SF Signal: MIND MELD: Guide to International SF/F (Part III)

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MIND MELD: Guide to International SF/F (Part III)

There's a great big world out there! So big that it will take four weeks to get all their responses in. (See Part I and Part II .) So while we've got entries from the Philippines, Ireland, Denmark, Greece, the Ukraine, Poland and Portugal this week, there's one more week of worldly insight to come!

Q: What is going on right now in the international sf/f scene that anglophone readers might be missing out on?

Charles Tan

I think a lot's going on in the global speculative scene right now--but it's natural that we haven't heard of them either because of the language barrier or the cultural barrier.

The field that I'm most familiar with is my own--the Philippines. When it comes to speculative fiction written in English, we have several talented writers. A book I'd like to highlight is Philippine Speculative Fiction IV (disclosure: I'm one of the contributors) because it features a lot of stunning fiction.

For example, one of the stories "From 'Abecediarya'" (it's actually an excerpt from an upcoming novel) by Adam David is best described as a narrative that follows an abecedary format. Here's one line:

At an annual adulterous assembly, as Aaron, Azalea, and Ada achieved animalistic apogee, Adrian--amidst Aaron's, Azalea's, and Ada's aahs and awoos--arrived alone at an awkward anticlimax.

Imagine sustaining such a style for one paragraph, much less an entire short story!

There's a lot of other great stories in there such as " The Secret Origin of Spin-Man " by Andrew Drilon (a riff on superheroes and fandom but told in a manner that's akin to some of Jeffrey Ford's fiction) and "Beats" by Kenneth Yu (which is a very immersive and lyrical narrative).

Author Yvette Tan should be coming out ...

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http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/07/mind-meld-guide-to-international-sff-part-iii/

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2009/07/mind-meld-guide-to-international-sff-part-iii/