Estranghero Press has released its third free, online, themed anthology of Philippine speculative fiction. “Diaspora Ad Astra” is a collection of fourteen science fiction stories by Filipino authors, edited by Joey Nacino and Prof. Emil Flores.

1. Introduction

2. Dean Francis Alfar, The Malaya

3. Alexander Marcos Osias, Oplan Sanction

4. Raymond P. Reyes, Ina Dolor’s Last Stand

5. Vince Torres, The Cost of Living

6. Isabel Yap, A List of Things We Know

7. Audrey Rose Villacorta, The Keeper

8. Carljoe Javier, The Day the Sexbomb Dancers Invaded Our Brains

9.  Dannah Ruth S. Ballesteros, Ashes/////Embers

10. Eliza Victoria, Rizal

11. Katya Oliva-Llego, Gene Rx

12. Raydon L. Reyes, Robots and a Slice of Pizza

13. Raven Guerrero, Lucky

14. Anne Lagamayo, Space Enough and Time

15. Professor Emil M. Flores, War Zone Angel

Estranghero Press has revealed the table of contents and cover art (by Oscar Alvarez) for its Science Fiction anthology “Diaspora Ad Astra”. The digital anthology is scheduled to be released this month. Here’s what you can look forward to reading:

1. War Zone Angel, by Professor Emil Flores
2. The Day the Sexbomb Dancers Invaded Our Brains, by Carljoe Javier
3. The Malaya, by Dean Francis Alfar
4. The Cost of Living, by Vince Torres
5. Ina Dolor’s Last Stand, by Raymond P. Reyes
6. Oplan Sanction, by Alex Osias
7. The Keeper, by Audrey Villacorta
8. Ashes Ember, by Dannah Ruth S. Ballesteros
9. Rizal, Eliza Victoria
10. Gene Rx, Katya Oliva-Llego
11. Robots and a Slice of Pizza, Raydon Reyes
12. Lucky, Raven Guerrero
13. A List of Things We Know, Isabel Yap
14. Taking Gaia, Celestine Trinidad
15. Space Enough and Time, Anne Lagamayo

Estranghero Press has released a call for submissions for their newest anthology, and, as expected, this time the genre is science fiction–specifically science fiction featuring Filipino characters or the Filipino race (note that this criteria was not present in either their horror or secondary world fantasy anthologies). The title of the new anthology is Diaspora Ad Astra, and you can check the submission guidelines here.

Congratulations on the new anthology! Were there any lessons you learned from The Farthest Shore that you applied here?

Thanks Pao. I suppose if there’s a primary lesson I learned from the first anthology, it’s that it’s possible. That if there is something you want done, you have to do it yourself. I’ve always heard Filipino writers (myself included) lamenting the lack of local writing markets. So actually having completed The Farthest Shore convinced me that I could actually do this.

This is also your second time collaborating on editing duties (Estranghero Press’ fantasy anthology, The Farthest Shore, was co-edited by Dean Alfar). Why go down that route, rather than monopolizing the editorial reins?

Well, don’t you get bored at times of hearing only yourself in your head? (Of course if you start hearing someone else, I suggest you go see a shrink.) I figured it would be great to have different editorial perspectives of what the Story is, what it means. So rather than limiting it to my perspective, I thought it would be great to share the fun with other writers and making them guest-editors.

Do you and Karl share the same taste in stories?

Well, we have different tastes– I think he goes for the more edgier stuff while I dig the weird shit– but both of us have the same reverence and joy of horror stories. I’m primarily a fantasy reader/writer but horror is a close second favorite in my clockwork world.

How did you settle on the theme of demons/horror for the anthology?

I threw a number of topics to Karl and he picked one and threw it back to me. From there, it was just a matter of selecting the right title. (And really, once you have the right title, everything else is easy.)

Are any of the writers included in the anthology new to you?

One thing I like with this whole gig is that I get to read– and introduce– new writers to the world. There are some writers here and in The Farthest Shore that I’ve heard about but never worked with (or read) before. And there are some writers that are new to me, i.e. it’s the first time I’ve seen their names, and they have stories that expand what Philippine Speculative Fiction is.

What do you think of the state of the horror genre here in the Philippines? Not just in fiction necessarily, but even in film, the state of the fandom/s, etc.

I do think that among the genres, horror is the one most alive and well in the Philippines. All you have to do is look at the moviehouses during the year-end film festivals with Shake, Rattle and Roll series, movies like Sigaw, Feng Sui and Sukob. TV as well with Wag Kukurap, E.S.P. and Nginiig. Print you have writers like Yvette Tan, Karl de Mesa, and David Hontiveros– as well as the Psicom horror series. Obviously, some people would disagree on the quality of the horror genre locally but still– unlike science fiction– it’s there. You might say this stems from the Filipinos’ need to scare themselves silly when relating ghost stories during the wee hours of the night. Or it could be due to our inherited memories of a time when there were no bright lights and big cities, when it was always dark once 6 p.m. rolled around, and we had to shutter ourselves in our bahay kubos at night.

Are you a believer, insofar as the darker side of the supernatural/paranormal spectrum is concerned? (From the introduction, Karl seems to be.) Does that affect your writing at all?

Do I believe in ghosts? Yes, though I’ve not actually seen one. As with most people, I have seen some things from the corner of my eye. Do I believe in demons and monsters? Well, I keep an open mind– it’s easier to run away when you’re not asking stupid questions in the face of “the jaws that bite, the claws that catch”!

What’s next for Estranghero Press?

Well, given that I’ve already done one per genre leg of fantasy and horror, there’s only one left– science fiction! Now to look for a guest-editor!

The latest online spec fic anthology from Estranghero Press has now gone live. Go check it out! From the site:

These are the Filipino horrors: the garden-variety demons from hell with plastic forks and spongy tails, the ones in your head that come out to play at midnight, the spirits that make up most of your lives like a Frankenstein monster. We’re letting out all of these things that haunt our days in 2010.

“Demons of the New Year: Horror from the Philippines, edited by Joseph Nacino & Karl de Mesa” is published electronically to make this collection of stories available to a wider international audience. Through this anthology we will be able to show the world that the Filipino writer can create horrors that can scare with the best of them.

Short post to spread the word that Estranghero Press has announced the table of contents for their Demons of the New Year anthology. Amongst the select few are Ruin and Resolve contributors Catherine Batac Walder and Eliza Victoria. Congratulations to all the writers, and to co-editors Joseph Nacino and Karl de Mesa.

Our friends over at Estranghero Press have been busy lately, so I thought it might be best to gather some relevant updates in this post.

First off, everyone remembers that the deadline for story submissions for their Demons of the New Year anthology is on January 15 right?  Well if you didn’t remember, now you do, so no excuses. Procastinators and crammers (I think that covers about 90% of the people I know) have around five days to polish up those horror stories and send them to co-editors Joseph Nacino and Karl R. De Mesa.

Second, Estranghero Press now has a facebook page so go add them up if you’re a fan.

Third, head honcho Joseph Nacino has posted the digital press’ guidelines to shed some light on how it will be run and how often they plan to release new titles.

Site Launch:

• The official Estranghero Press website is now up and running (although parts remain, as per internet tradition, “under construction”).

Books and the Writing Craft:

• Speaking of Estranghero Press, here are a few interesting posts from Joey Nacino’s blog, one on local monsters, and another on the inclusion of an editor’s own story in his/her anthology (the latter with bonus flame-y flavor in the comments, if that floats your boat).
• Mitali Perkins on why she writes multicultural books. (Via Stacy Whitman)
• For essay writers, poets and artists, there’s a call for submissions for Duguang Lupa, a chapbook of reactions to the Ampatuan Massacre. (via PGS)
• “In the Nick of Time” a free Holiday Sampler put together by J.C. Hutchins with excerpts from a dozen new novels and nonfiction books by authors such as Laurell Hamilton, Cory Doctorow and Joseph Finder. (via Tor.com)
• The 43rd Bookworms Carnival covering books on/related to mythology (we contributed our post on Anvil’s Treasury of Stories)
• The Apex Book of World SF (which includes a story by Dean Alfar) is available for the Kindle, and for  free worldwide shipping in dead-tree form. (via World SF News Blog)

Event Coverage:

• Elbert Or had some thoughts on TEDxManila (you can see more coverage at the TEDxManila Blog).
• The Second San Pablo Comic Festival in Pictures. (via Komikero)

Historical Documents: (via Filipiniana.net)

• Text of a Petition for the Pardon of Jose Rizal (written by his mother)
• Text of the first editorial of La Solidaridad

Contests and Sales:

• Underland Press, Small Beer Press and others (via Bibliophile Stalker)
• Can’t find it mentioned online but when I was at Serendra last weekend, A Different Bookstore was on sale.
• New Worlds Alliance has a Wapakman promo.  (Yes that qualifies as SF )

Theme: Horror with demons – “This collection of stories will be an anthology about demons– but don’t let that stop you from coming up with a really good idea about what constitutes your ‘Demons of the New Year.’ Like I said in an earlier post, don’t let a particular idea stop you from writing a good story”

Deadline: January 15, 2010.

(Slider image by Gazzmundo found here, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0)

How did you come up with the idea for “The Farthest Shore”? Why focus on secondary world fantasy?

As I’ve talked about in the book’s introduction, Dean and I were talking about our love of secondary world fantasies and how as Filipino writers we couldn’t write about them because of the lack of Filipino elements in such stories. So we decided to hell with expectations and come up with an anthology of secondary world stories written by Filipinos.

I came up with the title “The Farthest Shore” in honor of Ursula K. Le Guin’s third Earthsea book and thought it apt given her definition of what ‘the farthest shore’ meant. Likewise, I thought the title evoked the feeling of islands, which is really what this is all about: secondary world stories from the Philippine islands, as far as it can be from the US or international readership.

How did you go about defining “secondary world fantasy”?

The basis of our definition of secondary world fantasy stems from the epic doorstoppers like George R. R. Martin’s and Robert Jordan’s works, as well as J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. However, we also thought that this kind of definition is somewhat limiting given the other kinds of secondary world ideas, i.e. the portal-to-a-fantasy-world like Stephen Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant books or the new weird stuff like China Mieville’s Crobuzon tales.

So we thought of making the definition a little vague in order to give our writers free rein to interpret what secondary world fantasy could mean. Hence, in this anthology you will find stories about pseudo-Filipino myth-laden realms (like Rod Santos’ “Queen Liwana”), a girl’s imaginary world of justice fulfilled (like Eliza Victoria’s “The Just World”), a New Weird-ish story of generational turtle ships (like Dom Cimafranca’s Rite of Passage), etc. Of course, those descriptions are my reading of the stories and may not apply to others. *wink*

You’re obviously well versed in some of the classic secondary world stories. Do you have a few more obscure secondary world favorites to recommend? Those that deserve more attention and acclaim?

Well, people can always try the late Paul Zimmer’s Dark Border novels (“The Lost Prince”, “King Chondo’s Ride” and the stand-alone “A Gathering of Heroes”) and P.C. Hodgell’s Kencyrath books (“God Stalk” and “Dark of the Moon” which was later collected in “The God Stalker Chronicles”; “Seeker’s Mask” and “To Ride a Rathorn”, which was collected in “Seeker’s Bane”). Zimmer’s books chronicles a cold war fantasy world wherein evil is just a border away. However, though the heroes of the Dark Border are quite compelling, they’re also tragic. Istvan the Archer is a famous swordsman who foreswore the bow after a massacre that made his name. Hodgell’s books are similar in that evil also lies over another border but her adventure stories of Jaime are leavened by a sly sense of humor. Both have their strengths and weaknesses but overall, they made quite an impression on me—especially since I managed to acquire copies of these more-than-likely-out-of-print books at secondhand bookstores. Unfortunately, there aren’t any Dark Borders books anymore since Zimmer—the brother of fantasy granddame Marion Zimmer Bradley—died in 1997. Fortunately, Baen Books have been publishing omnibus copies of Hodgell’s books and it looks like a fifth one is in the offing.

In the course of putting together this anthology, what was your biggest challenge? Your biggest surprise?

For myself, the biggest challenge was having enough stories that fit the bill to fill the anthology. Despite the popularity of fantasy/SF books in the Philippines, it seems like Filipino writers aren’t as keen to write about non-Filipino stories. Or maybe that’s just my perception. The biggest surprise? Filipino writers can write good secondary world stories.

Ah, now there’s a statement that might be misconstrued. How was that a surprise? what were your initial expectations when you and Dean began the project?

Well, the submissions did open my eyes to what could be considered as secondary world fantasy. Prior to this, my perception of a secondary world story was limited to the Western type ( i.e. J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth or George R.R. Martin’s Westeros to China Mieville’s New Crobuzon) though I never realized it. Good thing I found myself seeing past this as I read stories that were non-Western– sometimes non-Filipino– but still apply a very Asian context to the idea of secondary worlds.  An example would be Crystal Koo’s “Wildwater” story about a poor yet ambitious fisherman who goes off to find fame and fortune in the big bad empire. Ironically, Charles once pointed out one time that the submission guidelines describing the secondary world theme as “too vague”.  Good thing that worked out to our advantage.

Could you tell us a bit about your story “Brothers-in-Arms”?

My story “Brothers-in-Arms” is actually one of my few attempts to finish writing a secondary world story. Likewise, it’s also one of a series of attempts to break a number of genre tropes. In this case, I came up with the idea of a man trying to break a spell cast upon him since birth. This spell, whether you consider it a curse or destiny, it’s all the same thing: is there such a thing as free will or do we just think we’re making our own decisions?

Predestination huh? And what’s your personal stance on that?

We all make our choices and these set our paths before us. Of course, whether we walk the paths is also up to us.

How long did it take you to write the story?

A long, long time. Maybe five to eight years? It took me a while to align my urge to write with my sense of Filipino nationalism. But that’s another story altogether.

Were there any particular sources of inspiration for your story?

None in particular. But I do think that Alcatraz bathroom scene in the Jerry Bruckheimer movie “The Rock” helped, wherein the Navy SEALS were trapped by the besieged Marine Recon soldiers. The movie’s flaws notwithstanding, the idea that you had soldiers on the same side forced to fight each other was pretty powerful for me.

What aspect of the writing/ editing did you enjoy the most?

The conceptualization and the editing. I love coming up with story ideas. Writing the actual text is painful for me, given that I’m such a lazy bastard. But once I’m done, it’s all easy-peasy—unless the text doesn’t want to cooperate.

What aspect of the writing/editing did you find most difficult?

See above. In this case, “Brothers-in-Arms” was a bit of a hard delivery as I complicated the story too much. Thankfully, my appointed editor managed to point out the problems that were making it clunky.

If you could write in a secondary world created by another (literary, television etc.), which world would that be? What kind of story would you write?

You mean fan-fiction? (Insert smiley face here.) I never really given it much thought since I prefer to write my own creations. However, I once fell in love with Hayao Miyazaki’s post-apocalyptic environmentally-conscious fantasy opus “Nausicaa” and imagined myself writing my character into it.

You’ve announced that Farthest Shore is to be the first in a line of books from your new digital press. What can you tell us about Estranghero Press?

The local writing market that’s open to the writing public and at the same time is regular is pretty scarce at the moment. Aside from Dean’s own annual Philippine Speculative Fiction anthologies, there’s also Kenneth Yu’s Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, the Story Philippines magazine, the literary-oriented fiction section of the Philippine Free Press magazine as well as the Philippines Graphic magazine. Unfortunately, running a magazine/book publishing needs a lot of money which I don’t have so I decided to create an online press that would give writers another paying market. Likewise, given the international flavor of the Internet, it would also give people abroad a chance to read Filipino stories. What’s not to like about that idea?

Where else can we find your work?

I’ve been published in Dean’s Philippine Speculative Fiction (all four volumes!), the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, Manual Magazine, the FHM Ladies Confessional issue, and Vin Simbulan’s A Time of Dragons anthology. I also run a blog at www.estranghero.blogspot.com as well as an idea writing blog at www.thisisfifteenminutes.wordpress.com.  And then, of course, there’s secondary world anthology at www.farthestshore.kom.ph and all the imprints that will come out from www.estrangheropress.kom.ph (Note: the Estranghero Press website isn’t active at the moment).

Anything else we haven’t touched upon that you’d like to talk about?

Yes: do you think that words should have an expiration limit?

Well some words certainly seem to have a shelf life. I’m usually more concerned with weeding out words that wouldn’t have been in existence yet in my story’s time period. You?

I don’t know. I have yet to finish that story yet!

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We’d like to thank Joey for agreeing to do this interview (and allowing us to interview the other authors as well). You can find him online at his blog, The Grin Without the Cat.