Philippine Speculative Fiction

Fandom Café presents its bi-monthly book discussion series starting 29th of November 2008. Fandom Café will be hosting a series of intimate gatherings discussing books, authors, poetry, creative writing and of course…one’s passion for the written word-the love of reading.

The series kicks off with a discussion of works by Arthur Clarke, Robert Jordan and Michael Crichton. For more information, visit their official website.

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1. Charles Tan has been compiling a list of speculative works written by Filipinos and published in the international market in 2007 and 2008. He also posts links to the full texts of some earlier speculative fiction stories posted in Literatura.

2. The Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler compiled by Charles Tan and Mia Tijam has been reviewed at Boing Boing. The group blog is having some server problems, so if you can’t view the page now, try again later.

3. Dean Alfar, co-editor and publisher of the annual Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology, says that the publication and launch of PSF4 has been moved to February 2009.

4. In honor of the Komikon - the 4th Philippine Komiks Convention which takes place today, at the UP Bahay ng Alumni, UP Diliman, Quezon City - I plug two comics by authors of Filipino heritage:

a) No Formula: Stories from the Chemistry Set

Among the stories are short works by Andrew Drilon, whose short fiction has been published in the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthologies, and who also made the cover for the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler.

For the Table of Contents and purchase information, see Andrew Drilon’s Livejournal. Previews of the comics in the collecton may be found at The Chemistry Set.

b) SPEAK NO EVIL

This clever science fiction story is also a social commentary by Filipino artist Elan Rodger Trinidad. Read the whole piece at Theory of Everything Comics, and don’t forget to check out Elan Rodger’s afterword.

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Read or Die member Rachel Teng writes about Fandom Café, a library and hangout for Manila-based science fiction and fantasy buffs, in today’s Manila Bulletin.

MB did not update their online Youth archive today, so I’ve posted the entire column here.

Fandom Café: For Fans, By Fans
by Rachel Teng

One of the things that Read or Die members have difficulty with is looking for a venue to meet up and talk to each other. The members are scattered through the metro, some even coming in all the way from the provinces just to see everyone else. Apart from that, it’s hard to look for a place where we can just sit and talk all day.

We usually end up in cafés like the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Gateway or Greenbelt. The atmosphere of their branches are welcoming, and we like their cakes and drinks. Still, we tend to move around after a while, feeling a little embarrassed to sit there in a group for hours at a time.

This is why we were rather ecstatic when we found out about Fandom Café. As the name says, Fandom Café is a place where different fans and fandoms can come together to meet up or get together in a fandom activity. For those who aren’t in the know, fandom is the term used to describe a group of active fans of anything, be in TV series, manga, toys, movies, comics and – you guessed it – books. Finally, a place where we can be bibliophiles without feeling like we’re trolling coffeehouses!

Fandom Café was initially built as the business arm of the New Worlds Alliance in April 2007, by founders Paolo Jalbuena and Jon Sideño. The New Worlds Alliance is the collective term used for many the science fiction/fantasy fandoms found here in the Philippines. The New Worlds Alliance includes groups like Via Astris (The Star Trek Club of the Philippines), The Philippine Tolkien Society, Pinoy Harry Potter, Star Wars Philippines, Pinoy X-Philes, Pinoy Slayers, and The Alliance of Eclectic Gamers and Interactive Storytellers (AEGIS). With all these groups around, there eventually came a need for a venue where the members of these groups could meet and gather. Enter the Fandom Café.

What does the Fandom Café offer to its clients? It’s a good meeting place for small groups of people, with an activity room equipped with a television, gaming consoles and a comfortable couch upstairs, and an Internet hub downstairs. They also have delicious sandwiches and snacks, as well as the best coffee the Read or Die members have tasted in a café yet. (They also offer ice to the residents of the building where FC is located!)

The truly unique feature of Fandom Café is its hominess, the natural way it makes you feel at home as soon as you take a step in the shop. As soon as you come in, the first things that you can see are their posters, collection of toys, and books displayed everywhere. This immediately tells you, “Yes, the people who go here have the same interests as you do!” The members are also very chummy and are open to talking about all kinds of topics, from books to tabletop games, television series to movies and games. Science fiction and fantasy can be very broad, so there’s never any difficulty looking for things to talk about.

Best of all, Fandom Café is home to an extensive library of science fiction and fantasy books, many of them rare and out of print. The books themselves do not belong to the café – instead, the books are donated or lent by the many members of NWA, so that the books can be read other people and also for safekeeping. Truly a café made for fans, by fans!

Their collection is huge: thousands of books covering a wide period of science fiction and fantasy – from The Rebellious Stars (The Stars, Like Dust) / An Earth Gone Mad printed in 1954 to The Lies of Locke Lamore of 2007. They also have books from old, well-known authors like Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury, as well as science fiction and fantasy classics like A Canticle for Leibowitz and Tolkien’s Lost Tales. You might recognize some of their series, like Robotech and Doc Savage, or you might be interested in their rarer books, like A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, printed in 1912.

Fandom Café has opened its library to the public, so if you are interested in speculative fiction works like science fiction, fantasy, or even horror, this is the place to go. For only 500php a year or 1000php for a lifetime membership (students get an additional 50% off on all rates), you can already take home two or four books of your choice home at a time. Check the rest of their books out in their catalogue at http://library.fandomcafe.com/ — it’s not complete yet, and there are some three thousand more books that they need to catalogue, but this does give you a good idea of what you can find in their collection.

As previously mentioned, Fandom Café is also a good place to meet up and have gatherings, especially for small fandom-related events. It’s located near the MRT station in Cubao, and is open from 6AM to midnight. A location map can be found in their main website, http://www.fandomcafe.com/

Fandom Café also occasionally has events of its own that anyone can join. They have livecasts every Sunday night, film viewing once in a while, and its members also attend conventions or hold one of their own. NWA has thrown six conventions already, so you can be sure that membership in the Café will also give you the best news of these events.

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Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler is a one-shot “virtual anthology” featuring speculative fiction stories in English by Filipino writers.

Edited by Charles Tan and Mia Tijam, it features stories by: Dean Alfar, M.R.R. Arcega, FH Batacan, Douglas Candano, Ian Rosales Casocot, Michael A. R. Co, Khavn dela Cruz, Pocholo Goitia, Francezca C. Kwe, Apol Lejano-Massebieau, and Vincent C. Sales. Cover art by Andrew Drilon.

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I’m sorry, this isn’t related to Philippine speculative fiction, but it’s too funny not to share (and I want to be more active in this blog, anyway). I’m sure a lot of us grew up reading these books, so please take a peek if only for the nostalgia value :P

MightyGodKing Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits (part 1)

MightyGodKing Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits (part 2)

MightyGodKing Versus His Adolescent Reading Habits (part 3)

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Ever wanted some sort of calendar that could help you keep track of story deadlines, and make it easier to cram? :P

I’ve just set up the Events Calendar widget on my blog in order to track submission dates that I think may be relevant to the interests of speculative fiction writers. See the new baby on the sidebar!

Numbers marked in RED have events scheduled for them - hover over the number to see the title of the event, and click on it to show the details. Currently there are only seven entries there: five for October and 2 for November. Most of the openings came from announcements in Philippine Genre Stories (thank you, Sir Kenneth!). I’ll be adding more as I find them.

…I’m thinking of making this thing an events calendar for anything related to the local writing scene, but I’m not yet sure if I have the machineries or the time to do this. I’m not sure, either, if a similar and more comprehensive calendar already exists; I’d be glad to link to it and just filter in the speculative fiction avenues, if so.

I’ll be doing my own research, but I’ll be grateful for any info and suggestions. If you know of a deadline that should be here but isn’t, please let me know?

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Charles Tan wrote an essay here defining Filipino speculative fiction. He brought up a lot of good points and it is an essay well worth reading. However, I would like to call special attention to this passage:

Philippine speculative fiction, on the other hand, recognizes that fiction doesn’t always have to be socially relevant. Can’t we write stories simply to entertain? That’s not to say local spec fic isn’t socially relevant or doesn’t possess gravity. More than a few modern spec fic stories tackle that (spec fic is inclusive, remember?). But the biggest differences is that writers are now able to write and pursue their own agendas without feeling guilt about the lack of Filipino characters or Filipino settings or importance on how their work will change the face of Philippine literature while still being able to gain a certain amount of literary acceptance.

I have to put my two cents out there.

I’m not going to deny that we have realist writing traditions. We have celebrated literature that aims to represent our unique struggles, as people and as citizens, and even now we’re in dire need of skilled wordsmiths who aren’t afraid to reflect Filipino society, its glories and ills, in their fiction.

But, you see… as a writer of speculative work, I have never felt like I had to break off from or go against any traditions. Or felt guilty or scared because I wrote stories that other Filipinos might not enjoy reading.

Read more

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[note: apologies for not keeping the blog up to date. i have a few announcements lined up for when i have more time to post, please stay tuned.]

This personal post was inspired by a blog entry in Philippine Genre Stories titled Generational Reading Gap [blog] [multiply].

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I grew up in a library that my father built up from scratch. Most of my literary education came from this. But I’ll have to admit, I feel like growing up with this repertoire led me to become more isolated from the readers and writers I correspond with.I know very few readers from my generation (or older) who call themselves “sci fi fans,” and at the same time know who Cordwainer Smith even IS. They may have read a little Asimov, a little Clarke, a little Philip K. Dick - but for the most part they’ve read and liked more Carl Sagan, Greg Bear, David Brin, and people who got published WAY after the “golden age,” than I ever will.

I sometimes get vibes from younger readers that run along the lines of: “Well, you’re not a real sci fi fan if you haven’t read China Mieville/Iain Banks/Stanislaw Lem” and my knee-jerk defense is to go “Yeah? To me, you’re not a real sci fi fan unless you’ve read “Doc” Smith/Theodore Sturgeon/at least one Aldous Huxley title that is NOT Brave New World.”

No, I’m not automatically resentful… and I don’t blame people for this, of course. These are just some of the reasons why I don’t: Read more

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Via Philippine Genre Stories: for a limited time only (until July 27, Sunday - I can still download from there right now, though), Tor offers free and legal downloads of some of its ebooks. There are some lovely desktop wallpapers by Luis Royo, Boris Vallejo et al up for grabs, too. Go here for them, quick!

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