Category: Essays

I've missed out on a lot of things yet again. But I finally updated my 3-year-old RSS reader today, so even if I'll just point to announcements from other blogs that are relevant to Philippine spec fic, I hope to be more punctual in posting. In the meantime, I'd like to link to two interesting issues in the local literary blogosphere: Thinking Towards Philippine Speculative Fiction [ Part 1 ] [ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ] by Dean Francis Alfar and Crime Does Not Exist via Philippine Genre Stories. Kenneth Yu has also linked to other blog posts discussing the absence of the crime/mystery/suspense genre in Philippine literature. I hope to be able to type up my own reactions to these issues. But while I don't have my own words, I link.

A recent post from The Filipino Librarian got me thinking. Well, it's no secret to my friends that I prefer libraries to bookstores. I don't exactly consider myself a bibliophile now, although I used to be... and I was a particularly stingy bibliophile, which means I actively searched for ways to satisfy my craving without spending too much. This was how I got to know about the book rental shops around the university I spent four years in. There weren't many even then - in fact the only one I actually frequented was Charisma in the UP Diliman Shopping Centre. It had a VERY good selection of science fiction and fantasy titles. They're still there if I recall correctly... I wonder if they still have my member info (and my delinquency record ^^; I sure hope not). Growing up, I was a big fan of libraries, too. In order to better explain why I like libraries more than bookstores, I'll just respond to the comments made by Vanny Bicomong in the Filipino Librarian's blog... 1) The library is too far from me. (By Library, I only know of the National Library or the Ateneo Library -- I don't know of others I can enter.) I lived within campus during my university years, so I could library-hop in my spare time. My favorites at the time were the UP Main Library (trasure trove!), the Engineering library, and the Fine Arts library. I'm afraid I don't know if the UP Main Library is open to everyone. I wish it was! The people there make a serious effort to keep up with the latest educational materials, I think. The last time I had to do research there as an alumna, I had to go through a rigorous (and IIRC, somewhat costly) process just to secure a "special" library card. I just don't know if students from other schools would have an equally hard time. But I'll have to say that in high school, I used to live one hour away from my campus in Malolos, yet I braved the heat and the traffic during weekends just to be able to visit the town's public library. Granted, I was very much the little nerd at the time: I grabbed at whatever meant access to books that I could read almost for free (I still had to pay something like P12, sans the ID photos, for my library card). This may sound like one of those "i used to walk five miles just to get to the nearest typewriter" stories, but suffice it to say, I can understand if libraries are just too far out of the way for other people. For the record, I didn't visit the Malolos public library a lot of times, because I didn't enjoy the fiction selections - besides, the 45 minutes of one-way commuting itself felt like a huge waste of time. Right now, I live near a mall. This mall has a National Bookstore outlet. I notice one specific teenage boy poring through the books in the Filipiniana section almost every time I visit. But every time I approach him to try and ask him about himself, he shies away, as if he was expecting that I wanted the space to browse through the Filipiniana section for myself. I can't help but think this boy should be in a library, not sneaking around in a bookstore. 2) The books in libraries are old and outdated. If I wanted the latest titles, it's better for me to go to Powerbooks and browse there. Would have to agree with this. I remember thinking of Powerbooks as a true godsend, because it was the first major local bookstore I'd heard of that allowed people to browse before buying. And even now, the procurers make it a point to purchase the latest bestsellers, which rocks. But there's still something to be said for classic titles, which are harder to find in bookstores - like very old and dusty copies of Arthur Clarke's short story compilations. And how many bookstores actually carry "Doc" Smith, Lord Dunsany and Theodore Sturgeon anymore, as a matter of course? 3) Library ambience is not as good as Powerbooks. Libraries bring back memories of school research, Powerbooks is more envigorating. I may be a minority in this, but I don't pay much attention to ambience. I used to visit libraries for fun as much as research. However, I do appreciate the opportunity to throw ambience out the window and just bring home the books I want to read. I also don't like reading in public, and IMHO soft bookstore cushions are even more public than hard public library desks. I never read in libraries, for the record - I use the desks to sort out the books I want to bring home for the day, and tick off my reading list. One more issue I take with bookstores is the small reading space. I'll agree that the reading atmosphere is better in bookstores, but I have so many problems figuring out where to sit, especially if I drop by late in the day. Once I'm seated my conscience plagues me, because I want to read so many titles but I may be depriving other people of their right to sit down and enjoy themselves. Kills the fun of it all right there.

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...and all this just leads me to think about how many people out there are just like me, who prefer libraries and book rentals (aka private libraries) to bookstores. I'm not even sure they have access to the Internet (God knows I didn't) so they may not be able to comment here. I want to know about all the Philippines-based libraries or book rentals anyone can recommend. I'm especially interested in those that contain "genre" titles, like fantasy, science fiction, horror, etc. If I come across enough info, I'll put together a list of book rental shops and make it a part of this blog, and find a way to disseminate the list offline. (more…)

I've been thinking about something. We've been experiencing a steady stream of telefantasyas, which I believe is definitely a good thing - especially for very young viewers who have yet to discover their potential for art, writing, directing, acting, etc. It's also a good thing for aspiring writers, who are finding richer ground in the realm of the imagination. I confess, the only telefantasya I've ever really watched a whole episode of was Encantadia. I was rather impressed, though I could barely understand what was going on (I remember Miao was once kind enough to relay the whole fascinating saga to me. Thanks again, Miao!). The sets and costumes were gorgeous, the acting was good and the dialogue was actually fun. The story itself seemed ambitious and grandiose. Best of all, I found it to be all-original, a serious effort to present Pinoy folklore in a modern light. I also rather liked the concepts behind Mulawin and Pintados, back when they were still showing. Those were the good old days, actually. I think I have some issues with some of the more recent stream of foreign-inspired telefantasyas. I haven't had all that much time to stay up to date on recent TV shows, but I hear things from friends - like this new telefantasya is a not-so-subtle ripoff of Stargate: Atlantis, and that telefantasya is a mishmash of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars, etc. Those of us who know better can probably still laugh it off. But doesn't this look like a downward slide, after the progress we've made with the advent of original telefantasyas? The only reason I can think of for big networks to want to finance projects like these, is that their regular scriptwriters have run out of original ideas. But instead of pool new talent, or spend time, money and effort setting up a search for new storylines, they just decided to task the staff they have on hand to hurriedly put something together, even something that borrows heavily from various foreign influences. At any rate, after Kampanerang Kuba, Majika, Mulawin and the rest, ANY telefantasya is bound to sell. And it leads me to wonder about the future that is in store for speculative fiction in our commercial media. It's undisputed that a lot of the Philippine-made fantasy works we now regal as "classic" had foreign influences: Darna may have been derived from Wonder Woman. Kapitan Kidlat was based on The Flash. Captain Barbell is a parody of Captain Marvel, and so forth. (At this point, I feel like mentioning that I consider Jim Fernandez's Zuma an original character, even if he was based on Aztec legend. And yes, I do think he is awesome, even if he's not a hero per se.) But that's all in the past. The kids who used to watch Darna and Ang Panday are now accomplished writers and artists, who make their own fantasy works that inspire and move others. Sure komiks fantasy has helped us build our current TV fantasy traditions, but do we have to perpetuate that? Do we have to take one step forward and two steps back all the time? What can we look forward to? What can we build from this? Or is there, in fact, nothing to be afraid of? Throughout the years, our pop media (and oral traditions, actually) has regarded fantasy highly; we've all grown up on a wealth of fantastic fiction, local and foreign. It's just a damn shame that our biggest TV networks don't want to risk opening up their creative avenues to their own viewers - otherwise we would probably see a telefantasya revolution even greater than Encantadia.

I often find myself seriously considering writing about fanfiction in this blog. These days, I read just about the same amount of fanfiction as original fiction (by which i mean precious little) and from time to time I feel like sharing my thoughts on a particularly lovely piece of fanwriting. But I do have some difficulty relating fanfiction to the themes I wish to discuss here, or on the Phil SF and F Writers ML. Certainly there are some spectacular fanfiction writers who are Filipino, but they usually write in English... or are not so keen on being identified as Filipino, for a variety of reasons. So talking about them on a blog called "Philippine Speculative Fiction" may not be met with much enthusiasm. Finally, today, I came across a side of fanfiction that I could talk about. While contemplating the flash fiction contest (or, to be more precise, my unsurprising lack of ideas for good flash fiction), I realized something: There's actually tons of great flash fiction on the Web - they're called drabbles. They just stay under the radar because they're done for and within fandom. (more…)

I've been thinking about round robins for a while now... not really so much how to start one as who might be interested in participating and what kind of market might exist for it. It strikes me as an excellent idea for an anthology - start up a world, invite people to contribute stories about that world, edit meticulously, then publish. Continuity is a must, and constant collaboration is a given. But what are the odds that an idea like this could take off? This rant was brought to you by a stray advertisement in a certain Filipino message board about a forum-based roleplay. The roleplay is based on a popular MMORPG, the name of which i forget right now (it's not Ragnarok, I'm sure of that), and to all intents and purposes it's just a fun thing to do. It resembles a round robin at least in that it follows a moderator-imposed storyline, but the installments are done from different points of view. There's no final output to be compiled, no "project" to be accomplished - people with similar interests just get together and have fun. But what if you could put it together into something. What if you could create a round robin that could be patched together into something publishable, much like Robert Lynn Asprin's Thieves' World, and the Myth and Phule series? Say you could assign authors to specific delivery dates, and they could come up with stories based on a world you all could build together? Wouldn't it be both fun and challenging for all concerned? Well, more challenging than fun, I suppose, but I still think it's worth looking into. A couple of questions go with this... (more…)

Recently, I had a brief conversation with an online friend in Russia about spec fic. The conversation was sparked by her mentioning that in Russia, fiction that involves vampires, werewolves and other creatures from foreign mythology, is still considered somewhat inferior to realist fiction - one of the reasons being, readers are expected to have trouble relating to supernatural characters. This revived my interest in Russian speculative fiction, as I've never really thought that Russia's literary evolution could run parallel to ours in some aspects. Since I was little I've encountered Russian fantasy and science fiction translated into English in various SFF anthologies; obviously Russia entered the global literary market much earlier than we did, started with the SFF awards earlier, and has had a much more competitive publishing industry. (Speaking of awards, I also learned from Dean Alfar today that the future fiction category of the Palanca awards will be gone next year! Naku next year pa naman ako unang sasali, paano na ako hihirit? Heheh. But that's a whole new rant for another day.) (more…)

First of all, expressing my gratitude for a mention in the Carl Branson Society Blog, moderated by members of the CBS Steering Committee. Then, getting to my first essay here. Feedback would be very welcome. * I was reading Paul Theroux's Riding the Iron Rooster: By Train Through China and a passage there struck me: "No one writes about the future in China. We hardly think about it. There is a little science fiction, but nothing about the future." We note that the book is copyrighted 1988, and there have been major literary revolutions all over the world since then, but I had to think it was funny that the Philippines is stuck in that exact same state. In this modern world where the Internet, MMORPGs and works of fantasy abound, Philippine future fiction is still in its infancy. Future fiction is only an offshoot of speculative fiction, which is a fairly new genre in this country. And as a new genre it has difficulty flourising in a local media which is fraught with dichotomies. For example, we have the "highbrow" speculative fiction and graphical works rendered in English, and then we have the local "fantaseryes" in Filipino, which combine folklore based loosely on local and foreign traditions, with tried and tested soap opera formulas. The audience is trapped between these two extremes - and worse yet, they are trapped as an audience, unable to express the ideas sparked in them by the things they watch and read. (more…)