books – Page 15 – Eliza Victoria

So I’ve resigned from the “new job” and will soon be employed as a writer here. I don’t know why I keep updating you about my work situation. Perhaps also to remind myself. Why did I resign? Let us meet up for coffee and I’ll tell you. But the quick summary: It was a fun place to work, but I didn’t have the stamina.

In the meantime I’m at home trying to get my shit together. Step 1 of getting my shit together was applying for an NBI Clearance, which I did yesterday. An entire lifetime could be lived during an NBI Clearance application. I was told to go to Robinsons Otis because it was reportedly faster, but I was going to meet up with Eula anyway so I chose to go to Robinsons Galleria. If you’re planning to line up there, for the love of all that is holy, be there early. And by early I mean earlier than 5:30 a.m., because I was there before the sun even rose and I was number 364. Can you believe that? What time did people start arriving, 3 a.m? The NBI satellite centers process only 500 applications a day. (NBI Main processes 2,000.) Number 500 was handed out at Galleria yesterday before 7 a.m. Yep. So. Be there early.

They allowed numbers 201 to 399 to come in at 10 a.m., and numbers 400 onwards at 12 noon. Bring a book, an mp3 player, a friend to chat with. And food. And patience. And remember: 2 valid IDs, P115.

I finished the application at 5:30 p.m. And was told that I got a “hit” and could only get my clearance on Feb. 8. Feb. 8! I was too tired to feel angry at that point, so I just got on a bus and went home.

Check out the NBI website to find out where else you can go to get clearance.

Also, NBI? There has got to be an easier way to secure clearance. I mean, come on, man, I pay my taxes. I don’t pay my taxes just so I can sit inside a mall for 12 hours waiting for a lousy piece of paper.

I imagine my younger siblings lining up for this for employment and I die a little inside.

Anywho, recommendations!

Lucifer – In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, Lucifer Morningstar throws up his hands and says, “I give up!”, and hands the keys to Dream. Hell is Dream’s problem now, and good riddance. In The Kindly Ones we find him running a piano bar. But what are the other plans of the former Lord of Hell? Author Mike Carey tells us. And what a series! High concepts! I love this.

Room – Jack and Ma live in Room. It’s a very small room. Look. Five-year-old Jack believes Room is the world, and everything else (the shows on TV, the stories in their books) is fantasy. Old Nick brings them food and clothes and takes their garbage away. Jack has to stay in Wardrobe when Old Nick visits Ma at night. One day, Jack watches TV and sees a man taking the same painkillers her Ma keeps in a bottle. But how is that possible? How can the painkillers in Room appear in TV, which isn’t real?

At that point I felt real terror, and that’s when I knew what a gripping tale this is. Of course if you follow the news you’d know what the novel is based on. The knowledge doesn’t diminish the story’s power. Do check it out. I read it in two days.

Sherlock – And the most adorable picture ever.

That’s it, pancit!

Kristel Autencio posted a review about Philippine Speculative Fiction VI. This bit made me smile this Monday morning.

My favorite in the collection is Eliza Victoria’s “The Storyteller’s Curse,” about a writer receiving a gift that he never really wanted. This is the kind of formal ambition I really admire, juggling the different tropes of horror and metafiction to create a tight, tension-filled story. It has one of those double plot setups that can be challenging to maintain, but Victoria does it masterfully here. The convergence of the two narratives leads to a climax whose implications are as horrific as it is intoxicating. It has subtle nods towards the style of writers like Stephen King and Ray Bradbury, using gothic elements to tackle issues of artistic creation, survival, and choice. The last line was a sucker punch in the gut the first time I read it.

Thank you! And thanks to editor Kate Osias for posting the link online.

Buy the book! PSF VII coming soon! :)

Happy for the positive reviews Alternative Alamat is getting. We’re at #14 today on the Amazon Kindle Fantasy Anthology list!

Some reviews:

Deck Shoes (Catherine Batac Walder)

Kristine Ong Muslim on Goodreads

Bookish Little Me

One More Page

It’s been a bit quiet here, huh.

Some highlights from the past week.

A (Board)Game of Thrones!

I have played this before but this is the new version. Thanks to Phil for hosting the game (and taking these pictures). We played two rounds. I was controlling the Lannisters in the first round (where the Tyrells won), and the Baratheons in the second (where the Greyjoys won).

The second round took forever, haha. Jaykie, who was controlling the Lannisters, almost conceded after losing so many troops. But I’m glad he didn’t because it was such a hilarious comeback No, actually, I wasn’t glad because if he had conceded I would have moved my troops and won two castles easy but anyway.

This goddamn Lannister ship

went to the Baratheon side on a whim and singlehandedly (well, with the help of the Tyrell ships) sank the Stark fleets and cut off Dragonstone from the rest of the continent.

It has to be the most entertaining gameplay I have ever seen that night. “For Lannisport!”

Thanks guys.

(This section should have a WARNING: GEEKERY tag.)

Swensen’s last night, with the boyfriend, his sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. My happy place.

best reads of 2011

This is the year I read a lot of comic books (thanks to my Galaxy Tab purchase – it’s mighty hard to carry around 60-plus issues of anything, no matter how engrossing).

What are your favorite books this year? Here are mine:

A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan

The Name of the Wind Patrick Rothfuss

Wise Man’s Fear Patrick Rothfuss

Full Dark, No Stars Stephen King

Preacher Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon

Pyongyang Guy Delisle

Fun Home Alison Bechdel

Ex Machina Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris

Daytripper by Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon

Ang Mga Kaibigan ni Mama Susan Bob Ong

Zoo City Lauren Beukes

Moxyland Lauren Beukes

Elmer Gerry Alanguilan

The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath

Glass Soup Jonathan Carroll

Faithful Place Tana French

The Pull of the Moon Elizabeth Berg

The Tesseract Alex Garland

A Feast for Crows George RR Martin

The Kobayashi Maru of Love Carljoe Javier

Showbiz Lengua Jose Lacaba

Our Story Begins Tobias Wolff

Bone Jeff Smith

And here are ongoing comic book series that I’ve dipped into and I think are worth following:
Chew

The Unwritten

Runaways

The Walking Dead

a visit from the goon squad

Every once in a while you read a book that is like a drink of cold water after a long, hot day. I read the first few pages of A Visit from the Goon Squad and immediately settled down with a sigh. My kind of language, my kind of storytelling. My cold water to parch a thirst. Every chapter in Jennifer Egan’s fantastic novel can stand on its own as a short story (some chapters in fact have appeared in magazines as short stories), but the characters are all connected. The chapters jump back and forth in time, moving a character from success to utter failure. Blink and you will miss it. Happiness is temporary. Love is illusory. Time’s a goon.

round-up

What’s up, world?

Ma Maison

Newly opened Japanese fusion restaurant in Greenbelt 2. So new the server given to us was nervous and disoriented (didn’t read our orders back to us after taking them, took a long time understanding what we were ordering, brought the wrong food to our table). I was getting really pissed until management decided to give us a new server. The second server was too eager but at least was competent. (But still too eager. Ma Maison should control their people.)

Sorry for the lack of food photos. I recommend their Tonkatsu, but it’s their desserts that are the real winners. We had the Green Tea Mochi (Mochi ball filled with green tea ice cream) and Green Tea Brazo de Mercedes.

Paranormal Activity 3

Caught this at Gateway. There was some Coke event outside the mall that caused horrible traffic, but J wanted us to catch the film on time (I was there early, and I called to tell him that I can have the tickets I’ve bought bumped down to a later time, a call that promptly drained his phone battery), so he parked his car and ran across Gateway, hassled some guy so he can call me, didn’t get an answer (I was buying food!), ran around some more, and finally caught me at the foodcourt carrying burgers from Wendy’s. True love. I felt bad for him; he had to stress himself out trying to catch a film that would stress himself out.

I still vote the first film as the most effective in the trilogy. Most effective in the sense that it bugged me for several nights. And also in the sense that among the three, camera use in the first film was the most organic. Still not perfect, but the most organic. In the third film the presence of the camera POV just didn’t make sense most of the time. Why would you film yourself editing a film? Why wouldn’t you drop your camera after seeing someone you love suspended in midair (and possibly dead)? There were nice tricks, except that after screaming in the cinema you’d go get dessert and then forget all about it.

Last Shot

Had my last cervical cancer shot. Now I’m completely protected! And can now live without fear of further injections!

Junot Diaz in Makati/Dinner with a friend

Arrived at Greenbelt too late to catch the Q & A, and was too poor to buy a book to be signed. (I have a beloved copy of Oscar Wao sitting on my bookshelf in Bulacan.) FFFFUUUUU –

The lovely Lizzy, on the other hand, got there in time, had a book, and even managed to bring Junot Diaz some kutsinta and kapeng barako. I envy your life, Lizzy! She has a lovely post about it here.

On writing about the Dominican experience: “I write about the Dominican experience because America doesn’t need my help.” Being Dominican is at the very center of his being a writer and he sees no benefit in ignoring it. When asked if he could’ve written Oscar Wao had he and his family not left the Dominican Republic, he says, jokingly, “There’s no way to tell. Let me run a beta test life and see how things turn out.”

But Junot Diaz wasn’t really the reason I went to Greenbelt. Really! I found out he’d be there at around 11 in the morning, and by then I was in the office and it was too late to make plans. But I was chatting with Eula about grabbing dinner and that was the plan we were able to make. Pizza and pasta at CPK, rants about life and stress and unhappiness, and how, at 25, we’re still so unsure. If my nine-year-old self saw the 25-year-old me she’d be horrified. “Why are you fat? And how come you don’t own a condo unit yet?” The nine-year-old self who didn’t care about her hair and wanted so bad to be a successful, published novelist by the time she was 18.

She’s a fucking idiot.

Twenty-five is a strange age. You feel young and old at the same time.

Silver Monthsary

Went to S & R on our silver monthsary. (Term “silver monthsary” trademarked by Jaykie.) That place was huuuuge. They even have a decent mini-food court. But we only really went there to buy unhealthy things (Ruffles, Ben & Jerry’s, a dozen cans of Dr. Pepper). Junk food celebration! Huwag tularan, kids. Eat carrot sticks.

Komikon

Do you know that we drove for an hour and a half today just to get to Ortigas from UP Diliman? Fuck this shit. Missed Komikon. And here I was planning to horde indie comic books this time so I can read them and review them! Damn.

Well, anyway. Date at The Podium. J felt guilty for not being able to take me to Komikon (not your fault, silly boy!) so he bought me these:

J really didn’t have to apologize, or buy me anything, but it’s a sin to turn down books.

Wise Man’s Fear

A well-conceived world populated with well-written characters. Bravo, Rothfuss. Where’s Book Number 3?

So that’s it, world. How are you guys? What’d I miss? :)

the birthday weekend, in bullets

J bought me Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars on Oct. 29 and I finished reading it two days later. Do I even have to mention that this is an absolute page-turner? What a fantastic volume of stories. Full Dark is peopled with characters caught in tragic circumstances (rape and assault, a terminal illness, murder) that stretch them to their limits. Their tragedies lead to the discovery of the Other Self – either the darker self that leads to more ruination, or the stronger self that helps them survive. I think King is strongest when writing the short novel. With full novels he tends to meander; with short stories he tends to resort to cheap B-movie horror tricks. Take any King novel or short story collection and you’ll know which parts/stories you can remove without feeling shortchanged. I can’t remove any of the stories from Full Dark. Not one of them.

I went with J’s family to Holy Cross. Weather was nice and we had a lovely walk.
Horror movie marathon with J’s sisters and brother-in-law. Here’s our feast: chicken wings with blue cheese dip, bread and cheese, various sausages, apple cheesecake, coconut cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Pumpkin mousse tart! Made by J’s sister, V. I could eat this every day.

Watched Dawn of the Dead, Trick r Treat, The Crazies, and Kababalaghan aka The Return of Magandang Gabi Bayan and Nostalgia. (My childhood!)
Went home to Bulacan! Caldereta, kare-kare, menudo, adobo, yema, pastillas, Oreo cheesecake (from my sister and her boyfriend), leche flan. My father and J finished a bottle of Johnny Walker (Black) at 2 in the afternoon (J was coerced). J ended up napping most of the time. He said he liked the wind there.
We watched Rec 2, which we hated with a passion.
All too soon we had to leave. We stopped by SM North Edsa and tried two restaurants. One is Hapadog, the Japanese hotdog place. We were amused by their Japanese soda, which you had to open by pressing down on the bottle opening to push down the marble holding the soda back why does it have to be this complicated, Japan?