SEA Quest: Listening To My Ancestors (Reprint)

Joyce Chng is currently at ICFA 2018. This is a reprint from June 2014, but still relevant. Recently, I was rocked by a wonderful and startling revelation from my dad about his grandmother. My great grandmother was a herbalist and a travelling physician. From his tone, I could tell my dad admired her. She had “ben […]

Cultural Tourists (Part 1): Publishing and Representation

One of my goals is to read as diverse literature as possible — at least those by authors outside of the US and the UK (since these two are the major players in the global publishing industry). The unfortunate reality is this:  I keep on failing. That’s not to say I don’t occasionally succeed; just […]

Boo! Horror in Southeast Asia!

When I was growing up, I heard stories about the flying heads-with-entrails that would lurk in the dark. People would grow cacti or thorny plants in their gardens to deter such horrific creatures. So there I was, listening to my relatives breathlessly account their experiences (or friend of a friend’s, you know, the usual) of […]

Finding Filipinos in Science Fiction and Fantasy

The Kite of Stars

A decade ago, whenever I mentioned Filipinos in science fiction and fantasy, genre fans here and abroad would mention two novels to me: Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. Now I haven’t read Cryptonomicon, but I have read Starship Troopers. My initial impression with the book was that here was a book that […]

Introductions: So, There Is A Place Called SEA (Southeast Asia and SF/F)

If you want to be politically aware or saavy, the member states of ASEAN (Associaton of Southeast Asian Nations) are Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Phillippines, Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.  ASEAN spreads over a region with diverse, complex and vivid cultures and ethnicities. It is also a region where migrations and intermingling […]