in Poison was to read, something about its overall appeal did not click with me. It's probably because I never liked the narrator in the first place, although very interesting and gruesome stuff happen around him and to him as I read this story. Something about it feels very out-of-place though but it's by this story that I also made some connections with the first two (thoughNews of the Shaman feels like a story written to establish the setting and socio-political atmosphere that De Mesa imagined the Philippines has become; where shamans and occultists have become a sort of separate entities of the state who would challenge corporations and even the government itself; a very beguiling concept but I only wished it was established more).
It was only by the last story that made me change my mind about my rating for this book. I originally wanted to give it three stars and two of those are mostly for the second story which I maintain had a great sense of style with its experimental take on telling a story through the use of scripts and interviews alone. Now Bright Midnight mixes both prose and that said style. We get excerpts from a certain biography which included interviews and then we move ahead with an actual story in prose format. The story follows the rise, fall and reunion of a rock band called Shadowland (they were featured in one of the radio interviews in News of the Shaman where the lead singer Miguel showed staunch support towards the shaman Don Cruez). What I loved about this story is the fact that I finally cared about the characters. Each band member was put in a spotlight and it certainly felt like I was watching one of those VH-1 documentaries about fallen musicians who were so talented and yet so tortured all the same.
The tortured artist in question is the lead guitarist Joaquin whose death was such a personal blow for the band and its members on varied personal levels. It was beautiful and sublime, the way this particular story built up and unfolded. There were genuine moments of sadness, loss and discord among its characters that I truly felt for, so I was very much invested when they decided to do a reunion concert for their fans and as a tribute to the late Joaquin whose music had a that kind of magic (both as a metaphor and a literal manifestation) which had touched their lives in ways that can only be expressed through a performance of the lifetime. De Mesa, a musician with an indie band himself, showcases his understanding about this kind of life and career choice, which made his characters very easy to relate to and sympathize with. He also took the time explaining the wonders of musical instruments and the people who have the skill to play them, infusing both informational texts and literary interpretations with a a delicate, symbiotic balance.
In a nutshell, News of the Shaman is quite exceptional in its storytelling and definitely something you must read if you're into quirky, experimental speculative fiction. I'm definitely interested enough to check out the author's other works.
The next stories have a vague connection with this first story.
Still, there was no reason for me just yet to connect things yet. The second story, which is the titular New of the Shaman of the collection, was probably the most interesting of the bunch, given its literary style where De Mesa made use of fictionalized radio interviews, television news coverage, newspaper clippings, etc. as the vehicles to tell the story. I have never read anything like if before save perhaps Chuck Palahnuik's Rant (which, from what I recall, is composed of pages of pages of witness accounts about a certain person of interest) and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (on the aspect where the events unfold in Gotham through the news coverage to give the effect of urgency and realness as the violence escalated in the city, as if the readers are the citizens themselves). That's exactly how the second story made it seem and it was a very invigorating reading experience because of that, considering I myself have a broadcast journalism background, so it was fun for me to read a fiction story through the use of scripted dialogue alone.
Basically, News of the Shaman follows the media coverage of the trial concerning a very famous 'shaman' (medicine man) named Don Cruez who allegedly murdered the legal representative of a certain powerful business corporation (that was also clashing with said shaman because Don Cruez is a self-proclaimed freedom fighter and activist who had been trying to take down said corporation). The most stand-out aspect of this story had to be the radio interviews hosted by a leftist station who seemed to politically align themselves with Don Cruez. I think it's safe to say that this story is the one with the most striking style because it wasn't prose which made it really enjoyable to read.
The third story once again featured the photo journalist from the Angelorio story as its sole narrator. I must confess that as disturbing and grim as Faith in Poison was to read, something about its overall appeal did not click with me. It's probably because I never liked the narrator in the first place, although very interesting and gruesome stuff happen around him and to him as I read this story. Something about it feels very out-of-place though but it's by this story that I also made some connections with the first two (thoughNews of the Shaman feels like a story written to establish the setting and socio-political atmosphere that De Mesa imagined the Philippines has become; where shamans and occultists have become a sort of separate entities of the state who would challenge corporations and even the government itself; a very beguiling concept but I only wished it was established more).
It was only by the last story that made me change my mind about my rating for this book. I originally wanted to give it three stars and two of those are mostly for the second story which I maintain had a great sense of style with its experimental take on telling a story through the use of scripts and interviews alone. Now Bright Midnight mixes both prose and that said style. We get excerpts from a certain biography which included interviews and then we move ahead with an actual story in prose format. The story follows the rise, fall and reunion of a rock band called Shadowland (they were featured in one of the radio interviews in News of the Shaman where the lead singer Miguel showed staunch support towards the shaman Don Cruez). What I loved about this story is the fact that I finally cared about the characters. Each band member was put in a spotlight and it certainly felt like I was watching one of those VH-1 documentaries about fallen musicians who were so talented and yet so tortured all the same.
The tortured artist in question is the lead guitarist Joaquin whose death was such a personal blow for the band and its members on varied personal levels. It was beautiful and sublime, the way this particular story built up and unfolded. There were genuine moments of sadness, loss and discord among its characters that I truly felt for, so I was very much invested when they decided to do a reunion concert for their fans and as a tribute to the late Joaquin whose music had a that kind of magic (both as a metaphor and a literal manifestation) which had touched their lives in ways that can only be expressed through a performance of the lifetime. De Mesa, a musician with an indie band himself, showcases his understanding about this kind of life and career choice, which made his characters very easy to relate to and sympathize with. He also took the time explaining the wonders of musical instruments and the people who have the skill to play them, infusing both informational texts and literary interpretations with a a delicate, symbiotic balance.
In a nutshell, News of the Shaman is quite exceptional in its storytelling and definitely something you must read if you're into quirky, experimental speculative fiction. I'm definitely interested enough to check out the author's other works.
Diaspora Ad Astra by Emil M. Flores
October 2014
The last installment for the Stranger Fiction anthology trilogy is composed of fifteen stories on the genre of speculative science fiction and this is a collection that is personally the most polarizing of the three. I'm fairly new to sci-fi myself since I only started actively reading from it two years ago but I know enough to both enjoy and criticize a literary work in this genre. Unlike the horror and fantasy collections that I previously read (Demons of the New Year and The Farthest Shore respectively), Diaspora Ad Astra has been quite dissonant in scope especially since I don't think a lot of Filipino authors write sci-fi and there isn't a market or demographic in my country that also reads, let alone celebrates, this genre. |
As stated in the Foreword of this book, Filipinos don't exactly have our eyes set on the stars or any futuristic landscape when it comes to our fiction as well as in our lives and priorities in general. We are a culture steeped in superstition and spiritual reflection which is why we thrive with our myth-making when it comes to monsters and paranormal entities. But tales and parables on scientific discovery and space travel?
We just don't care much for it. Some of us have formed a perplexing association between science fiction and Western influence considering we are also a developing third-world country whose ambitions have usually more to do with pragmatic desires and needs as oppose to those that go beyond what we can readily perceive, what is most tangible. Simply put, science fiction stories are inaccessible to Filipinos because we don't exactly have a strong space program or a very present scientific community that could inform or encourage us to look up at the skies and dare ourselves to imagine other alien civilizations that could exist. But perhaps that feeling is only dormant. Everyone, after all, at some point in their lives questioned whether or not we are alone in the universe, or if we could ever leave this planet and build a new home in another. This anthology had encompassed such stories. I think this is why Diaspora Ad Astra will prove a mighty challenge as a reading exercise for people who are not familiar with the genre itself and may have negative pre-conceived notions about Filipinos writing sci-fi stories in the first place.
Luckily, I'm neither, and that is why this anthology was vibrant and challenging, a puzzling literary specimen that exhausted and thrilled me in varying degrees. Not all of the stories appealed to me, however, but those that two were maddeningly memorable and deliciously insightful. I thoroughly loved to pieces the following six stories: Oplan Sanction by Alexander Marcos Osias, The Cost of Living by Vince Torres, the satirical A List of Things We Know by Isabel Yap, The Day the Sexbomb Dancers Invaded Our Brains by Carljoe Javier (that was unexpectedly comedic and quirky); and the endlessly fascinating oneshots Ashes////Embers by Dannah Ruth S. Ballesteros, Gene RX by Katya Oliva-Llego and Robots and a Slice of Pizza by Raydon L. Reyes. Some stories were more personal oneshots that contemplate the standing of a Filipino or the entire nation in space exploration/colonization like Ina Dolor's Last Stand by Raymond P. Reyes, Taking Gaia by Celestine Trinidad, and Space and Enough Time by Anne Lagamayo; or or how to generally cope with the gradual loss of individual expression as presented in Eliza Victoria's Rizal.
Others managed to only confuse me because of their brevity and vagueness (The Keeper by Audrey Rose Villacorta, Lucky by Raven Guerrero and War Zone Angel by Emil M. Flores) while one story was something I couldn't figure out (or maybe I did but I just couldn't be sure) even though I re-read it thrice now (The Malaya by Dean Francis Alfar). It took me a whole month to finish this collection but I also felt that I became a better reader after doing so. I'm very pleased that there are Filipino authors who do strive to write in the science fiction genre, and I hope there will be more in the not-so-distant future.
We just don't care much for it. Some of us have formed a perplexing association between science fiction and Western influence considering we are also a developing third-world country whose ambitions have usually more to do with pragmatic desires and needs as oppose to those that go beyond what we can readily perceive, what is most tangible. Simply put, science fiction stories are inaccessible to Filipinos because we don't exactly have a strong space program or a very present scientific community that could inform or encourage us to look up at the skies and dare ourselves to imagine other alien civilizations that could exist. But perhaps that feeling is only dormant. Everyone, after all, at some point in their lives questioned whether or not we are alone in the universe, or if we could ever leave this planet and build a new home in another. This anthology had encompassed such stories. I think this is why Diaspora Ad Astra will prove a mighty challenge as a reading exercise for people who are not familiar with the genre itself and may have negative pre-conceived notions about Filipinos writing sci-fi stories in the first place.
Luckily, I'm neither, and that is why this anthology was vibrant and challenging, a puzzling literary specimen that exhausted and thrilled me in varying degrees. Not all of the stories appealed to me, however, but those that two were maddeningly memorable and deliciously insightful. I thoroughly loved to pieces the following six stories: Oplan Sanction by Alexander Marcos Osias, The Cost of Living by Vince Torres, the satirical A List of Things We Know by Isabel Yap, The Day the Sexbomb Dancers Invaded Our Brains by Carljoe Javier (that was unexpectedly comedic and quirky); and the endlessly fascinating oneshots Ashes////Embers by Dannah Ruth S. Ballesteros, Gene RX by Katya Oliva-Llego and Robots and a Slice of Pizza by Raydon L. Reyes. Some stories were more personal oneshots that contemplate the standing of a Filipino or the entire nation in space exploration/colonization like Ina Dolor's Last Stand by Raymond P. Reyes, Taking Gaia by Celestine Trinidad, and Space and Enough Time by Anne Lagamayo; or or how to generally cope with the gradual loss of individual expression as presented in Eliza Victoria's Rizal.
Others managed to only confuse me because of their brevity and vagueness (The Keeper by Audrey Rose Villacorta, Lucky by Raven Guerrero and War Zone Angel by Emil M. Flores) while one story was something I couldn't figure out (or maybe I did but I just couldn't be sure) even though I re-read it thrice now (The Malaya by Dean Francis Alfar). It took me a whole month to finish this collection but I also felt that I became a better reader after doing so. I'm very pleased that there are Filipino authors who do strive to write in the science fiction genre, and I hope there will be more in the not-so-distant future.
A Bottle Of Storm Clouds by Eliza Victoria
November 2014
There was one night when a man came in and bought a bottle of storm clouds. He claimed to be a poet. "I needed the rain," he said. "I couldn't write in this goddamn heat."
"What did he pay for that?" I asked. "That's just a week's supply of storm clouds," Ana said, "so I only asked for six months of his life. I'm going to use that for my sunflowers. That way, they wouldn't wait for a long time--isn't that fantastic?" I hoped the man wrote good poems. |
Loss, I believe, is a theme in fiction that's difficult to capture resonantly in prose but authoress Eliza Victoria's anthology was essentially able to bottle it in a condensed volume that features sixteen tales ranging from horror, science fiction and fantasy. Curiously entitled A Bottle of Storm Clouds, the thematic bulk of Victoria's short stories is usually about losses and the dangerous and often pitiful coping mechanisms creatures of brevity such as ourselves can only cling onto in order to survive tragedies.
I can't even begin to describe the impactful deftness of Victoria's style. I once described her prose to be "Chandleresque" but this was more present in her novella Dwellers which was a supernatural mystery/psychological horror piece about cousins who can inhabit other people's bodies as vessels. In this volume, that same quality is still present but with less noir and more infused with fantasical inclinations, considering Victoria writes generally for the speculative fiction genre. This collection of hers, in my opinion, offers some of the best short stories I have ever had the pleasure to read.
We have her mediations on quasi-science fiction tales such as Intersections and Parallel which both deal with alternate universes and the repercussions of attaining the ability for dimensional travel. Other sci-fi pieces are Earthset and The Just World of Helena Jiminez, the latter of which was part of the Diaspora Ad Astra anthology I reviewed last month. We also have Night Out that tackles prostitution and homosexuality in a more futuristic setting. Victoria's writing is never delicate when telling these stories and I will not have them told in any other way. Nothing about her fiction is painless as it is a very earnest examination of the things that have the ability to destroy us.
Her horror stories can be both folklore-oriented such as Sand, Crushed Shells and Chicken Feathers and Ana's Little Pawnshop at Makiling St. or makes use of more metaphorical monsters like in An Abduction of Mermaidsand The Storyteller's Curse. Even her fantasy has some grounded truth to them which can be found in her reimagining of the Cain and Abel biblical story in Reunion. Other times they can just be short and spooky such as the final story in the collection entitled Once in a Small Town which is I think under 500 words.
My personal favorites have to be the very first story I read from her (featured in the anthology, Demons of the New Year) named Salot; the surprising Sugar Pi about a highschool mathematical genius and his best friend on a quest to figure out the last digits of Pi; the satirical The Man on the Train which is a quintessential bereavement story; a deconstructed Aswang story called Monsters; and the enchanting Siren's Song that is probably the longest piece of the collection, and one that stayed with me in a blinding moment of terror and acceptance.
I once again recommend another accomplished Eliza Victoria book. I am so happy that I decided to pursue her writing after coming across Salot months ago. This is a very imaginative and memorable anthology of speculative fiction and, if you're a Filipino who can access this at your local bookstore, then you're missing out if you don't pick this one up soon!
I can't even begin to describe the impactful deftness of Victoria's style. I once described her prose to be "Chandleresque" but this was more present in her novella Dwellers which was a supernatural mystery/psychological horror piece about cousins who can inhabit other people's bodies as vessels. In this volume, that same quality is still present but with less noir and more infused with fantasical inclinations, considering Victoria writes generally for the speculative fiction genre. This collection of hers, in my opinion, offers some of the best short stories I have ever had the pleasure to read.
We have her mediations on quasi-science fiction tales such as Intersections and Parallel which both deal with alternate universes and the repercussions of attaining the ability for dimensional travel. Other sci-fi pieces are Earthset and The Just World of Helena Jiminez, the latter of which was part of the Diaspora Ad Astra anthology I reviewed last month. We also have Night Out that tackles prostitution and homosexuality in a more futuristic setting. Victoria's writing is never delicate when telling these stories and I will not have them told in any other way. Nothing about her fiction is painless as it is a very earnest examination of the things that have the ability to destroy us.
Her horror stories can be both folklore-oriented such as Sand, Crushed Shells and Chicken Feathers and Ana's Little Pawnshop at Makiling St. or makes use of more metaphorical monsters like in An Abduction of Mermaidsand The Storyteller's Curse. Even her fantasy has some grounded truth to them which can be found in her reimagining of the Cain and Abel biblical story in Reunion. Other times they can just be short and spooky such as the final story in the collection entitled Once in a Small Town which is I think under 500 words.
My personal favorites have to be the very first story I read from her (featured in the anthology, Demons of the New Year) named Salot; the surprising Sugar Pi about a highschool mathematical genius and his best friend on a quest to figure out the last digits of Pi; the satirical The Man on the Train which is a quintessential bereavement story; a deconstructed Aswang story called Monsters; and the enchanting Siren's Song that is probably the longest piece of the collection, and one that stayed with me in a blinding moment of terror and acceptance.
I once again recommend another accomplished Eliza Victoria book. I am so happy that I decided to pursue her writing after coming across Salot months ago. This is a very imaginative and memorable anthology of speculative fiction and, if you're a Filipino who can access this at your local bookstore, then you're missing out if you don't pick this one up soon!
How to Traverse Terra Incognita by Dean Francic Alfar
December 2014
Just like with Eliza Victoria, I encountered Dean Francis Alfar with his story Strange Weather in the Philippine fantasy anthology The Farthest Shore which was also a collection he edited himself. One day, I was browsing through the shelves in my local bookstore when I came across this collection and I was very interested already at this point especially since the title has 'terra incognita' in it, which has been the name of my column in my college paper back when I was the literary editor, and I also kept that same title when I became the associate editor. |
By definition, 'terra incognita' is a Latin phrase that means "uncharted territory" which was used in cartography to describe regions or lands that have not been or have yet to be documented on maps and geography. I decided to use it because my aim was to touch upon certain topics that have not been discussed before, mostly of the whimsical variety. I thought that such a phrase would be the most appropriate description of the content I used to write about then. In Dean Francis Alfar's anthology How to Traverse Terra Incognita, the speculative fictionist took it to the next level using the same thematic approach. His twenty-one stories were divided into five categories where Alfar deliberately placed his readers as first-time tourists visiting unknown lands of his creation, while he serves as their tour guide, offering five fundamental advices on the best way to navigate these distinct places. Every story is a journey after all, and Alfar's theme of terra incognita has only enhanced the metaphor in the most enduringly creative way possible.
For the first category Research your Destination, my two most favorite stories have to be Simon's Replica and The Face. The former tells the story of a dying queen's request to her favorite architect where she tasked him to build a replica of her entire kingdom; while the latter is a tale of a desperate woman hoping to save the family business both through the power of prayer and science. These stories were memorable simply because Alfar conveys sadness and longing on paper with a sharp edge that makes readers feel as it was their world too that was ending alongside these women. I had the most painstakingly enchanting experience while reading these two stories. On the second category Take Appropriate Precautions, I was incredibly disheartened by the tales characters in Ghosts of Wan Chai have to tell, where grieving people are unable to move on from their losses and have therefore began to haunt places where their loved ones were last seen; and the whimsy yet heartbreaking Packing for the Moon where a young girl with a terminal illness bravely counts her priorities in both a surprising and expected maturity.
My favorite category has to be When Traveling with Children, Be Sensitive to their Needs. Composed of five stories, three of them really stood out for me. First is the spooky story Bruhita where two boys encounter a strange girl of the namesake; Azamgal where an obsessed fan writes to a fantasy writer he idolizes to give him some notes about his ongoing novel series, but then his letters became increasingly demanding; and, finally, Sunboy which was far too close to home for me; a man has to take care of his mentally-challenged younger brother who is fixated on the sun. It was a story that was challenging to read because of how the lead character's feelings and thoughts about his younger brother closely resemble mine which made it so uncomfortable for me.
The later stories surprised me because I did not expect for some of them to be...smutty and erotic but that was also quite a pleasant shift of narrative focus. In Understand the Culture, Alfar gave us the satirical fairy-tale pieces East of the Sun, and Ever After. The former was something exceptional where a young girl was kidnapped and raped by a half-horsed man (tikbalang from the Filipino folklore) and was determined to make something of a happy ending for herself in spite of all this. We also have Messiah which is a play on the Gabriel and Virgin Mary story, and The Many Loves of Ramil Alonzo which makes use of both prose and poetry to account the narrator's misadventures with women he loved and lost. Get to know the Locals, the last of the categories, featured two stories I have read before from other anthologies: Strange Weather which is the very first Alfar tale I encountered where two weather gods battle it out; and the excerpt from A Door Opens: the Beginning of the Fall of the Ispancialo-in-Hinirang. There are other stories in the categories mentioned for this volume that I didn't care to mention because they weren't favorites but they could be your cup of tea.
Vividly crafted and irresistible, How to Traverse Terra Incognita is a rich tapestry you will have the utmost pleasure navigating. A few of the volume's stories will enchant and intrigue you while others you didn't take that much time to contemplate at all will suddenly creep in later in the day, and will make you want to know more about their characters and places. That certainly happened to me and it's probably why I believe this anthology is something I will re-visit again. Perhaps by that time the uncharted territories herein will finally make themselves known to me and become my home.
For the first category Research your Destination, my two most favorite stories have to be Simon's Replica and The Face. The former tells the story of a dying queen's request to her favorite architect where she tasked him to build a replica of her entire kingdom; while the latter is a tale of a desperate woman hoping to save the family business both through the power of prayer and science. These stories were memorable simply because Alfar conveys sadness and longing on paper with a sharp edge that makes readers feel as it was their world too that was ending alongside these women. I had the most painstakingly enchanting experience while reading these two stories. On the second category Take Appropriate Precautions, I was incredibly disheartened by the tales characters in Ghosts of Wan Chai have to tell, where grieving people are unable to move on from their losses and have therefore began to haunt places where their loved ones were last seen; and the whimsy yet heartbreaking Packing for the Moon where a young girl with a terminal illness bravely counts her priorities in both a surprising and expected maturity.
My favorite category has to be When Traveling with Children, Be Sensitive to their Needs. Composed of five stories, three of them really stood out for me. First is the spooky story Bruhita where two boys encounter a strange girl of the namesake; Azamgal where an obsessed fan writes to a fantasy writer he idolizes to give him some notes about his ongoing novel series, but then his letters became increasingly demanding; and, finally, Sunboy which was far too close to home for me; a man has to take care of his mentally-challenged younger brother who is fixated on the sun. It was a story that was challenging to read because of how the lead character's feelings and thoughts about his younger brother closely resemble mine which made it so uncomfortable for me.
The later stories surprised me because I did not expect for some of them to be...smutty and erotic but that was also quite a pleasant shift of narrative focus. In Understand the Culture, Alfar gave us the satirical fairy-tale pieces East of the Sun, and Ever After. The former was something exceptional where a young girl was kidnapped and raped by a half-horsed man (tikbalang from the Filipino folklore) and was determined to make something of a happy ending for herself in spite of all this. We also have Messiah which is a play on the Gabriel and Virgin Mary story, and The Many Loves of Ramil Alonzo which makes use of both prose and poetry to account the narrator's misadventures with women he loved and lost. Get to know the Locals, the last of the categories, featured two stories I have read before from other anthologies: Strange Weather which is the very first Alfar tale I encountered where two weather gods battle it out; and the excerpt from A Door Opens: the Beginning of the Fall of the Ispancialo-in-Hinirang. There are other stories in the categories mentioned for this volume that I didn't care to mention because they weren't favorites but they could be your cup of tea.
Vividly crafted and irresistible, How to Traverse Terra Incognita is a rich tapestry you will have the utmost pleasure navigating. A few of the volume's stories will enchant and intrigue you while others you didn't take that much time to contemplate at all will suddenly creep in later in the day, and will make you want to know more about their characters and places. That certainly happened to me and it's probably why I believe this anthology is something I will re-visit again. Perhaps by that time the uncharted territories herein will finally make themselves known to me and become my home.
Murder in Baker Street by Martin H. Greenberg
January 2015
"The moment seemed to sum up my extraordinary friendship with Sherlock Holmes. Together, we had stood in many a drawing-room, many a library, and in our own rooms in Baker Street, examining evidence, discussing the significance of trifles, sifting through the debris of shattered lives, searching for truth and justice."
Continuing with my second anthology to read, relish and review for Sherlock Holmes' Birthday Month is Murder in Baker Street edited by Martin H. Greenberg., Jon L. Lettenberg and Daniel Stashower. This collection is composed of eleven compact tales of hard-boiled cases that are conventionally delivered in the typical Doyle-esque Victorian classic narrative which works to a certain extent in the seven stories that I favored the most. I was fresh from the heels of the first anthology I read so I think comparing and contrasting these volumes has been unavoidable.
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It's truly an apples-and-oranges scenario, however. While Twenty-Two Hundred was a volume that focuses more on alternate-universe scenarios and speculative fiction, the stories in Murder in Baker Street are all set in the established canon timelines with a few tweaks where Holmes and Watson were able to meet certain real-life figures (such as Bram Stoker) or become privy to witness the effects of inventions that they were never able to be acquainted with in Doyle's original stories.
In the editors' introduction, they specifically stated that they wanted their collection to stay true to the essence of Arthur Conan Doyle's characterization and formulaic writing and if you're like me who will always prefer the canon over anything else (including visual adaptations; however, Elementary to me is the closest one that captured the partnership of Holmes and Watson and the sheer attention to detail and procedural investigation that Doyle have employed whenever Holmes unravels a case) then this volume will please you if it's strictly based in a purist's perspective. The authors who contributed their stories have certainly made a stellar effort to incorporate the exceptional elements that made Doyle's Sherlock Holmes timeless and critically-acclaimed in the first place, including the atmospheric grime and smog of London with all its horrors and wonders.
Each tale is self-contained as most of Doyle's short stories tend to be where a seemingly mundane or inexplicable problem at hand is brought by a client (who may be a victim, perpetrator or both) to 221b Baker Street where the world's only consulting detective and loyal bibliographer and friend reside. There the investigation starts which breathlessly or sometimes patiently unfolds until we get to the part where a twist or a solution is revealed that could either be very shocking or rather simple yet elegantly detailed and satisfying nonetheless.
Out of the eleven stories, I enjoyed seven the most. These are (1) The Man from Capetown by Stuart M. Kaminsky, the first story that establishes the setting and tone of the entire anthology; (2) The Siren of Sennen Cove by Peter Tremayne where a religious man visited Holmes after the detective's retirement to solve the mystery behind a series of shrunken ships in the coast; a very whimsical Moriarty story called (3) The Case of the Bloodless Sock by Anne Perry; (4) A Hansom for Mr. Holmes by Gillan Linscot that is narrated by another character, a modest cabbie who wanted nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes until he gets caught up in an assassination attempt; the very straightforward yet amusing puzzle-story (5) The Adventure of the Chesire Cheese by Jon L. Breen; (6) Darkest Gold by L.B Greenwood which had Watson trying to fool Holmes with a disguise as he follows his friend to a rather dangerous scheme involving a married couple and an ethnic tribe; and, finally, (7) The Remarkable Worm by Carolyn Wheat where Holmes and Watson get commissioned for their very own wax figures to be displayed in the London Museum yet they somehow ended up stumbling upon a terrible family affair. These were charming stories that hit me with nostalgia the strongest.
This anthology will be better appreciated if you've enjoyed the Doyle canon itself since the style and linguistics of the stories here are more conventional and in line with how the original author has written Holmes and Watson as well as the cases they solve.
In the editors' introduction, they specifically stated that they wanted their collection to stay true to the essence of Arthur Conan Doyle's characterization and formulaic writing and if you're like me who will always prefer the canon over anything else (including visual adaptations; however, Elementary to me is the closest one that captured the partnership of Holmes and Watson and the sheer attention to detail and procedural investigation that Doyle have employed whenever Holmes unravels a case) then this volume will please you if it's strictly based in a purist's perspective. The authors who contributed their stories have certainly made a stellar effort to incorporate the exceptional elements that made Doyle's Sherlock Holmes timeless and critically-acclaimed in the first place, including the atmospheric grime and smog of London with all its horrors and wonders.
Each tale is self-contained as most of Doyle's short stories tend to be where a seemingly mundane or inexplicable problem at hand is brought by a client (who may be a victim, perpetrator or both) to 221b Baker Street where the world's only consulting detective and loyal bibliographer and friend reside. There the investigation starts which breathlessly or sometimes patiently unfolds until we get to the part where a twist or a solution is revealed that could either be very shocking or rather simple yet elegantly detailed and satisfying nonetheless.
Out of the eleven stories, I enjoyed seven the most. These are (1) The Man from Capetown by Stuart M. Kaminsky, the first story that establishes the setting and tone of the entire anthology; (2) The Siren of Sennen Cove by Peter Tremayne where a religious man visited Holmes after the detective's retirement to solve the mystery behind a series of shrunken ships in the coast; a very whimsical Moriarty story called (3) The Case of the Bloodless Sock by Anne Perry; (4) A Hansom for Mr. Holmes by Gillan Linscot that is narrated by another character, a modest cabbie who wanted nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes until he gets caught up in an assassination attempt; the very straightforward yet amusing puzzle-story (5) The Adventure of the Chesire Cheese by Jon L. Breen; (6) Darkest Gold by L.B Greenwood which had Watson trying to fool Holmes with a disguise as he follows his friend to a rather dangerous scheme involving a married couple and an ethnic tribe; and, finally, (7) The Remarkable Worm by Carolyn Wheat where Holmes and Watson get commissioned for their very own wax figures to be displayed in the London Museum yet they somehow ended up stumbling upon a terrible family affair. These were charming stories that hit me with nostalgia the strongest.
This anthology will be better appreciated if you've enjoyed the Doyle canon itself since the style and linguistics of the stories here are more conventional and in line with how the original author has written Holmes and Watson as well as the cases they solve.
My Sherlock Holmes by Michael Kurland
January 2015
January is the great detective Sherlock Holmes' birthday month and he has been my childhood hero for a decade so I decided to celebrate him this year by reading and reviewing four Holmesian anthologies and this is the third for that rundown.
A collection edited by Michael Kurland (who also happened to contribute his own story for this one), My Sherlock Holmes has quite an interesting unifying theme to its thirteen pieces. Where other anthologies still often make use of Dr. John Watson as its first-person narrator, this volume allows other characters from the canon to share their perspective of events regarding never-before-published cases of the great detective. Ranging from familiar ones to the obscure, some of the tales span for more than ten pages with two of three of them savory in length and pace. |
According to its general introduction, My Sherlock Holmes borrows the stylistic approach of the famous Japanese story Rashomon where each character has his or her own version of the truth. True to that essence, some of the stories presented are conflicting accounts from some of the canonically established representations of Watson's narratives about certain cases. Others are new concepts altogether that challenge the preconceived notions we have about Sherlock Holmes and his relationships with people or crime-solving itself.
Of all the thirteen, I can recommend seven of the stories. A lot of these stories prove to be challenging, admittedly, because the length surprisingly exceeds what I'm normally used to with anthologies such as this. For some, such length is justifiable and has made the entire story enjoyable and exciting to read while a few others just bored me to no end. My absolute favorite of all has to be Call me Wiggins by Norman Schreiber whose primary POV is the former Baker Street Irregular urchin of the same name. What I love about this story is the fact that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson makes a fictional appearance as one of Holmes' closest friends and Wiggin's mentor. Dodgson is more popularly known as the author Lewis Caroll who wrote the immortal Alice stories. The story presents the simplest of mysteries and yet inevitably the most tragic and it's such a whimsical and delightful look at one of history's most eccentric writers and his relationship (granted it's fictional) with the great detective. It's just really awesome for a Caroll fan like me.
Other gratifying stories are The Incident of the Impecunious Chevalier by Richard Lupoff that explored the POV of Agustin M. Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe's own great detective, who suffered much criticsm from Holmes in A Study in Scarlet so this is the story where he aims to remedy that misconception; The Dollmaker of Marigold Walk by Barbara Hambly that is written in Mary Morstan's POV concerning a series of abductions that are akin to that of the Jack the Ripper; Mycroft's Great Game by Gary Lovisi which is an amazing alternate interpretation of the events of The Final Problem regarding the deathly confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty; and Michael Kurland's own contribution piece Years Ago in a Different Place that explores the early friendship between Holmes and Moriarty in college where an unfortunate fallout between them occurs during Holmes' very first criminal investigation. We also have characters we have never considered prominent before such as Amelia Pettrigrew who is supposedly the second wife of John Watson after Mary, and she is present in Michael Mallory's The Riddle of the Young Protestor, where she gets to do some deductive reasoning herself concerning an antique treasure hunt riddle.
Finally, we have And the Others by C.D Ewing, whose format reads much like Chuck Palahnuik's novel Rantwhere the writer supposedly gathered interviews and testimonials from Gregory Lestrade, James Mortimer, Arthur Conan Doyle himself etc. about the things they remember the most about the great detective. In addition, we also have stories written in the POVs of Irene Adler, Sebastian Moran, and Reginald Musgrave. These stories were okay but not instantly captivating unlike the others mentioned above but they are notable because these characters are well-known.
My Sherlock Holmes is a fairly decent and worthwhile read for anyone who considers himself or herself a Holmesian aficionado. There are great gems to found in this volume whose lengthy narratives are justifiable because of the tantalizing content they delivered.
Of all the thirteen, I can recommend seven of the stories. A lot of these stories prove to be challenging, admittedly, because the length surprisingly exceeds what I'm normally used to with anthologies such as this. For some, such length is justifiable and has made the entire story enjoyable and exciting to read while a few others just bored me to no end. My absolute favorite of all has to be Call me Wiggins by Norman Schreiber whose primary POV is the former Baker Street Irregular urchin of the same name. What I love about this story is the fact that Charles Lutwidge Dodgson makes a fictional appearance as one of Holmes' closest friends and Wiggin's mentor. Dodgson is more popularly known as the author Lewis Caroll who wrote the immortal Alice stories. The story presents the simplest of mysteries and yet inevitably the most tragic and it's such a whimsical and delightful look at one of history's most eccentric writers and his relationship (granted it's fictional) with the great detective. It's just really awesome for a Caroll fan like me.
Other gratifying stories are The Incident of the Impecunious Chevalier by Richard Lupoff that explored the POV of Agustin M. Dupin, Edgar Allan Poe's own great detective, who suffered much criticsm from Holmes in A Study in Scarlet so this is the story where he aims to remedy that misconception; The Dollmaker of Marigold Walk by Barbara Hambly that is written in Mary Morstan's POV concerning a series of abductions that are akin to that of the Jack the Ripper; Mycroft's Great Game by Gary Lovisi which is an amazing alternate interpretation of the events of The Final Problem regarding the deathly confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty; and Michael Kurland's own contribution piece Years Ago in a Different Place that explores the early friendship between Holmes and Moriarty in college where an unfortunate fallout between them occurs during Holmes' very first criminal investigation. We also have characters we have never considered prominent before such as Amelia Pettrigrew who is supposedly the second wife of John Watson after Mary, and she is present in Michael Mallory's The Riddle of the Young Protestor, where she gets to do some deductive reasoning herself concerning an antique treasure hunt riddle.
Finally, we have And the Others by C.D Ewing, whose format reads much like Chuck Palahnuik's novel Rantwhere the writer supposedly gathered interviews and testimonials from Gregory Lestrade, James Mortimer, Arthur Conan Doyle himself etc. about the things they remember the most about the great detective. In addition, we also have stories written in the POVs of Irene Adler, Sebastian Moran, and Reginald Musgrave. These stories were okay but not instantly captivating unlike the others mentioned above but they are notable because these characters are well-known.
My Sherlock Holmes is a fairly decent and worthwhile read for anyone who considers himself or herself a Holmesian aficionado. There are great gems to found in this volume whose lengthy narratives are justifiable because of the tantalizing content they delivered.
Sherlock Holmes: The American Years by Michael Kurland
February 2015
"There must be a never-ending supply of Holmes stories just as there must be air and water. And they must be the finest Holmes stories we can create. Not the true quill of the Master perhaps, but still nourishing to a parched and hungry soul."
This is the final anthology I'm reviewing for the Sherlock Holmes birthday month last January which managed to bleed into this month as well because I was preoccupied with other readings so I had to take breaks for the last two books in my SH roster.
But I eventually did finish reading all of them and now I'm officially ending with yet another collection edited by Michael Kurland, Sherlock Holmes: The American Years. It's worth mentioning that this is a re-read from six years ago which meant that the material is once again fresh in my eyes and I can honestly say that I barely remember a lot of these stories at all. Only one really struck me as a standout. |
The ten stories included in this volume have operated with a premise based on the idea that the Great Detective has travelled to America; and what adventures he may have had during the course of his stay there. It was briefly mentioned in the canon that Holmes did find his way in the colonies before, and that inference should definitely breed a new set of possible scenarios as to why and how. Naturally, it could be because of a murder mystery or an ongoing investigation of any crime that is intriguing enough to draw in Holmes which was more or less what these stories offered. Another element common in all these tales is the inclusion of real-life historical figures for Holmes to interact with.
In a sense, The American Years can be readily considered a collection of pastiche. Almost all of them too are origin stories pertaining to how Holmes found his vocation and calling as a detective.
I only considered four of them my favorites and these are My Silk Umbrella by Darryl Brock where Holmes meets Mark Twain, author of Tom Saywer's and Huckleberry Finn's Adventures during a baseball game and hilarity ensues; The Old Senator by Steve Hockensmith where Holmes is a stage actor who encounters William Gilette, the most memorable actor himself who played him a decade or so later on stage; The American Adventure by Gary Lovisi where Joseph Bell, the doctor Conan Doyle based Holmes on originally, was actually his mentor and friend after all; and The Curse of Edwin Booth by Carole Bugge where the titular actor is haunted by his brother's Lincoln assassination but struggles to eventually overcome that notoriety through the help of a certain aspiring English detective.
The rest of the stories are fairly decent although a few can be grating because of its alienating quality, most especially if certain historical facts go way over your head while reading. We have Inga Sigerson Wedsby Richard A. Lupoff in which Sherlock Holmes has a older sister; The Sacred White Elephant of Mandalay by Michael Mallory; The Reluctant Assassin by Peter Tremayne that makes use of the Irish civil wars as a backdrop; Cutting for Sign by Rhys Bowen which is a proper Western tale where Holmes learns deductive reasoning from a Native American named Shadow Wolf; The Stagecoach Detective which is another Western but this time it deals with a female cast; and The English Senor by Martha Randall set in Mexico where an elderly woman is the POV character and imparts a young Holmes with a lesson never to underestimate the ways of the human heart.
It's weird for me to rate this the lowest of all the four anthologies I've read, considering I remember enjoying this a lot six years ago when I read it for the first time. I suppose it just didn't age well for me.
Nevertheless, the aforementioned four favorite stories are worth checking out so this is still a commendable collection. I agree with the introduction I quoted for this review that there must be an endless supply of new Holmesian stories for generations to come!
In a sense, The American Years can be readily considered a collection of pastiche. Almost all of them too are origin stories pertaining to how Holmes found his vocation and calling as a detective.
I only considered four of them my favorites and these are My Silk Umbrella by Darryl Brock where Holmes meets Mark Twain, author of Tom Saywer's and Huckleberry Finn's Adventures during a baseball game and hilarity ensues; The Old Senator by Steve Hockensmith where Holmes is a stage actor who encounters William Gilette, the most memorable actor himself who played him a decade or so later on stage; The American Adventure by Gary Lovisi where Joseph Bell, the doctor Conan Doyle based Holmes on originally, was actually his mentor and friend after all; and The Curse of Edwin Booth by Carole Bugge where the titular actor is haunted by his brother's Lincoln assassination but struggles to eventually overcome that notoriety through the help of a certain aspiring English detective.
The rest of the stories are fairly decent although a few can be grating because of its alienating quality, most especially if certain historical facts go way over your head while reading. We have Inga Sigerson Wedsby Richard A. Lupoff in which Sherlock Holmes has a older sister; The Sacred White Elephant of Mandalay by Michael Mallory; The Reluctant Assassin by Peter Tremayne that makes use of the Irish civil wars as a backdrop; Cutting for Sign by Rhys Bowen which is a proper Western tale where Holmes learns deductive reasoning from a Native American named Shadow Wolf; The Stagecoach Detective which is another Western but this time it deals with a female cast; and The English Senor by Martha Randall set in Mexico where an elderly woman is the POV character and imparts a young Holmes with a lesson never to underestimate the ways of the human heart.
It's weird for me to rate this the lowest of all the four anthologies I've read, considering I remember enjoying this a lot six years ago when I read it for the first time. I suppose it just didn't age well for me.
Nevertheless, the aforementioned four favorite stories are worth checking out so this is still a commendable collection. I agree with the introduction I quoted for this review that there must be an endless supply of new Holmesian stories for generations to come!
Sorry, Please, Thank You by Charles Yu
October 2015
I bought this book first, but the very first Charles Yu work I've read was my next purchase which was How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe. I could never begin to tell you just how madly in love I was with it from start to finish. You can read my review about it in case you're curious. Now, if I sit still for a moment and think about it again for a whole minute, I might get lost inside my own head and never recover. The only reason I bought this other book was because of one of the quoted reviews in the back page cited that if I'm a fan of the cult NBC show Community, then this one is definitely my cup of tea. And I can agree with that person...to some extent. The truth is, if it wasn't for that reference to my all-time favorite sitcom, I never would have even bothered looking for Yu's novel in the first place. Also, if I happened to read this first before How To Live, I'm afraid I might just put this author aside which would be a damn shame because How To Live was one of the most amazing literary experiences I have ever had which touched the geekiest parts of my soul.
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That being said, this collection entitled Sorry Please and Thank You wasn't like How To Live in a Science Fictional Universe. For one thing, it's an anthology of twelve stories, and a few of them are so convoluted and ridiculous but they still manage to be delightfully imaginative. His conceptual work of the plots (or a lack of any plot at all) can be gratingly incomprehensible one moment, and terribly poignant and heartbreaking the next.
What was common between the two books had to be the overall style and delivery. There is no doubt that they are definitely penned by the same writer whose sense of humor and wit are mystifyingly outstanding and unique. At their best, these same qualities could make up for the flaws in his storytelling for some of the pieces. Writing-wise, Charles Yu has the kind of voice that speaks a language you and I may not understand at first until we listen to it without distractions as we try to analyze how he communicates or attempts it with us--and why sometimes he often fails. Only then can readers unravel the secret pain and wish fulfillment in his written words that are so wrapped up in his ramblings about how a few people in this world ever really learned to talk and respond to him in the same manner. But those that do speak his language and are willing to form a dialogue with him will find a ready friend and confidant in Yu's comfortable and unassuming lead characters. They are often just him role-playing through a piece, much like a lonely child creates magic and mystery as he plays by himself while adults look on, both amused and worried of the stories he comes up with.
Only three stories truly stood out for me as magnificent pieces in this collection; the rest are products of the deranged, quirky and absurd writings of a most puzzling man who indulges in his whimsical passages with disregard for harmony and structure. Yu is far too fanciful with the other stories that it's hard for me to take them seriously, let alone have some sustained interest in them. However, as critical as I am about his overall lack of literary restraint, and slightly appalled by his chaotic compositions for Sorry Please and Thank You, I will attest that he has quite the huge talent and potential to become, well, even crazier and uninhibited in his storytelling. His prose is never stilted, never dishonest or bland. Charles Yu will tell you a story and you will hate him for how he tells it but he will make you feel something as if you have never lived until you heard/read what he has to say. And so, ultimately, what he offers in this anthology may be so disparaging and irregular, so imperfect and so laughably disturbing and fucking preposterous but you are guaranteed to become a duly impressed, captivated audience. I have never read a writer who had laid bare his soul and all its contents--the broken trinkets and the precious suffering--and still remain so genuinely innocent and clueless about the darkness and void he had treaded without heed or caution; and all because his imagination has no strings or a cage big enough to enclose it.
This may not have the powerful resonance of How To Live in a Science Fictional Universe but Sorry Please Thank You is just as exceptional; it has never been tedious or dull and there are interesting details to each story that can be quite enjoyable to re-read again. As for the three stories I truly loved in this anthology, they are Standard Loneliness Package, Hero Receives Major Damage and Open. These stories were deconstructions about humanity's awkward relationship with death, destiny and identity respectively, and Yu did not hesitate to tug that seam repeatedly to show us what could be lurking underneath our insecurities about them until the entire thing frayed. I also liked Inventory, Note to Self and Designer Emotion because the style and approach to said pieces managed to be inventive and hilarious all at once. Others like Troubleshooting and The Book of Categories are laborious to write since they parody the content of technical manuals with a humorous twist, and no other writer but Charles Yu could pull it off. I simply believe the man is absolutely bat-shit insane and I think that's why I enjoy reading his stories so much even when they confound me to no end!
What was common between the two books had to be the overall style and delivery. There is no doubt that they are definitely penned by the same writer whose sense of humor and wit are mystifyingly outstanding and unique. At their best, these same qualities could make up for the flaws in his storytelling for some of the pieces. Writing-wise, Charles Yu has the kind of voice that speaks a language you and I may not understand at first until we listen to it without distractions as we try to analyze how he communicates or attempts it with us--and why sometimes he often fails. Only then can readers unravel the secret pain and wish fulfillment in his written words that are so wrapped up in his ramblings about how a few people in this world ever really learned to talk and respond to him in the same manner. But those that do speak his language and are willing to form a dialogue with him will find a ready friend and confidant in Yu's comfortable and unassuming lead characters. They are often just him role-playing through a piece, much like a lonely child creates magic and mystery as he plays by himself while adults look on, both amused and worried of the stories he comes up with.
Only three stories truly stood out for me as magnificent pieces in this collection; the rest are products of the deranged, quirky and absurd writings of a most puzzling man who indulges in his whimsical passages with disregard for harmony and structure. Yu is far too fanciful with the other stories that it's hard for me to take them seriously, let alone have some sustained interest in them. However, as critical as I am about his overall lack of literary restraint, and slightly appalled by his chaotic compositions for Sorry Please and Thank You, I will attest that he has quite the huge talent and potential to become, well, even crazier and uninhibited in his storytelling. His prose is never stilted, never dishonest or bland. Charles Yu will tell you a story and you will hate him for how he tells it but he will make you feel something as if you have never lived until you heard/read what he has to say. And so, ultimately, what he offers in this anthology may be so disparaging and irregular, so imperfect and so laughably disturbing and fucking preposterous but you are guaranteed to become a duly impressed, captivated audience. I have never read a writer who had laid bare his soul and all its contents--the broken trinkets and the precious suffering--and still remain so genuinely innocent and clueless about the darkness and void he had treaded without heed or caution; and all because his imagination has no strings or a cage big enough to enclose it.
This may not have the powerful resonance of How To Live in a Science Fictional Universe but Sorry Please Thank You is just as exceptional; it has never been tedious or dull and there are interesting details to each story that can be quite enjoyable to re-read again. As for the three stories I truly loved in this anthology, they are Standard Loneliness Package, Hero Receives Major Damage and Open. These stories were deconstructions about humanity's awkward relationship with death, destiny and identity respectively, and Yu did not hesitate to tug that seam repeatedly to show us what could be lurking underneath our insecurities about them until the entire thing frayed. I also liked Inventory, Note to Self and Designer Emotion because the style and approach to said pieces managed to be inventive and hilarious all at once. Others like Troubleshooting and The Book of Categories are laborious to write since they parody the content of technical manuals with a humorous twist, and no other writer but Charles Yu could pull it off. I simply believe the man is absolutely bat-shit insane and I think that's why I enjoy reading his stories so much even when they confound me to no end!
The Tell-tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe
December 2015
No other writer evokes horror in its rawest, most human form like Edgar Allan Poe. Sometimes his stories are a blunt force trauma while others are drilled into the mind using precision instruments of terror.
His themes and depictions of people's greatest fears are very diverse and uniquely constructed, more visceral in some aspects but also cerebral in execution for a select few. This anthology The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Writings is comprised of his finest works in short story and poetry forms tackling what is readily terrifying, certain terrors that elude the psyche, and the unfortunate ways human beings transform into the very monsters they fear. With seventeen gruesome tales and sixteen morbid poems, this anthology is a must-have for any aficionado of the genre. |
The prose that Poe crafts in each of his pieces is spellbinding; we get descriptive ramblings of mad men and women, psychologically layered instances and premonitions, and frightening yet subtle symbolism plus debated interpretations of each work. Reading his short stories transport you right into the disturbed minds of irredeemable individuals who heed the call of misery and darkness, acting both predator and prey of their own machinations and failures. His best pieces are those that make readers experience paranoia and dissociation themselves and such stories have become a classic for that very reason. The titular The Tell-Tale Heart is a brief yet searing account of a man haunted by his macabre misdeed while The Black Cat and The Cask of Armontillado have characters who commit murders for reasons somewhat hollow and petty; the former was discovered in the most absurd way possible while the other was successful in concealing it but is forever tainted after the fact.
We also have allegorical pieces such as The Masque of Red Death, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, and A Descent in the Maelstorm which evoke a series of unavoidable misfortunes, marking its characters in blood and death.
And then we have tales that have more non-conclusive interpretations and resolutions such as The Fall of the House of Usher, Ligeria, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Premature Burial. All four of these stories are imaginative and insidious, dealing with fantastical elements and spine-tingling primitive fears that plague as all, only if we allow ourselves to contemplate deeper about them. A few other stories deal with catastrophic, life-altering conflicts which are found in Ms. Found in a Bottle and Silence--A Fable. And then we have the character-centric baffling accounts of William Wilson, Eleanora, and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the last of which has the most trying length.
Before there was ever a more defined detective genre and its formulaic elements, Poe has created C. Auguste Dupin, the first crime reasoner who used deductive reasoning in solving criminal cases that later on inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his more famous great detective Sherlock Holmes. Dupin only appeared in two stories, The Murders in Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter which deserve multiple readings to be acquire a more nuanced appreciation for the groundwork and thought process that Poe has employed in characterizing his detective and resolving the plots.
After readers had their fill of his gripping short stories, they can move on to the assortment of his poems which offer a more economical way of slaking their interest and intrigue for the memorably horrific and sometimes even upsetting concepts regarding ailments and discord that people will always find themselves caught up in and often not overcoming. Poe's poetic style is refined and elegant in a lot of respects but there are moments of sporadic contemplation and truly intense retrospective epiphanies that will keep reeling readers in. I personally enjoyed Israfel, The City in the Sea, The Valley of the Unrest, The Sleeper, The Bells and Alone.
With a vigorous and daring marksmanship in which he penned his works with, Poe's prose is very much alive--rustling, palpitating, throbbing, moaning and groaning and every other vivid ways that may drive weaker minds mad upon reading. His tales are cavernous places, buried deep in the recesses of our minds we never fully acknowledge. But every so often we can hear them calling for us--like a bell tolling from a distance--or the low, persistent humming of a heartbeat; whether concealed in a crypt, lodged inside a bottle in the middle of an ocean or has made itself comfortable right under our very beds where we believe we are most safe when we really aren't.
We also have allegorical pieces such as The Masque of Red Death, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, and A Descent in the Maelstorm which evoke a series of unavoidable misfortunes, marking its characters in blood and death.
And then we have tales that have more non-conclusive interpretations and resolutions such as The Fall of the House of Usher, Ligeria, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Premature Burial. All four of these stories are imaginative and insidious, dealing with fantastical elements and spine-tingling primitive fears that plague as all, only if we allow ourselves to contemplate deeper about them. A few other stories deal with catastrophic, life-altering conflicts which are found in Ms. Found in a Bottle and Silence--A Fable. And then we have the character-centric baffling accounts of William Wilson, Eleanora, and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the last of which has the most trying length.
Before there was ever a more defined detective genre and its formulaic elements, Poe has created C. Auguste Dupin, the first crime reasoner who used deductive reasoning in solving criminal cases that later on inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with his more famous great detective Sherlock Holmes. Dupin only appeared in two stories, The Murders in Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter which deserve multiple readings to be acquire a more nuanced appreciation for the groundwork and thought process that Poe has employed in characterizing his detective and resolving the plots.
After readers had their fill of his gripping short stories, they can move on to the assortment of his poems which offer a more economical way of slaking their interest and intrigue for the memorably horrific and sometimes even upsetting concepts regarding ailments and discord that people will always find themselves caught up in and often not overcoming. Poe's poetic style is refined and elegant in a lot of respects but there are moments of sporadic contemplation and truly intense retrospective epiphanies that will keep reeling readers in. I personally enjoyed Israfel, The City in the Sea, The Valley of the Unrest, The Sleeper, The Bells and Alone.
With a vigorous and daring marksmanship in which he penned his works with, Poe's prose is very much alive--rustling, palpitating, throbbing, moaning and groaning and every other vivid ways that may drive weaker minds mad upon reading. His tales are cavernous places, buried deep in the recesses of our minds we never fully acknowledge. But every so often we can hear them calling for us--like a bell tolling from a distance--or the low, persistent humming of a heartbeat; whether concealed in a crypt, lodged inside a bottle in the middle of an ocean or has made itself comfortable right under our very beds where we believe we are most safe when we really aren't.
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
March 2016
They say that surrealist author Haruki Murakami captures the 'common ache' of the 'contemporary heart and mind'. I thought this was a pretty spot-on description of some of his best short stories. I began reading Murakami in 2007, and he was a writer whose work and style resonated so strongly for me at that time where I'm confronted with the ambiguities of daily existence. He will always hold a special place in my heart as one of my favorite writers, although I will honestly say that over the years I've grown less affected of his stories than when I was a teenager which I think is for the best. However, since life is indeed fickle, I once again found myself in another low point last year, and thus continue to heal from that to this day. Reading The Elephant Vanishes was a most welcome endeavor then, because if there was any author that understands how inexplicable and often unknowable one's self is, it's Murakami-sensei.
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Composed of seventeen enthralling tales with the titular story as its ending piece, this anthology is possibly one of the more interesting collections from Murakami. It opens with an excerpt from his thick workThe Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and becomes more engrossing and weird by the time The Second Bakery Attack rolls around which was just hilarious, followed shortly after by the creepy correspondence-styled prose The Kangaroo Communique. Anecdotal stories like On seeing the 100% Perfect Girl one Beautiful April Morning, Lederhosen, The Little Green Monster, A Window and Barn Burning were simple in concept but layered with more meaning and symbolism, heightened by the Murakami treatment said author has become famous for.Barn Burning was personally chilling as endearing as Lederhosen has been. The Little Green Monster was a piece I re-read at least thrice to fully enjoy and comprehend, however. These tales were especially intriguing.
The rest, particularly TV People, A Slow Boat to China, The Silence, The Lawn of the Afternoon and The Fall of the Roman Empire... were puzzling enough to see all the way through the end, but I will probably include them as the Murakami stories that least appealed to me in this collection. The Dancing Dwarf and The Elephant Vanishes are stories with a more surreal quality that is on par with The Little Green Monster, and reminded me that Murakami's biggest influence after all is Franz Kafka. He truly delivers with these three stories from the anthology that marks his Kafkaesque sensibilities.
There is a lot to enjoy and appreciate for this book, and each story is a matter of perspective and acquired taste for a reader. In saying that, my two favorite stories have to be Sleep and Family Affair. These stories are interpersonal and relationship-oriented as contextualized with their impact in one's identity and self-actualization. Both narrators of stories feel a sense of unraveling where their own personal freedom is at stake by forces outside of their control. The narrator for Sleep is an ordinary married woman whose chronic insomnia began to affect how she viewed her own mortality and family, while the narrator for Family Affair is an eternal bachelor whose close relationship with his sister and lack of discernible stronger emotional ties aside from it have made him internalized the hollowness of his individuality.
I think these are my favorite stories because--at point or another in my life--I was these two people. I understood the narrators' baffling repugnance towards their own loved ones; how lackadaisical Family Affair's narrator was about his singlehood and how it affects how he relates to other people in general; how Sleep narrators feels as if her life has been prolonged by the restlessness of her mind and spirit that everything and everyone else felt small compared to her own tragedy. These tales for me were so horrific and sad, and deftly written and portrayed by Murakami.
I liked these stories because they simply held a mirror to reflect my deepest, darkest fears and anxieties about my life and its contents including its relationships and dysfunctions. Though there are more clever and interesting stories in the anthology, Sleep and Family Affair struck the right chord in me and this is why they are the tales that are most valuable and insightful for me here in The Elephant Vanishes.
The rest, particularly TV People, A Slow Boat to China, The Silence, The Lawn of the Afternoon and The Fall of the Roman Empire... were puzzling enough to see all the way through the end, but I will probably include them as the Murakami stories that least appealed to me in this collection. The Dancing Dwarf and The Elephant Vanishes are stories with a more surreal quality that is on par with The Little Green Monster, and reminded me that Murakami's biggest influence after all is Franz Kafka. He truly delivers with these three stories from the anthology that marks his Kafkaesque sensibilities.
There is a lot to enjoy and appreciate for this book, and each story is a matter of perspective and acquired taste for a reader. In saying that, my two favorite stories have to be Sleep and Family Affair. These stories are interpersonal and relationship-oriented as contextualized with their impact in one's identity and self-actualization. Both narrators of stories feel a sense of unraveling where their own personal freedom is at stake by forces outside of their control. The narrator for Sleep is an ordinary married woman whose chronic insomnia began to affect how she viewed her own mortality and family, while the narrator for Family Affair is an eternal bachelor whose close relationship with his sister and lack of discernible stronger emotional ties aside from it have made him internalized the hollowness of his individuality.
I think these are my favorite stories because--at point or another in my life--I was these two people. I understood the narrators' baffling repugnance towards their own loved ones; how lackadaisical Family Affair's narrator was about his singlehood and how it affects how he relates to other people in general; how Sleep narrators feels as if her life has been prolonged by the restlessness of her mind and spirit that everything and everyone else felt small compared to her own tragedy. These tales for me were so horrific and sad, and deftly written and portrayed by Murakami.
I liked these stories because they simply held a mirror to reflect my deepest, darkest fears and anxieties about my life and its contents including its relationships and dysfunctions. Though there are more clever and interesting stories in the anthology, Sleep and Family Affair struck the right chord in me and this is why they are the tales that are most valuable and insightful for me here in The Elephant Vanishes.
Instructions on How to Disappear by Garbriela Lee
March 2017
Short stories can probably be considered the most underappreciated form of fiction writing these days, particularly those that belong in the genre of speculative fiction. Not a lot of people are aware of this, but said genre actually thrives in the fringes of Filipino literature and most are written in the English language. Writers like Dean Francis Alfar and Eliza Victoria have had small mainstream successes with their respective works, but other writers for the genre only have their works usually published as part of a varied anthology.
In fact, I never would have discovered author Gabriela Lee myself if I wasn't dutifully checking the Filipino Literature section of my local bookstore near my place of work. I'm glad I did one day because I would have missed out in buying my copy of her freshman debut Instructions on How to Disappear whose cover illustration as well as the rest of its visual presentation was enticing enough to pick up and browse through. |
I was furthermore encouraged to read it because Dean Francis Alfar himself wrote the Introduction who promised the readers a truly remarkable experience in the hands of Gabriela Lee herself. With my expectations in check, I proceeded to partake. Composed of no more than eleven short stories, this collection had made it rather easy enough to make a fair assessment of Ms. Lee's caliber and style.
I would consider that seven of these tales are the ones I considered the most poetic and painfully unforgettable; all of which were intricately woven as they combine both searing, introspective narrative and hard-hitting symbolism. At times I would even feel as if Ms. Lee was carving the words not just in my skin but also in my bones. Her expertise in literary language is unapologetic and unique. She was not only effective in exploring characters with nuance in which their personal journeys through the abyss would resonate almost powerfully in readers, but she was also adept in crafting plots that expose not only the mythical in her more urban fantasy stories, but also the maddeningly sublime and hurtful in her futuristic dystopia. By reading Ms. Lee's collection and embracing its magic, I realized that a short story is only as good as its overreaching message of either hope or despair.
Instructions opens with Bargains whose atmosphere and situation resemble the very premise for CLAMP's manga xxxHOLIC, but with a more horrific twist of its own. An aspiring writer whose ambition outweighs her talent meets up with an enigmatic Chinese shopkeeper. This elderly woman provided her with the means to become successful in her literary field--but for a very steep price. Next we have the charming The Side of the Looking Class which is quite young-adult-esque with its heroine outcast and her weight problems. The wish fulfillment element of this odd story is what gave its sequence of events a guilty pleasure appeal.
Tabula Rasa was the most haunting piece in the anthology overall; a dark yet romantic tale of how love literally consumes its host. Much of its narrative was driven with metaphorical representation which can be borderline absurd. After all, how else would you interpret events concerning a woman who can absorb all of her boyfriend's memories every time they engage in sexual congress and, in turn, she was also able to abolish his very identity and essence until he was reduced into nothingness? There was something almost suspenseful about this story as it reaches an ill-fated climax. On the flip side, we have Capture which chronicled a college boy's photography project with his model who seemed to slowly become less tangible than the photos in which she was depicted in. These two stories are the most ambiguous as Honesty Hour, meanwhile, is the most straightforward yet also the least interesting story of the collection.
One of my top favorites is Hunger. In this story, Ms. Lee was able to examine her own mythos concerning the lore of the manananggal. Written in the second-person, Hunger follows the intimate details of succumbing to a cursed state and how often liberating it is to accept your transformation as the kind of creature anchored by nightmares and bloodlust. That being said, it was also a bittersweet account about unrequited love.
Most of this anthology's stories deals with the devastation of a lost love such as the titular Instructions on How to Disappear and August Moon. On the other hand, not all of Ms. Lee's stories captivated me. One of them is Stations which revealed a dystopic landscape that feels a little fragmented story-wise, redeemed only by the bouts of lyricism in the prose; whereas the more urban fantasy story mixed with mythology entitled The Nameless Ones succeeded in delivering a fast-paced thriller which warrants a second chapter because it left me looking forward to a multi-chaptered series of its plot. I would definitely read a second part.
The other science fiction dystopia tale is Eyes As Wide as the Sky whose opening paragraph already illustrates just how breathtaking Ms. Lee can write and sustain that same enchantment of prose all throughout the way said story flowed. Its subtle horror and piercing poignancy were both unexpected, and left me with a sensation of loss myself once I have reached its tragic conclusion that left more questions unanswered.
"We did a good thing when we raised ourselves up from the rubble of the last war. Amid the carnage and destruction, we built the single thing that can truly stand the test of time: the Last City, a shimmering dome that surrounded our fluted structures of glass and metal, rings upon rings of protection that we erected against he elements, against time, against all that wishes to destroy the final creation of mankind."
In a nutshell, Instructions on How to Disappear is a purchase you will not regret!
I would consider that seven of these tales are the ones I considered the most poetic and painfully unforgettable; all of which were intricately woven as they combine both searing, introspective narrative and hard-hitting symbolism. At times I would even feel as if Ms. Lee was carving the words not just in my skin but also in my bones. Her expertise in literary language is unapologetic and unique. She was not only effective in exploring characters with nuance in which their personal journeys through the abyss would resonate almost powerfully in readers, but she was also adept in crafting plots that expose not only the mythical in her more urban fantasy stories, but also the maddeningly sublime and hurtful in her futuristic dystopia. By reading Ms. Lee's collection and embracing its magic, I realized that a short story is only as good as its overreaching message of either hope or despair.
Instructions opens with Bargains whose atmosphere and situation resemble the very premise for CLAMP's manga xxxHOLIC, but with a more horrific twist of its own. An aspiring writer whose ambition outweighs her talent meets up with an enigmatic Chinese shopkeeper. This elderly woman provided her with the means to become successful in her literary field--but for a very steep price. Next we have the charming The Side of the Looking Class which is quite young-adult-esque with its heroine outcast and her weight problems. The wish fulfillment element of this odd story is what gave its sequence of events a guilty pleasure appeal.
Tabula Rasa was the most haunting piece in the anthology overall; a dark yet romantic tale of how love literally consumes its host. Much of its narrative was driven with metaphorical representation which can be borderline absurd. After all, how else would you interpret events concerning a woman who can absorb all of her boyfriend's memories every time they engage in sexual congress and, in turn, she was also able to abolish his very identity and essence until he was reduced into nothingness? There was something almost suspenseful about this story as it reaches an ill-fated climax. On the flip side, we have Capture which chronicled a college boy's photography project with his model who seemed to slowly become less tangible than the photos in which she was depicted in. These two stories are the most ambiguous as Honesty Hour, meanwhile, is the most straightforward yet also the least interesting story of the collection.
One of my top favorites is Hunger. In this story, Ms. Lee was able to examine her own mythos concerning the lore of the manananggal. Written in the second-person, Hunger follows the intimate details of succumbing to a cursed state and how often liberating it is to accept your transformation as the kind of creature anchored by nightmares and bloodlust. That being said, it was also a bittersweet account about unrequited love.
Most of this anthology's stories deals with the devastation of a lost love such as the titular Instructions on How to Disappear and August Moon. On the other hand, not all of Ms. Lee's stories captivated me. One of them is Stations which revealed a dystopic landscape that feels a little fragmented story-wise, redeemed only by the bouts of lyricism in the prose; whereas the more urban fantasy story mixed with mythology entitled The Nameless Ones succeeded in delivering a fast-paced thriller which warrants a second chapter because it left me looking forward to a multi-chaptered series of its plot. I would definitely read a second part.
The other science fiction dystopia tale is Eyes As Wide as the Sky whose opening paragraph already illustrates just how breathtaking Ms. Lee can write and sustain that same enchantment of prose all throughout the way said story flowed. Its subtle horror and piercing poignancy were both unexpected, and left me with a sensation of loss myself once I have reached its tragic conclusion that left more questions unanswered.
"We did a good thing when we raised ourselves up from the rubble of the last war. Amid the carnage and destruction, we built the single thing that can truly stand the test of time: the Last City, a shimmering dome that surrounded our fluted structures of glass and metal, rings upon rings of protection that we erected against he elements, against time, against all that wishes to destroy the final creation of mankind."
In a nutshell, Instructions on How to Disappear is a purchase you will not regret!
All that Darkness Allows by Karl R. De Mesa
March 2017
The root of all horror is fear, but people frequently mistake fear as an easy experience; it's that obvious crescendo in the scoring during a movie when you know some weird shit it about to go down. Horror then is reduced to mere jump scares and cheap thrills to shock and repulse people, but that ultimately is a disservice. Granted, said genre in film had often catered to audiences that are simply looking for mindless gore and lifeless dialogue being spoken by flat characters whose only purpose are to be brutally murdered and disposed.
But with recent entries like The Babadook, It Follows and even The VVitch, horror movies can possibly become more exploratory and symbolic; just as it had been decades ago in its prime before all these franchises about serial killers, ghosts and demon possessions have turned the genre into something rather repetitive and sublimely stupid. |
Such stories after all lack the human element which is exactly what horror is supposed to be all about regardless if it deals with the paranormal or the macabre. Horror stories must deliver a harrowing tale of the human condition in which madness, grief and vulnerability are fully realized and exposed for the pickings of vultures. Anyone who has ever read Edgar Allan Poe would understand that there is more to horror than just surprising you with a well-timed jump scare or a literal rendition of blood and guts spilled for your viewing pleasure.
In this modest Filipino anthology written in the English language, thirteen writers exhibit their own harrowing narratives. Enclosed in a compact collection that is truly impressive as the sum of all its parts, All that Darkness Allows is a worthwhile read with a few stories layered with unforgettable symbolism while others explore myths as the rest were cautionary tales that delivered some punches. Right off the bat, it opens with its titular story about a lunar event that threatens the peaceful quiet living of Earth's residents. The first-person story was hypnotic, prone to melancholic contemplation as readers feel the utter loss of hope. Afterwards, readers would sample The Skip which presents a post-apocalyptic landscape with almost Lovecraftian monsters thriving in the tunnels of a subway system. We also get a surprising ghost story entitled Going Down whose twist at the end was rather commendable.
A staple of the horror genre often deals with female protagonists discovering something terrible and inescapable about their lives and this trope is very much present in a lot of the anthology's stories such as Dalaw, Mama's Here, The Invite, Sunshine, All the Birds, Fire Tree and Inked. From this bunch, the ones that stood out for me are All the Birds and Sunshine whose symbolism have open interpretations that at first exposure would only feel slightly uncomfortable until they really settle in and leave impressions that can chill the bones. Mama's Here and Fire Tree both deal with any mother's truest fear coming to life while Dalaw and Inked have their female protagonists succumb to inner darkness during one fateful moment. The only difference is that Inked's protagonist truly caved in and offered herself to forces beyond her comprehension. Meanwhile, The Invite explored the nuances of grief and guilt, a rather unpleasant and oppressive combination.
Certain other stories have very perplexing premises and these are Analemma and Phantoma, Towards the Pharmacology which I feel I can't even spoil and readers themselves have to get into. They are respectively written by Eliza Victoria and Karl De Mesa whose works I am more than familiar with in the past. One story of this collection stood out the most because it's probably the only one that really sickened me in a lot of levels and that's the body horror masterpiece entitled Stigmata. The descriptions of debauchery performed by two men of cloth, as well as those concerning a certain illness that inflicts the body, did get my stomach churning for a bit--and when the connotations of religious fanaticism came into play, I really can't stop myself from cringing even as I finished the story itself.
In a nutshell, All that Darkness Allows is something you don't want to miss out on. If you're looking for horror stories that are more than just passing tales about ghost hauntings and garden-variety gore, then you may want to purchase this from your local bookstore soon.
In this modest Filipino anthology written in the English language, thirteen writers exhibit their own harrowing narratives. Enclosed in a compact collection that is truly impressive as the sum of all its parts, All that Darkness Allows is a worthwhile read with a few stories layered with unforgettable symbolism while others explore myths as the rest were cautionary tales that delivered some punches. Right off the bat, it opens with its titular story about a lunar event that threatens the peaceful quiet living of Earth's residents. The first-person story was hypnotic, prone to melancholic contemplation as readers feel the utter loss of hope. Afterwards, readers would sample The Skip which presents a post-apocalyptic landscape with almost Lovecraftian monsters thriving in the tunnels of a subway system. We also get a surprising ghost story entitled Going Down whose twist at the end was rather commendable.
A staple of the horror genre often deals with female protagonists discovering something terrible and inescapable about their lives and this trope is very much present in a lot of the anthology's stories such as Dalaw, Mama's Here, The Invite, Sunshine, All the Birds, Fire Tree and Inked. From this bunch, the ones that stood out for me are All the Birds and Sunshine whose symbolism have open interpretations that at first exposure would only feel slightly uncomfortable until they really settle in and leave impressions that can chill the bones. Mama's Here and Fire Tree both deal with any mother's truest fear coming to life while Dalaw and Inked have their female protagonists succumb to inner darkness during one fateful moment. The only difference is that Inked's protagonist truly caved in and offered herself to forces beyond her comprehension. Meanwhile, The Invite explored the nuances of grief and guilt, a rather unpleasant and oppressive combination.
Certain other stories have very perplexing premises and these are Analemma and Phantoma, Towards the Pharmacology which I feel I can't even spoil and readers themselves have to get into. They are respectively written by Eliza Victoria and Karl De Mesa whose works I am more than familiar with in the past. One story of this collection stood out the most because it's probably the only one that really sickened me in a lot of levels and that's the body horror masterpiece entitled Stigmata. The descriptions of debauchery performed by two men of cloth, as well as those concerning a certain illness that inflicts the body, did get my stomach churning for a bit--and when the connotations of religious fanaticism came into play, I really can't stop myself from cringing even as I finished the story itself.
In a nutshell, All that Darkness Allows is something you don't want to miss out on. If you're looking for horror stories that are more than just passing tales about ghost hauntings and garden-variety gore, then you may want to purchase this from your local bookstore soon.