Rocket Kapre – Fantastic Filipino Speculative Fiction

The Summer Komikon is this Saturday, April 13, once again at the Bayanihan Center. The Mythspace Team will have four new stories (and limited copies of Mythspace #0) available at the event, so it seemed like an opportune time to provide a reader’s guide for our new offerings. But first off, here’s where we’ll be on Saturday:

We’ll have four Mythspace stories out on Saturday, as well as Pilandokomiks (a book illustrated  by “Mythspace: An Unfurling of Wings” artist Borg Sinaban) as well as some second hand graphic novels. Here’s a breakdown of the Mythspace titles so you can decide which is right for you (with the answer hopefully being: All of Them):

Title:  Mythspace: Black Mark

Artist:  Paul Quiroga

Writer: Paolo Chikiamco

Genre: Science Fiction / Action / Mecha

Price: 60 pesos.

Synopsis: What if the creatures from Philippine folklore — the tikbalangs, nuno, kapre — were inspired by sightings of actual alien races? That’s the question that fuels the Mythspace stories.

In “Black Mark”, readers gain insight into the fractious society of the crafty Nuno, where political zealots (who tint their skins to signify their party loyalties) have the government in a persistent state of gridlock. Yet, legend has it that there is a faction that transcends politics: the legendary Black, a task force that is authorized to go to extreme measures to safeguard Nuno society. Helmless Mang, a pariah on his home planet, is about to find out that the Black are very real — and both more powerful and more terrible than that the stories would have you believe…

Reading Notes: Stand-alone story, but provides insight into the Nuno, the race of Qu in Lift-off. Nunos also play roles in Humanity and Devourers of Light.

Folklore Notes: I combined the Nuno and Dwende from folklore to form the Nuno race — the idea of different Nuno types being distinguished by skin color comes from stories about the dwende. The Bungis were one-eyed giants in our folklore.

Title:  Mythspace: Humanity

Artist: Cristina Rose Chua

Writer: Paolo Chikiamco

Genre: Science Fiction / Drama

Price: 60 pesos.

Synopsis: What if the creatures from Philippine folklore — the tikbalangs, nuno, kapre — were inspired by sightings of actual alien races? That’s the question that fuels the Mythspace stories.

In “Humanity”, the descendants of humans abductees (taken from Earth centuries ago) labor as slave-miners in the asteroid fields of the materialistic Kataw. Danny and Marta are two young miners, thrust into dire straits when a stroke of good fortune leads to a calculating betrayal. When salvation comes in the form of the legendary Dalakitnon — Free Humans — both of them must decide for themselves what they would give up, to be free.

Reading Notes: A stand-alone story, this expands on the plight of humanity in the galaxy, which is touched upon in Lift-off. Also gives you a glimpse of the culture of the Kataw, and why they have the reputation that they do (as seen a bit in Devourers of Light and Black Mark).

Folklore Notes: The Dalakitnon are one of the “elves” mentioned in our folklore. Kataw is another name for Sirena.

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Cover for Mythspace: Lift Off (Part 2 of 3)

It’s April 1! That means that the Summer Komikon is only 12 days away (nope, not an April Fool’s). On April 13, Team Mythspace will have — barring natural calamity — four new stories to tell. Three of those stories are stand-alone tales (and make sure to check out Mythspace on Facebook for the covers of those stories, later today), but one if part 2 of the Lift Off story that was part of issue #0.

Now, here’s the thing — Mythspace was always intended to be released as a compiled volume of six stories, set in the same universe, with one story Lift Off, being the central piece, and twice as long as most of the others. We want to release Part 2 in order to get feedback, recoup funds, and provide something of a collectible for early supporters (because the final volume may look different from the ashcans we sell at the conventions — those who have Liftoff #1 and #2 will see how Koi has shifted his style.) That being said, it’s likely that part 3 of Lift Off won’t be released as a single issue (unless there’s a huge demand for it) and by next Komikon (in October or November), what we’ll be releasing is the compiled volume.

That being said, I want to gauge how many people would still like to buy a stand-alone copy of Lift Off Part 2, so I can estimate how many we should print, and make sure I reserve your copies. So if you’re interested in Lift Off #2, please leave a comment (with your name) here, at the Facebook page, or email me at mythspace.comic[at] g m a i l . Sorry, we haven’t decided on the price yet.

Also! If you’ve yet to read the first part of Lift Off, and would like to get a copy of Mythspace #0 (where that story can be found),  do also please leave a comment (with your name) here, at the Facebook page, or email me at mythspace.comic[at] g m a i l  — we only have limited copies though! You can see some reviews here and here.

Undecided? Have some art from part 2:

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“The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005-2010″ edited by Dean Francis Alfar & Nikki Alfar, and published by UP Press, will have a book launch on Feb 28, 2013, 5:50PM, at the UP Bahay Kalinaw. Making the cut is my science fiction short story “Carbon” from PSF5. Here’s a more complete description:

Between these covers are the best short stories of fantasy, horror, science fiction and genres in-between, selected from the first five years of the Philippine Speculative Fiction annuals. Step through the portal and explore worlds old and new and experience the power of the literature of the imagination as crafted by Filipino authors. Featuring stories by:  Rebecca Arcega FH Batacan Rica Bolipata-Santos Jose Elvin Bueno Ian Rosales Casocot Paolo Chikiamco Ronald Cruz Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon Timothy James M. Dimacali Andrew Drilon Russell Stanley Geronimo Pocholo Goitia Carljoe Javier Angelo R. Lacuesta Anne Lagamayo Apol Lejano-Massebieau Joseph F. Nacino Alexander Osias Kate Osias Vincent Michael Simbulan Joshua L. Lim So Charles Tan Yvette Tan Mia Tijam Noel Tio Eliza Victoria Isabel Yap Kenneth Yu

Sort of a chain letter for writers, the Next Big Thing is a blog meme whereby authors answer a set of questions about their next book project, and tag other writers/creators for the next cycle. I was tagged by Eliza Victoria, so here are my answers!

1) What is the working title of your next book?

Mythspace: Liftoff. It’s the first collection of what I hope will be many stories told within the Mythspace shared universe. I’m working in collaboration with the wonderful artists Koi Carreon, Borg Sinaban, Jules Gregorio, Mico Dimagiba, Cristina Rose Chua, Paul Quiroga.

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?

Most of my ideas come from an urge to tell speculative fiction stories that draw upon Philippine history, folklore, or mythology. There’s a growing field of creators doing the same, particularly in comics, but most of those projects are oriented toward fantasy and not science fiction. So I wanted to take some of the more familiar elements of Philippine fantasy — the monsters and ghouls that populate many of our mainstream horror movies and stories — and reimagine them as aliens to populate one of the most neglected local SF subgenres, the space opera.

Also: ever since I named the imprint/blog “Rocket Kapre” I’ve been dying to do a story that literalizes that.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Science Fiction to be general, Space Opera to be more particular, and Portal-Fantasy-Adapted-Mythic-Space-Opera-Squad-Adventure, to invent my own name for it.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

If I were to make a movie adaptation of Mythspace, I’d cast completely new actors. I honestly can’t think of many established local actors who can disappear into their roles, and I don’t want the actors to overshadow the characters they’re portraying.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Tikbalangs in spaaaaaaaace!

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Self-published first, and then I’ll shop it around traditional publishers. No agency system here in the Philippines!

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Well the book collects 6 stories of varying length, with over two hundred pages of story in total, so it took me about six months of on-and-off work to get the first draft of all the scripts ready.

8)What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

This is really more movie inspired than book inspired. This is my attempt to give the Philippines its Star Wars.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?

Can I have a reverse inspiration? Every lazy use of our folklore creatures as superficial monsters, without any attempt to do something new with them.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?

For Filipino readers, it’s a chance to see the monsters of your childhood in a way that you’ve never seen them before.

For non-Filipino readers, it’s a chance to see an attempt at space opera that is informed by a rich mythology that you don’t usually see in science fiction (as opposed to say, the Norse myths).

And now… TAG, you’re it:

Andrew Drilon

Mina Esguerra

Macoy Tang

Noel Pascual

I saw a few new reviews of Scheherazade’s Facade–the anthology of gender bending stories that I’m a part of–this week (not including the ones on Goodreads), so I’m linking to them here, to encourage readers to give the anthology a try.

The first review comes from Jarla Tangh and, if you don’t mind some spoilers, it provides brief, stylized, summaries for each of the stories in the book.

The second review is from Kellan Sparver, with what is now my favorite one-line review for one of my stories ever: Stories I found of special mention: …  ”Kambal Kulam”, by Paolo Chikiamco, for being pure crack-fic.” Bonus points: The quote that starts the review comes from my story as well. Woo hoo!

The cake at the World Fantasy Conference launch of Steampunk Revolution, which I could not attend due to living halfway around the world. SteamCake!

While it’s been available in some places for a while now, December 1 was the official release day for Steampunk III: Steampunk Reloaded, the Ann Vandermeer edited anthology which reprints “On Wooden Wings”, my steampunk story from Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 6. That story is set in the same universe as High Society, albeit much earlier in the timeline, and the first part of the High Society prologue will be an adaptation of that story. Here’s some early art from Hannah, just to prove that we’re working on it:

Image source: http://sketchamababble.blogspot.com/2012/11/early-wooden-war-concept-art.html

Even for those of you who’ve read “On Wooden Wings” already, Steampunk Revolution is definitely worth your time. Just look at the list of contributors: Christopher Barzak, Paolo Chikiamco, Amal El-Mohtar, Jeffrey Ford, Lev Grossman, Samantha Henderson, Leow Hui Min Annabeth, N.K. Jemison, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Malissa Kent, Andrew Knighton, Nick Mamatas, David Erik Nelson, Morgan Johnson, and Fritz Swanson, Garth Nix, Ben Peek,  Cherie Priest, Margaret Ronald, Christopher Rowe, Vandana Singh, Bruce Sterling, Karin Tidbeck, Lavie Tidhar, Catherynne M. Valente, Genevieve Valentine, Jeff VanderMeer, Carrie Vaughn, J.Y. Yang, Jaymee Goh, Margaret Killjoy, Austin Sirkin. It’s an especially good volume for steampunk readers from the Philippines because part of the purpose of the anthology is to showcase stories that break the typical Victorian England paradigm that many associate too closely with the genre. Here’s the concept in greater detail:

What if Steampunk had a revolution?  What if this genre that is so closely tied to the past burst forth into the future – breaking down definitional barriers and forging ahead?  Steampunk Revolution features a renegade collective of writers —including steampunk legends as well as hot, new talents—who are rebooting the steam-driven past and powering it into the future with originality, wit, and adventure.  Going far beyond corsets and goggles, Steampunk Revolution is not just a ride in your great-great granddad’s zeppelin—now it’s a much wilder ride.

Original image: http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2012/10/26/steampunk-revolution/

The book also has some beautiful illustrations and design-work from John Coulthart, an example of which you can see above, and he has a few more that you can see in his blog.

Here are a few early reviews of the anthology to help you make up your minds, and hey, once you’ve read it, let us know what you think!

• Publisher’s Weekly: “VanderMeer’s follow-up to previous similarly themed anthologies targets established fans of the retro-infatuated steampunk movement.”
• Shelf Awareness: “Steampunk isn’t just about Victorians playing with cogs and gears; these stories (and a few essays) reveal some of the latest steps in this branch of speculative fiction’s evolution.”

The interview came out weeks ago when I didn’t have time to post about it, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you all to an interview with Charles Tan over at the Read in a Single Sitting blog. In the interview, Charles talks about why he put together Lauriat, his anthology of Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction (which contains my story, “The Captain’s Nephew”.) Give the interview — and the anthology — a read, if you haven’t already.

What you see above is the last copy of Mythspace: Liftoff #0 at Komikon 2012, minutes before it too was purchased. Yes, we sold out of our print run, and while that is a mixed blessing usually, we didn’t play it safe with the print run, so sales really did exceed reasonable expectations — we sold almost double what High Society did, and HS was already considered a success for a Komikon indie. Thank you to everyone who bought a copy or spread the word!

A few post Komikon notes and links:

• Mythspace: Liftoff #0 now has a Goodreads page, courtesy of the wonderful Tina Matanguihan. You can use Goodreads to post your review of the issue, or simply rate it out of 5 stars.
• Patti Ramos also has a review of Mythspace #0 up with her thoughts on her first Komikon experience as an exhibitor. Their table was right next to ours, so we make a came in that portion of the blog post too. (The reviews are at the end of the post.)
• Speaking of our table, if you passed by, you may have seen the wonderful full-color adaptation of one of the tales of Pilandok by Mythspace artist Borg Sinaban. The adaptation is in Filipino and the based on the story written by Virgilio S. Almario, so check it out when it hits the bookstores.

Again, thank you everyone for your support, and the team is now hard at work to ensure we have the complete anthology ready by 2013. I’ll keep updating you on the progress of Mythspace here and on the Facebook page.

A month or two back, a pair of Ateneo students asked if they could interview me for Katipunan, the online magazine of the Guidon, for a feature on Rocket Kapre. It was a particularly busy time, but I always try to make time to spread the word about science fiction and fantasy in the Philippines. I meant what I said in the interview: “I don’t think there’s even been a better time to be involved [in the genre] as either a reader or a writer.”

The article was just published a few days ago, and you can see it here.

One thing though: A couple of the stories mentioned in the original introduction of the article aren’t really connected with Rocket Kapre. I think they reference both Skygypsies and the God Equation — neither I nor RK have any connection with the latter (aside from the fact that I enjoyed the story and admire its author) and while I had a hand in re-publishing Skygypsies as Kwentillion co-editor, strictly speaking that magazine was not a Rocket Kapre project. FYI

For the three Mondays of October before the Komikon, I’ll be talking about my newest comic book project, “Mythspace: Liftoff”. The #0 issue will be available at the Komikon on Oct.27. The first Mysthspace Monday was a look into the concept behind Mythspace, the second was about the way we re-imagined folklore creatures as aliens, and today we feature some advance reviews.

Last week I began to send out digital review copies of Mythspace: Liftoff #0 to bloggers/critics/reviewers, and a few have been kind enough to post their impressions of our zero issue online. So today I’ll let other people do the talking… it should be patently obvious by now that I love what our team has been doing, but does that translate to the impartial reader?

Short answer: YES. (So far!)

The most recent is from none other than Noel Pascual, the co-creator of the wonderful Crime Fighting Call Center Agents comic. Here’s an excerpt from his review, the full text of which is here:

Koi Carreon’s art is amazing. As I was browsing through the pages the first time, it’s the character design that really stood out. There’s quite a bit of a manga influence in there but the human characters— from the lead character to the secondary characters (especially the secondary characters!)— all look quite Pinoy. In a story dealing with Pinoy myths, that goes a long way when it comes to adding to the overall effectiveness of the piece.

The plotting really works, going from flashback to present day without confusing the reader. The scenes picked enhance the drama of the story without crossing into melodrama. The rebellious teen who is our lead also doesn’t come close to crossing the line into being an unsympathetic character. Chikiamco also manages to provide his life history without sounding like it’s being done for the sake of dumping info onto the reader. In Liftoff as well as in the other stories, we get a sense that this is a fully realized world, with one element resonating with the next.

The first one is from EK over at Jumper Cable:

“Collectively the comics are all presented on a professional level rarely seen outside of the Sacred Mountain, Komikero, Gunship Revolution, and Point Zero groups. Some of the best inking and detail work among the recent komiks releases are here — and I’ve just seen partial results. The typesetting for the dialogue balloons are grammar-corrected and nearly faultless. The paneling is also professional, at par with the best of the Western comics.

On the script level, the two presented stories are as unique from each other as adobo and sinigang, even if they are made by the same cook. Be assured that there is much variety expected among the six presented stories, that it would not be boring even if they were all from the same writer. Both given stories are paced without a glitch, with a clear understanding of writing in general and the comic medium in particular. The author’s hand in the development process is also visible. There is almost no useless panel, and it is clear that the illustrators understand what to illustrate and how.”

The second is from Francis at Hawkersmag.com:

“Just enough information is given about the main character, Ambrosio, leaving a lot of room for speculation and anticipation of what’s to come.

Although I tend to stray a bit away from angst-ridden teenagers, reasons for Ambrosio’s anger are justified, and it would be interesting to see how his character has changed now that his whole worldview has turned itself over.

There is scarce dialogue, which makes for very efficient story-telling. Chikiamco’s dialogue does what it is intended to do: move the plot forward and reveal character. It doesn’t get in the way of the action and suspense that spills throughout the pages, and that’s a very good thing when it comes to pacing.”

Thanks to both EK and Francis! We’d love for you all to come by the Rocket Kapre booth this coming Saturday and see for yourselves what Mythspace is all about. If you post your reviews online, let us know and we’ll link to them here on the site.

See you all on Saturday!