Rocket Kapre – Fantastic Filipino Speculative Fiction

Tor.com just featured Expanded Horizons in their Short Fiction Spotlight, reviewing the April 2013 issue which includes two reprints from the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology series: “From the Book of Names My Mother Did Not Give Me” by Christine V. Lao, and “Waiting for Agua de Mayo” by Mia Tijam.

On “From the Book of Names My Mother Did Not Give Me”:

I appreciate the lyrical quality of these shorts, as well as the food for thought each offers on the changes, good and bad, in the lives of these women: how culture and society place their own pressures, and how women can connect, or lose connections, with each other (“Barbara”), are themes that interest me. This story is a handsome, small thing, made of parts smaller still, that does the majority of its work on the allegorical level rather than that of plot. As such, it’s the sort of piece that lingers, though it may not at first make a drastic impression.

On “Waiting for Agua de Mayo”:

The story itself, however, remains engaging thanks to its execution: Tijam’s attention to detail renders the protagonist, her “dragon,” and the setting vividly. The added tension of cultural conflict—where the idea of the “dragon” even comes from, and why she thinks of it primarily as that before thinking of it as the bayawak—is a further note that the story sounds, giving it a fresh take on a common theme.

Check out the full review here.

Flipreads, the ebook store of Flipside Digital, my co-publisher for the digital edition of Alternative Alamat, will be participating in Read an eBook Week (March 3-9) with a promotional sale of several books, including Alternative Alamat and the digital editions of the Philippine Speculative Fiction series. Full list below:

• The Viewless Dark by Eliza Victoria
• Woman in a Frame by Raissa Rivera-Falgui
• Voices in the Theater by A.S. Santos
• Home by Kat Santos
• Wandergirl by Tweet Sering
• White Wolf McLeod by David Wallis
• Writing 30 by Carljoe Javier
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1 edited by Dean Francis Alfar
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 2 edited by Dean Francis Alfar
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 3 edited by Dean Francis Alfar & Nikki Alfar
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 4 edited by Dean Francis Alfar & Nikki Alfar
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 5 edited by Nikki Alfar & Vincent Michael Simbulan
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 6 edited by Nikki Alfar & Kate Aton Osias
• Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 7 edited by Alexander Osias & Kate Osias
• Alternative Alamat edited by Paolo Chikiamco
• Mabuhay! by Marcial P. Lichauco, Carlos L. Quirino
• The True and the Plain by Kerima Polotan
• The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám
• The Essays: Or Counsels Civil and Moral by Francis Bacon
• The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe
• Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
• The Devil’s Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
• The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
• The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

“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

The editor-publishers of the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology (available now in digital format at Amazon, iTunes, Flipreads, Barnes and Noble…) have released a free sampler (not to be confused with the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler of Mia Tijam and Charles Tan) for those who want to see what the anthology series has to offer, without committing to a paid volume. You can get it from iTunes or Flipreads.

To coincide with the massive sales taking place in the United States for Black Friday, Flipreads.com is having a Black Friday Sale of their own from today, November 22, to November 25. They’ve got a lot of ebooks going on sale that will be of interest to Rocket Kapre readers, ranging from the Philippine Speculative Fiction series, to U.P. non-fiction titles, to YA titles from Rocket Kapre contributors such as Eliza Victoria and Raissa Falgui. Go check it out!

This post is a part of our story-by-story review of Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 6. You can see the introductory post, and our disclaimers here. Bold font is Mia Tijam, everything else is Paolo Chikiamco.

Mia: I’m in the mood for bullet points so let’s tick this way (because we like bulleted documents anyway):

1)      As much as the opening line was very interesting, it was stilted. How about instead:

Just like her, Rico thought, to leave the house in the morning without a word or a kiss, only her panties LEFT—stretched beyond their years, hanging off the radiator to dry— to say hello to him…

Pao: I like it the way it is actually, since I like interjections being immediately next to the word they spring from, but your version works too.
 

2)      And I always say to leave the onomatopoeia out, like with panties going hrrrrnhh, hrrrrnhh. That is scary and can traumatize all the fantasies about panties from here on haha. But hey, if the Shake,Rattle&Roll franchise would go more daring, Eternal Winter’s panties can be an episode. :p

                OK, yeah, the hrrrrnh, hrrrrnh threw me off a bit. Not a sound I’d associate with garments, unless they were in a washing machine.

3)      The story follows the classic formula of post-cataclysm-unto-post-apocalypse in the tradition of Noah’s Ark.  The scenario in the story is very real and very possible and hell if it isn’t happening more so now, and the sad-but-true thing is that we’ll read this now and when this happens in the future we’ll all say “Hey, déjà vu!”  Man, I’m really apocalyptic and believe in post-technology haha.

I’m always happy to see classic genre formulas applied to a Philippine setting, but in this case I don’t think enough was done with it. The story does a good job showing us the state of affairs between Rico and Luna, but it’s not long enough to really develop Rico’s relationship with his job, or to give us a real atmosphere of encroaching doom (as in, say, Batacan’s “Keeping Time”.) I wish the story had been longer so that, even if the plot was conventional and linear, we could get that kind of development.

 –Dude, it’s the external reality (Baguio- Apocalypto Environment) mirroring the internal reality (Marriage-Apocalypto Environment) and vice-versa. If you’re seeing it this way, then this parallelism wasn’t tight enough apparently.

 – Apparently not, for me at least. The world is coming to an end, just as the marriage is coming to an end? I didn’t feel that sense of foreboding with the world, while with the marriage it was quite explicit.

4)      I love the “dramatic” scene(s) in the end: It’s very Pinoy, HK, and B-Movie flicks with the speech/dialogue cum action; like the speech before a bad guy kills somebody or before somebody dies or is saved hahaha.

Since I didn’t really feel there was much of a buildup, those final scenes didn’t have much “oomph” for me. It seemed more to me like the end of Act 1 than the end of the story – I’m much more interested in the situation that Rico found himself in at the end of the story than I any situation he was in during the story.

 –Dude, it was drama that was funny because I just couldn’t take it seriously.

 But for dramatic effect for 4, better if that “Fuck you!” was deleted. “Show don’t tell” rule yo.

 I agree. This would have been a good part to go with something inarticulate. The curse plus      the subdued ending made the final few paragraphs meek instead of strong.

5)      I like how this story touches on the triumphs and follies of Nativism— a) The Native Culture as Cassandra; b) The Native Culture as being consigned to “unrealistic” by the present and the future because of “unwillingness to communicate and be cooperative” which is sometimes synonymous to “against conformity” ;  c) The Native Culture as “stubborn ass rebels who refuse to get with the program” therefore becoming extinct—  how we can all forget our ties to what is our cultural core because of the way things are like technological advances and globalization et al and only return to what matters when it’s too late.

 I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard any Filipino refer to members of indigenous groups as   “natives”, though. When I’ve heard them being denigrated, the names of the cultural groups      themselves served as ample epithets (or the name of one group improperly applied to another). Granted, this may actually be the practice in areas that border indigenous communities, or maybe it was an attempt to draw parallels between rich and the colonizers of old, but it just seemed odd to me.

 –Let me clarify: “Nativism” is a framework and when I said “Native” (Culture), I was using the term used in post-colonial criticism when referring to the NON-Western/Colonized/Hybrid/Synthesis Culture being discussed (and in the story’s case it was the Kankan-e or Kankanaey which is one of the many Igorot Tribes).  Historically, since the Kankanaey have been reached by modern amenities then they consequently put stock on education and desire more socio-economic developments for their large population (which would as much as possible not harm the environment nor go against their core values).

So, there’s that minority and the Baguio Hegemonic Culture in the story. Luna’s character— after being immersed in this Baguio Hegemony— decided to return to her Kankan-e roots (because of the conflict/s provided by the story).  

 And when you’re coming from the extreme end of Post-Colonial Re-Framing, an example of “Nativism” would be, “If I really want to be true to my culture, then I will not write in English but will write in my native language(s) instead.” Kaboom! Gets?

 –No, I get that you were using “native” in an academic way – what I was referring to was the use of the term “native” by characters in the story: “he’d decided he wasn’t going to argue with her about the natives and the birds.” “She’s one of the few that the natives will deal with!” “they don’t need to deal with the natives anymore” and so on…

 –Ah! Kasi naman use reference! Ha ha. That’s how it is really, the Hegemonic Culture does use “native” to refer to the, er, natives, because it’s always a challenge to  the majority  from the time of Genghis Khan, Cesar, Magellan, Mayflower Compact, The British East-India Mates and so on until Benosa’s Baguio to pronounce the proper names of the native minority. Ano ba, Katutubo nga raw eh. In English: Natives! :p

 6)      Really, the story is an elephant that says “MOVE! BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!” The storytelling has generally good enough composure but it’s not something that sticks to me.          

A few further points I’d like to raise:

• I found the prose and dialogue to be awkward at times, particularly Luna’s rant about midway through the story, which is a shame since that’s a key segment in the story.

–A consequence of not yet having the stamina, composure, experience in this kind of storytelling. All a matter of time for the author.

• While I really liked the opening segment, and felt that it integrated world-building with the day-to-day stressors of Rico very well, the flashback-expositions in the latter parts of the story don’t fare as well. I understand having Rico dwell on memories about Luna during the final exodus, but did we really need that segue to the Korean immigrants?

–The segue to the Korean immigrants is texture for the Baguio setting because the city has turned out to be the Little Korea of the Philippines based on Korean population.

 –Oh, I didn’t know that! Still, I think that there’s mention of Rico and Luna’s friends earlier, and in the second-to-last scene of the story, I still feel the flashback-exposition hurt the momentum more than it added to the context.

  — And so we always learn something haha. But like I said, it’s a story that didn’t really stick to me as I had to re-read it while going through our critique.

The seventh volume of the annual Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology (edited by Kate and Alex Osias) is now available for purchase at Amazon and Flipreads (with others to follow). Yep, it’s digital only for the time being. You can see the full table of contents here - this volume includes my story “Oblation”, and I thought I’d post the first few paragraphs of the story here, as a preview of what you may find in this volume.

“Oblation” is a departure for me in that it’s my first superhero short story, and my first story told using only female POVs. Also, likely because I’ve been hanging out with Mia too much, I tried to say something with the form of the story, not just with the content, and I hope that comes through (God knows, I’m not very subtle.) Enjoy!

OBLATION

By Paolo Chikiamco

I’m wearing my hair in a tail today. That means I’m ready to go to war.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at me. You look at me–and trust me, you’ll look–and all you know is that your day’s been made. Yes, I’m that pretty. No bragging, just fact. Mom’s genes are gooood. Not as good as Dad’s, but not everyone can be a superhero telepath.

‘Course, that doesn’t mean he can get in my head. He wishes. Brainwashing me is the only way I’d ever be okay with missing the prom. Sometimes, I wish that he could see into my head, so the great Kapitan Isip would realize just how little I care about his excuses. Like it’s the first time he’s ever been stationed in the Middle East, like it’s the first time he’s gotten threats, or that Mom and I have been “at risk”. Get real. No Kontra is brain-dead enough to go after a Klark’s family, not after what happened in Marikina when Bakunawa went berserk…

Seriously. They still show those horrible clips in history class. The boys loved it of course. Boys and violence. It’s why they get a thrill when they see my pony tail bobbing–but even guys know better than to come near me. The tail means “STAY AWAY”, all caps, and most of the school is smart enough to–

Is that… is that Sarah Novales waiting for me by the water fountain?

Wonderful.

#

I saw Michelle’s eyes narrow at the sight of me, and couldn’t help but remember the first time I’d ever seen her. My first day at Barrameda, the guidance counselor had seemed upset that I didn’t seem too impressed by the Academy. I’d barely uttered an “ooh” or “aah” when the he had shown me the school’s top of the line gymnasium, or introduced me to the duo (actual Persons-With-Powers, he’d proudly proclaimed) who served as campus security.

All that changed when we stepped into the cafeteria. It took a while for the counselor to realize he was explaining the scintillating food choices to the empty air.

“Who’s that?”

The counselor didn’t even follow my gaze. “That is Michelle Felinas, Queen of the Hill. Be careful with that one.”

Michelle was holding court in the center of the cafeteria, asking everyone to support the school football team. I say “asking” only because she used phrases like “would you” and “will you”–her tone made it clear that support was expected. From the way everyone hung on to her every word, they’d have it no other way.

When it became obvious that Kapitan Isip’s daughter was not a PWP, the media had gone on a feeding frenzy. (They’d never liked the Kapitan, who was understandably tough to interview.) But the Kapitan was never anything but proud of his daughter, and it was easy to see why. After all, normal didn’t mean ordinary.

“I’m serious, Ms. Novales.” The counselor steered me firmly away from the cafeteria. “Her father may be a hero, but his daughter is bad news. Stay away from her.”

And now, two years later, here we were. I felt a smile grow on my face. I was anxious when I wasn’t at school, even for a day. But now everything’s all right.

Don’t worry ‘Chelle.

I’m here.

—

Aaaand, that’s it for the preview. If you’d like to read the rest of the story, do consider buying Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 7. Congrats to Kate & Alex and all the contributing authors, as well as the publishing team.

Here’s the cover of Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 7, with art and colors by Les Banzuelo, art direction by Adam David. The volume will be launched this Saturday, July 28, 2012,  2:00pm at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf-Shangri-la Plaza, Edsa. You can see the table of contents here.

For the first time, this latest volume will launch as a digital book. For those who want to take home something tangible from the launch, however, rest assured that the good folk at Flipside Digital are preparing beautifully packaged CDs for the event:

PSF launches are always fun, as you can see from this video excerpt of last year’s PSF6 launch. Hope to see you all there!

PSF 1-6 ebook covers, art and colours by Les Banzuelo, art direction by Adam David

Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 7 will be launched on Saturday, July 28, 2012,  2:00pm at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf-Shangri-la Plaza, Edsa. You can see the table of contents here. PSF launches are always fun, as you can see from this video excerpt of last year’s PSF6 launch.

In other PSF news, the ebook version of Philippine Speculative Fiction 5 by Flipside Digital Content is now out on Amazon.com (for U.S. registered accounts anyway) Flipreads, and iTunes.PSF5 is particularly special to me as it represents my first appearance in the anthology, with my science fiction story “Carbon”. Fun fact – it’s also the first story I wrote which elicited something approaching praise from my partner-in-criticism, Mia Tijam, so that’s gotta mean something right?

With PSF 6 set to be released soon (within the month I think), it seemed as good a time as any to show off the great work being done by Les Banzuelo, and Adam David on the ebook covers, each of which is an image inspired by one of the stories inside.

Kyu’s strength as a writer lies in the details.

That sentence made me pause and go into a trance, there’s a load of insight right there haha.;)

[Pao: That's what I like about you Mia--you always think I'm smarter than I actually am ]

——Awww, you’re selling yourself short, man. Shucks, such charming humility. :p

One of the most difficult skills to learn as a writer is how to include enough detail in a scene to make it feel like it’s occurring in an actual place, to make the characters and actions take on enough substance in the mind of the reader that he/she has a foundation for his/her imagination.

Ah the anchors for the imagination— I say let the imagination fly, oh beauty, fly!

[Pao: Heh. Savants aside, most of us still need some solid ground from which to launch ourselves. Or maybe it's just lazy readers like me ]

This is particularly important when you’re dealing with a mundane setting, such as the public pool or a dim corridor, and Kyu does a good job putting in enough detail so that I see an image, and not a string of words.

Well, the title makes it all obvious— of course it will involve swimming and pool and how much detailing do you need for that— and so predictability comes after.

But yeah stories with that kind of treatment ensure that readers will see the same things that the storyteller wants us to see. This story is very clear and given the detailing then we do move from one scene to another. Smooth. Experiencing it though the way the storyteller wants the reader to experience it— or how the story should be experienced— is the challenge.

I also enjoyed the reveal of the ghost of the woman, since it captures the feeling I’ve had before while swimming, that the surface world would change once I turned my attention back to it.

Hey, I like any story that captures the sensation of swimming or being underwater, that sort of sensory deprivation. But even that ghost-woman’s revelation’s predictable and flat. I felt that there was nothing horrifying or even any uncanny sensation that should have been triggered by how one’s senses change in and upon surfacing from deprivation, that synesthesia that could make anyone believe that hearing unto seeing a ghost is normal. The foreshadowing was literally there but it was just too there therefore did not build up the way it should. It’s all in the details.

[Pao: But didn't it seem like the intent was to divest the change/revelation of that horror, that sense of wrongness? I mean, this is clearly not a traditional horror story. If anything, it seems intent on domesticating the supernatural element, so that "flatness" may have been the aim.]

Some of that detail, however, is fleshed out within sentences that feel rather awkward, like they go on for just a few words too long. This issue with sentence structure, compounded by some odd word choices, bleeds into a more serious concern: the protagonist does not sound like a young man. (This was particularly problematic since it was told from a first person perspective, where the assumption is that the narration is in the POV character’s own words.)

Haha besides the issues with the comma use that was making me sing ala Boy George “Comma, comma, comma, comma, commaleon, you come and go!” and the misuse of the quotation marks in dialogue— usually if the next paragraph’s still part of one character’s dialogue, then one doesn’t end the paragraph with a quotation mark; one keeps it open because otherwise the next paragraph with a quotation mark signals that the line is being made by another character so that really threw me off (see page 106)—

There are ways that one can pull this off, but that dissonance should be contextualized, or at the very least acknowledged–I could see the strange manner of speaking/thinking of the protagonist to be one of the factors that alienate him from his peers, but that’s me retconning (short for “retroactive continuity”, or “the alteration of previously established facts in a fictional work” – Mia made me explain this) what was not implied by the text.

Use the full term nga kasi haha. Anyway, precisely. I saw it as the POV-POSSESSION-PROBLEM i.e. Parang sinsasaniban yun “I” with the “S/H/It” hahahaha. Meaning, the story was using the First Person POV for internal and external reality but it would unwittingly switch to 3^rd Person POV for the external reality WHILE trapped in the I-POV. That created the dissonance which cast doubt on the authenticity of the characterization of the main character.

Simply: The main character’s a male tween or maybe a male young adult BUT his mind, his reactions, his language are of a much older adult… Exorcise the Author from the Character hahahaha.;)

If this were told in the 3^rd Person POV then it might have worked better.  Or since the story really wants to tell the story from the perspective of the tween male, then the perception: language: narrative should be of the character.

[Pao: I have to agree, this was a third person POV story in 1st person clothing to me.]

The other primary issue I had with the story is a bit harder to quantify, so bear with me as I feel my way through this. It just didn’t seem… substantial. (No, that’s not a pun on the fact that the story involves a ghost.) I didn’t get the feeling that what happened in the story really mattered to the protagonist–the story is bookended by two encounters with the opposite sex (one taking place just before the story starts), and the protagonist’s emotional state in both situations is almost identical.

Maybe this shows one snapshot of the state of folks nowadays: it’s a very “whatever” reaction. (That word has my derision. Next to “thingie”.)

[Pao: Wait, you lost me a bit. Who are the "folks"? The youth in the story? The reader?]

——Folks= World. But let’s make it more specific so I’m referring to people in the Philippines.  Yeah, that includes the youth in the story and maybe even the reader. Hahaha, let’s just go back to folks= world.

Yes, the outcome is different, but the immediate cause of that seems to be the advice given to him by the lifeguard–which means that you can cut out the bulk of the story, which contains the speculative element, and have the same ending.

Hahaha, Pao, the real advice from the lifeguard that altered reality is this: Kid, dealing with girls is like dealing with ghosts. Just say “Hi” and they’ll talk to you. Katakot hahahaha.

[Pao: Ah, Mia, I take it you've never been to a Xavier-ICA Acquaintance Party? Sometimes the "Hi" is what initiates the ignoring…]

——Hahahaha 1) Last time I checked I didn’t attend ICA nor Xavier. 2) I skipped high school          boys and went straight to college dudes and yuppies hahaha so that I won’t have to go               through that kind of high school horror. 3) I went to a high school for aliens nga eh.

Add to this how, during his encounter with the speculative, the protagonist is emotionally detached and is somehow made to act rather than acting intentionally (he takes a route “for some reason”; he knows “somehow, not to rush”) and I just don’t feel connected to the events of the story, or invested in how it will turn out.

It’s the predictability that comes from the narrative being too telling and not showing or leaving some things unsaid that led to a reader’s detachment. Welcome to clinical horror that makes horror literal and not cerebral nor visceral (and man I keep seeing this in local short-fiction “horror” stories/collections).

[Pao: But is this a horror story? I don't think that was the aim at all. I think that this was the mainstream literary "revelation during an ordinary day" story, with ghosts.]

——Hahahaha, and here come my bitch-ass:

——1) The hell was it doing in PSF 6 then if its identity is just according to what you             stipulated? Ah, there seems to be a precedent for this emerging trend in this volume (and    previous volumes). Which is why there’s been a call for a more specific definition of what                is “speculative fiction”.

——2) It’s “Horror” according to the “Best Horror of the Year” volume 4 honorable mentions          by Ellen Datlow.

——3) Welcome to the discourse on horror now being officially opened: What is/was        horror? What has been “horrifying” in the “horror” stories published since 2005? What are          the elements of horror? What is horror in Philippine Speculative Fiction?

——4) The gates of that heart of darkness are now open: abandon luck ye who enter here,            the horror, the horror, bwahahaha.

Going back to Kyu’s Kiddie Pool,  the reader’s detachment is already staged given the protagonist’s detachment.  For reference, see paragraph with “I was not so much afraid as I was curious about the woman…” on page 104.

I usually try to avoid mentioning/comparing previews works of the author, but I did review Kyu’s PSF4 story, “Beats”, and that had a similar vibe to this one (down to the strong role of water), and yet it worked much better for me. I like the quiet stories where the surface calm can still give the impression of deep, churning, currents (again, not making any puns here) but “The Kiddie Pool” just didn’t make me feel that there was more to it than met the eye.

Hahahaha! Pao! I’m so not gonna edit out that comparison (boils and gels he edits out my comparisons because they do make things bloodier) but what I do like about Kyu’s stories is that they experiment with the story-language that is rooted on the character’s language/reality therefore making his stories distinct from the lot.

Hey, the tween/young adult from the story did advise that it’s good to hug out things so let’s hug this out.;)

And, regardless of the fact that the story didn’t quite work for us, congratulations to Kyu for making Ellen Datlow’s Honorable Mention list for “The Best Horror of the Year” (volume 4) with this story!