Category: books

tally, some musings

Inspired by Aliette de Bodard’s post about shameless self-promotion for the Nebula Awards! Ha! I’m no Aliette, and I don’t think any SFWA member will take the time to ~nominate me, but it’s always fun to do a tally.

For 2010 I have published seven short stories.

  • “Sand, Crushed Shells, Chicken Feathers”, Philippines Free Press, March 22, 2010.
  • “Salot“, Demons of the New Year, March 24, 2010.
  • “Once They Were Gods“, Expanded Horizons, April 1, 2010.
  • “Monsters”, Philippine Speculative Fiction V, April 24, 2010.
  • “Brothers”, Cantaraville (Issue Ten), April 2010.
  • “Jeremy’s Magic Well”, Gig and the Amazing Sampaguita Foundation, Inc. July 2010. Illustrated by Ray Nazarene Sunga.
  • “Elsewhere”, Usok #2, November 3, 2010.

The Nebula Rules say, “All works first published in English, in the United States, during the calendar year, in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, or a related fiction genre are eligible for the Nebula Awards® in their respective categories.” And “Works first published in English on the Internet or in electronic form during the calendar year shall be treated as though published in the United States.”

That means my eligible stories are “Salot” (horror/fantasy), “Once They Were Gods” (fantasy), and “Elsewhere” (science fiction).

I have two reprints this year:

  • “Incidental Light”, Philippines Free Press, January 3, 2009. (Reprinted by Basement Stories, October 2010. link.)
  • “Parallel”, Philippine Speculative Fiction IV, February 28, 2009. (Reprinted by Expanded Horizons, November 3, 2010. link.)

Not sure if the Nebula accepts nominations of reprints, but anyway both are eligible. “Incidental Light” is a fantasy, while “Parallel” is sci-fi.

So far, I have published eight poems.

Also, a bunch of essays and reviews. Quite a good year.

I started a novel, but quickly gave it up because it felt like a short story being stretched to its limits. I’ll stick with the short story form, thank you very much.

This is also the reason why I never joined the NaNo. Ever. :p

Last night I began writing notes for a new story. I still have no idea when I’m going to start writing it. Lazy, lazy bee.

With special guests: High Chair poetry books, PGS, Tobias Wolff, bright bed sheet, and electric fan haha.

Re-reading these babies. Mmm poems.

Got these from Jaykie’s sisters from Boracay! :D

I bought a pair of gloves. Doing the laundry sometimes wounds my fingers. Domestic wounds, woe.

Jaykie’s better, and for that, I am thankful.

the miracle life of edgar mint

I’ve always wondered how John Irving pitches his novels. They span years, feature a dozen or more characters, and contain stories that cannot possibly fit in a synopsis. A synopsis cannot do his novels justice. A plot outline will only reveal a tall tale with no heart.

Brady Udall’s The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint reminded me very much of John Irving’s novels, and it certainly contains the elements that tall tales are made of. Edgar Mint, half Apache and half Caucasian, is run over at the age of seven by a mailman’s vehicle. The vehicle’s wheel runs right over his head, and the mailman, howling, touches his skull and feels it give. That boy’s dead, a man in the crowd says, but Edgar survives (albeit with a lumpy head). And so his odyssey begins: from St. Divine’s, a hospital for the poor; to Willie Sherman, a school for delinquents; to a house filled with sad Mormons, to a doorstep in the rain. We know the basic elements of journeys: a growing collection of friends, a goal, self-discovery, many adventures – and that’s what we get here.

Sounds old? Perhaps, but Edgar Mint is a compulsive read, a captivating story. It moved me.

The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

now reading: The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

20th Century Ghosts

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!), 100 Bullets

new! Showbiz Lengua, Our Story Begins, Feast for Crows, PGS Horror and Christmas issues

philippine genre stories: christmas

Oh, I knew I did something wrong. I should have read the Philippine Genre Stories Horror issue first, in time for Halloween. Ah, well. At least the Christmas season is nigh, and this review is a better fit. (But I’ll review Horror in a future blog post anyway.)

The PGS Christmas issue was published in 2008. Christmas! Personally I wouldn’t dare touch the Christmas story, but authors Erica Gonzales and Dominique Cimafranca do a good job of offering us  alternative stories to the famous birth. In Gonzales’s “Jumper Cable: Crossing”, Jesus is a biological entity that has crossed over from a more advanced dimension, and the angel Gabriel is a Dimension Agent sent to the “vessel” Mary and her partner Joseph just so they won’t run around and panic. Written with the matter-of-fact tone of its bored protagonist, this is hands down my favorite story in the issue.

Cimafranca’s “Twilight of the Magi” features the Three Magi, but with the special powers of fire, wind, and lightning. The central question is: If the Magi’s magic is for the fight against evil, what will become of their powers once the Emissary arrives? Will the Magi be obsolete, useless?

M.R.R. Arcega’s “The Magic Christmas Box” reads like a parable. Quite sweet, and I ended up enjoying it, even though I’m sick and tired of Christmas parables. Michael Co’s “Off-Season” is a crime story, but I found it frustrating because it didn’t go all the way. Give me a murder, not a stolen bike. After the big reveal, I just shrugged and flipped the page.

Andrew Drilon’s “Noche Buena” is a romance story featuring Fiesta Ham and Quezo de Bola. Seeing the character names, I thought this is a humorous story, or a satire, or an existential story featuring talking ham. It’s not. It’s a straight romance with a tragic end that I just can’t take seriously because of the character names. There’s really something wrong if you find the Author’s Notes more heartbreaking than the actual story.

The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

now reading: The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

20th Century Ghosts

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!), 100 Bullets

new! Showbiz Lengua, Our Story Begins, Feast for Crows, PGS Horror and Christmas issues

we are all welcome here

It’s 1964. Segregation is in place. Racial tension is in the air. African-Americans are kept out of voting precincts but they are fighting back, because this is the summer of freedom. Or so they say. Diana lives in Tupelo, Elvis Presley’s birthplace. She lives in squalor with her sick mother, living off of her neighbors’ charity. Donated curtains, donated sheets, money, free groceries. They cheat the system, telling their social worker that Diana’s mother, Paige Dunn, has 24-hour help so they can receive the welfare checks intended to pay such help. In truth, at night till the wee hours of the morning, it is only Diana who tends to her mother’s needs.

Paige Dunn can only move her head. Stricken with polio while pregnant, she gave birth to Diana while inside an iron lung – a medical miracle. She also insisted, against the wishes of everyone around her, to take care of her own child. According to author Elizabeth Berg, Paige is inspired by the true story of Pat Raming.

I finished the story fairly quickly because Diana is an honest, feisty, engaging voice. However, despite all the foreshadowing, I was surprised by the improbable, fairy-tale twist. Berg actually went there. Huh. It felt as if several subplots were ended abruptly in order to have this happy ending: LaRue’s civil rights fight, Diana’s puberty. It could have been a longer book (What happened during Diana’s teenage years?), but Berg decided to just tie up all the loose ends in the Epilogue and call it a day.

But perhaps this is just the tale Berg wants to tell: a summer where things go downhill, and suddenly, very suddenly, change for the better. It’s a good enough story, as it is.

The Mighty Reading List!

(I’ve crossed out several books here that I haven’t read in full. They just couldn’t hold my attention. I give up. I’m sorry, Bookswap Girls. I’ll try harder next time. :))

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

now reading: The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

20th Century Ghosts

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!), 100 Bullets

new! Showbiz Lengua, Our Story Begins, PGS Horror and Christmas issues

cake with a side of guilt

So. Diet. Little to no rice, no sodas, no chips. Desserts should be limited only to fruits.It would really be best if I didn’t eat anything at all.

I want to lose weight so bad, but friends ask you out, and you ruin your diet willingly.

* * *

Jaykie and I went out with my high school friends on Friday. Dinner at Mang Jimmy’s. Had rice, had soda. Probably had too much tapa mix. After that, Banapple. I bought the Snickers cheesecake for me and the boyfriend, but also sampled 1) blueberry cheesecake; 2) cookie dough cheesecake; and 3) their famous banoffee. Probably gained ten pounds right there. But it’s always fun to go out with my high school friends. For some reason we ended up talking about Maria Ressa. (“Si Ging Reyes daw papalit. Bongga pala ‘yun. Akala ko itinapon lang siya sa Amerika.”)

Flashback: That morning I went with Jaykie to UP (he was just going to pay for the second sem – PMAM y’all). Walked in the rain. Typical, really, for rain to pour during enlistment period. I miss UP, but I don’t miss this torture. Jaykie wrung his shirt dry on the Bahay ng Alumni parking lot while I shielded him with my umbrella. Lunch at ROC, where I had fish and a slice of pastillas cheesecake. Mmm.

Saturday lunch was at Trinoma. Baked ziti and one-half of a pizza at Sbarro, then yogurt at Golden Spoon. Jaykie took me shopping as a birthday gift!

Kikomachine Komix No. 6:

A new mp3 player! (My Zen player conked out oh many months ago, and I’m too poor to buy an iPod.)

Shirts from Artwork, which entitled me to a free doodle book. :)

Thank you, Jake. :)

This cell phone bag I bought for myself. Only 80 pesos!

That night I was reading a book that mentioned chocolate, and all of a sudden I wanted chocolate. We ended up ordering from KFC. I had mousse but for the first time in my life, I had my rice replaced with a split bun (which by the way tasted like day-old bread).

I should exercise like a crazy person this week to burn all those calories gah.

But great weekend, as always.

20th century ghosts

I couldn’t ask for a better anthology of contemporary horror. And it’s a generous anthology, too. Fifteen stories (sixteen if we include the hidden short story in the Acknowledgments), all of them written and constructed with superb skill. Gorgeous language, with author Joe Hill settling with the subtle instead of the hysterical. Not hurrying, not resorting to cheap tricks.

I was so happy to have gotten my hands on this book. “Best New Horror” is a self-reflexive delight, “Better than Home” heartbreaking, “Last Breath” simple and spooky, “My Father’s Mask” a disorienting tale of masks and made-up games.

“Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead”, starring a pair of extras in a George Romero film, is surprisingly sweet. I was convinced Hill could make any subject work, because he even made “Pop Art” work – work so well it could bring tears. And “Pop Art” is about an inflatable boy. (Seriously.) The anthology has some body horror (“You Will Hear the Locust Sing”), some vampires (“Abraham’s Boys”). “The Widow’s Breakfast” is a story told through the eyes of a hobo. No ghosts here, but my, what fantastic construction. The collection closes with an engaging novella, “Voluntary Committal”, which you just have to read.

All of the stories have heart. That’s what most horror writers forget. You need the heart, to make the horror more devastating.

The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

The Spooky Art

20th Century Ghosts

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!), 100 Bullets

new!Showbiz Lengua, Our Story Begins, PGS Horror and Christmas issues

storm of swords

Toward the end we see Sansa standing in snowfall, creating a replica of Winterfell from the white, white field. From the book’s beginning to this scene is a gripping tale of conspiracy, lies, bloodshed and war told through the eyes of ten characters. Many beloved characters die, alliances shift, and powers are given and taken away.

This novel is more than a thousand pages long, but Catelyn Stark strikes a deal with Jaime Lannister, Robb takes a wife from a lower House, Joffrey takes the hand of a Tyrell, wights attack the Watch, Jon falls in love with a wildling, Daenerys Targaryen builds up an army to take Westeros, and the Starks and the Tullys go to the Twins for the wedding of a Frey – and you just have to keep on reading.

The Mighty Reading List!

Hunger Games

The Unnamed

Catching Fire

Mockingjay

We Are All Welcome Here

The Year of Fog

The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint

Notes on Extinction

Wild Mind

now reading: The Spooky Art

now reading: 20th Century Ghosts

on the side: Twisted 8 1/2, Storm of Swords, Scott Pilgrim, PSF V (last few stories!), 100 Bullets

new! Showbiz Lengua, Our Story Begins, PGS Horror and Christmas issues