Ted Mahsun

Don't Lose Your Sensawunda.

2012-01-29T23:26:00.000+08:00

Was reading a local litblog of some repute today and at first I thought he would be reviewing a particular fantasy book but it turned out he just wanted to rant about the state of today's fantasy. About how today's fantasy novels seemed to be written for teens and young adults and none of them seemed to be written for middle-aged dads.

Well, the answer to that is, well... yes. Fantasy is written for teens and young adults. From Conan to Tolkien to Martin.

But then again, fantasy novels have always targeted teens and young adults. Sure, some of them have involved adult themes and imagery but let's not kid (heh) ourselves here, fantasy is, and has always been, largely a domain for the young and young at heart.

The message of the rant implied that just because modern fantasy is for mere children, as it were, it automatically fails to challenge, intrigue, entertain, grab by the collars or refuse any reprieve. And the writer condemned this sweeping judgement upon modern fantasy after reading the first fifty pages of just one book.

And here is where I take exception. Why sir, surely making such a general statement borders on absurdity? What about Scott Lynch and Joe Abercrombie and the myriad other authors who write fantasy with adult themes? Surely their work must count for something?

I'm not a middle aged dad. I'm a bouncing, hale and hearty thirty-year-old man. (Also, I just had my tonsils out. Always a sign of youthfulness! ;P) But I am a dad. But that doesn't mean I have gotten jaded yet with the genre and I don't know if I ever will. I hope not. To lose one's sense of wonder is a terrible thing.

To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, a man who is tired of fantasy, is tired of life.

You Can Never Have Too Many...

2012-01-29T01:49:00.000+08:00

I've admired fantasy author Glenda Larke's work for some time and I have her blog subscribed in Google Reader so I can always read her latest posts.

But I never knew she just lived down the road from me!

I randomly met her on Friday evening in a restaurant near where we lived and recognised her from her pictures on her blog, so I went over and said hello. We had a short chat and then she asks me, "Would you like some reading matter?"

Turns out Glenda's cleaning her house out and is culling some of her books from her personal library. Well, obviously, I'd be happy to help!

The next day, I was over at her house with four shopping bags and look what happened:

Cataloguing this will be very interesting, to say the least.

188 books. 10 books in each stack, except for one stack which has 8 books.

That's altogether 188 books, mostly fantasy but there are some science fiction (finally, I have a copy of Frederick Pohl's elusive Gateway!) and some crime fiction as well.

But the most wonderful discovery amongst these treasures was a book I had been looking for the better part of the last decade. It was a tough search as I had forgotten the title and the author's name and I only remembered a vague outline of the story.

I had read the book back in secondary school and in a moment of extreme dumbness I sold it to NovelHut, a second-hand book store which I've mentioned on this blog several times before. I liked that book, so I don't remember why I actually sold it off. I must have been really desperate for money.

When I pulled the book off Glenda's bookshelf and saw the cover, I took a deep breath as recognition set in and I couldn't believe I had finally found it.

Finally, in my hand, was a copy of The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein:

The cover isn't much but it's a really good book. Honest!

Can't wait to reread it and blog about it. Meanwhile, Jo Walton's writeup on Tor.com is a good introduction to the series. (Wow! I didn't know it was a series!)

Anyway, looks like I now need to go buy some planks of wood and drill some new shelves into the wall or else two-year-old Sophie is going to play librarian and the next thing I'll know she'll shelving these books under the toilet bowl, rather than under "Fantasy/Science Fiction".

And if you haven't read any of Glenda Larke's books, you should, especially if you're into fantasy. The Last Stormlord, book 1 of The Watergivers trilogy is a good place to start. You could also check out Heart of the Mirage, which is the first book of the Mirage Makers trilogy.

Taking it Bird by Bird.

2012-01-27T01:43:00.000+08:00

Anne Lamont's wonderful book for writers, Bird by Bird, isn't a how-to book for writers. Rather, it is a book about the joys of writing as well as being an inspirational guide on the life of writing.

The book opens with an anecdote that retells a childhood story of Ms. Lamont's brother who has to write an assignment for school.

The assignment requires him to write about birds but when finally the day before the assignment has to be submitted, he cries in frustration that the task is impossible because there are just too many birds to write about.

The father comes over, takes a look at the assignment, then gives one small but important piece of advice: "Take it Bird by Bird, son. Bird by Bird." (I haven't read the book for years, so forgive me if this isn't exactly verbatim.)

It goes without saying that this is excellent advice.

Recently, I met with fellow writer, Elizabeth Tai, and we chitchatted about books, reading and writing.

After a while the Bird by Bird book came up in the conversation and I talked about how if ever I got stuck with my writing, I'd take a deep breath and chant "bird by bird, bird by bird" repeatedly like a mantra, and that would help me to get unstuck.

But when I said that I did that with my writing, I meant I did it with my writing at work and not really with my personal fiction writing. For some reason, I've always compartmentalised my writing and have separated writing for work and writing for myself. With my own writing, I am like Lamont's brother, who frequently cries in frustration that "this is impossible!"

Elizabeth has the same approach with her writing but has the smarts to actually apply the Bird by Bird technique it to any of her writing, whether it is with her work-related stuff (she's a journalist with Malaysia's daily newspaper, The Star) or with her fiction. To her, all writing is the same and the same technique can be applied no matter what you're writing.

Some things are so obvious, you need somebody else to tell it to you. For me, this is one of those things. Well, duh. Of course I can apply the Bird by Bird technique to my fiction writing. Why the heck didn't I think of it before? In my mind, many head slappings occured.

Elizabeth went on to elaborate on her writing process. She said that while writing, she takes a robotic kind of view and has a detachment towards her writing. She admitted it was a dry process but at least it gets the job done.

She has a point. As writers of fiction, we all want our fiction to be perfect, we all want to carve out that perfect novel. We labour and lament over the choice of words, idioms, metaphors, similes and other dumb bits of writerly jargon. And when we do that, the writing process grinds to a halt and it has a psychological effect on our minds and makes us think, as writers, we kind of suck. No, not just "kind of". We suck. Truly and completely. And that makes us stop writing.

But stop a moment and reconsider. Writers are only human. (Or at least most of us are. I'm betting you are human.) We're not divine beings who can churn out perfection as easily as going for a morning constitutional. (And I mean that in the euphemistic sense.)

In the end, what's important is you keep writing, no matter if you think what you're writing is utter and absolute crap. Just keep going, take it bird by bird, and go on. If you have to keep it dry and robotic, then so be it. You can always touch it up later. Until you're done and have that elusive first draft.

SHORT STORY REVIEW: The Sun Never Rises in the Big City by Jeremy C. Shipp

2012-01-24T21:14:00.001+08:00

This short story Kindle e-book started out as a generic hard-boiled detective novel with a broad asking a shamus to investigate her apparently lecherous husband.

But then the broad dies, and the story turns into something altogether different.

Shipp writes gritty dialogue worthy of the hard-boiled genre. In fact, I downloaded the story on the basis of the dialogue on the first page alone.

The story is pretty weird and throws curve balls at the reader a lot of times. I kept wondering what the heck was going on, and I didn't see the ending coming. Probably because I had no idea where the story was going most of the time!

I did not know anything about the story beforehand and I downloaded it on the basis of reading the first page. I didn't know it was a bizarro story, but if I did, that would have probably spoiled half the fun.

On the whole, I enjoyed reading this--I love bizarro--and am now interested in checking out the author's other work. Attic Clowns looks interesting, for starters.

The Sun Never Rises in the Big City is temporarily available for free on the Amazon Kindle Store. Otherwise it's available for 99 cents.

For more on the author, Jeremy C. Shipp blogs at slices of bizarro pie.

REVIEW: Book Light - Paperback LED Light Panel by positiveideas

2012-01-23T16:55:00.001+08:00

Bookaholics who tend to stay up late at night reading but have a partner who shares the room must surely understand the all-too-common dilemma of having to switch off the lights so your partner can sleep, but dammit you're just about to get to the good part in your novel but you don't want to get out of bed and continue reading in the living room.

The solution would of course be to get a nice book light, one that illuminates enough for you to enjoy your reading, but not pervasive enough to bother your pesky non-reading partner.

I've been married quite a while now. So it goes without saying I've been wanting a really good book light for some time. Getting a book light had become more crucial after little Sophie was born. I wanted to read in bed but neither the wife nor the baby would shut up and go to sleep when the lights were on.

I scoured the internet for a solution and discovered the LightWedge, a really nifty device that, like it's name suggests, is shaped like a cheese wedge. The "cheese wedge" is actually a transparent piece of quality plastic panel which is fastened to a black spine. The spine is equipped with several LEDs that shoot out light which the plastic cheese wedge then spreads all over the surface of the plastic.

It would be positioned neatly over the page of the book and illuminate the whole page with equal light. The product garnered quite a number of good reviews. It looked like the perfect thing for me. Unfortunately the price that it was asked for was a bit too rich for my blood: approximately RM130.

I forgot about it and considered getting one of those cheap clip-on lights instead.

But then several years later as I was browsing MPH bookstores, I discovered a cheap knockoff of the LightWedge, called the Book Light. I considered buying it but I decided to wait a little bit and check online for reviews.

Unfortunately, nobody really reviewed it or I couldn't find someone who actually reviewed the damn thing because when you give your product such a generic name, it makes it impossible to find in Google. So I forgot about it for a while until just before Christmas of 2011 when I found myself at a Christmas MPH sale in Putrajaya (ironically selling mostly Islamic books). The Book Light was offered for RM25 so I thought, okay, why not.

You've read this far, so I'll reward your patience by getting to the point. The Book Light is a piece of crap that isn't even worth the admittedly well-designed packaging it came in.

Reasons why I hate the damn thing so much:

1) The quality of plastic is shoddy. When I bought it, I made sure to take the Book Light out of the box to see if there were any scratches on the surface of the plastic panel. I didn't see any and was pleased that the manufacturers had sealed the panel with a protective layer of sheet plastic. But when I got home and turned on the light to test, the all too obvious scratches and deformities of the plastic began to make itself apparent. There were wavy patterns and a multitude of tiny scratches all over the panel, which annoyed me to no end because it distracted from my reading.

2) The LEDs kept flickering. Any light that flickers is bound to give anyone a headache. It wasn't because of the batteries either. The Book Light didn't come with its own batteries (no wonder it was so damn cheap) so I bought fresh new batteries just for the device. And speaking of batteries...

3) It uses three AAA batteries. What kind of moron designs a device that uses THREE AAA batteries? Batteries aren't sold in threes, they're sold in twos so when you need to buy batteries for the Book Light you might end up with more batteries than you need. I wouldn't cared as much if it were AA batteries as I usually have quite a lot of those in the house for other devices (e.g. Wii remotes and clocks).

Packaging (front)

Packaging (back)

The Book Light (unlit)

The Book Light (lit)


The Book Light, while lit in the dark. Notice the scratches.

Are there any redeeming qualities about the Book Light? I would say none. I did get one benefit out of it though. There was a blackout recently in my area and I used the Book Light to light up my face which amused Sophie immensely.

I would have loved to give you a background of positiveideas, the delightful company that came up with the Book Light but it seems their rather useful website has been hacked, leaving us with just this charming message:

Hacked by RKH | Hoax Trojan | DSRsysGR | E404 | Loading Fr | Alb Dragon |

As a book light, the Book Light is worth less than guano, because you know, bat shit is kind of useful. As a tool that lights your face up like a phantom, it does better.

My recommendation: do not buy.

REVIEW: The Blasphemer by John Ling

2012-01-22T15:55:00.000+08:00

You don't really expect a fast-paced action thriller to take place in the sleepy antipodean nation of New Zealand, and yet John Ling, a Malaysian-born Kiwi, has made it work.

In The Blasphemer, a Muslim author named Abraham Khan has written a very controversial book very much akin to Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses. But Khan is no Rushdie. I won't tell you why (spoilers!) but even the author himself claims the main inspiration for the character is the feminist writer, Taslima Nasrin, who is a far cry from Salman Rushdie.

It goes without saying that Khan is then targeted by extremists. Enter Maya Raines, who is assigned by the New Zealand police to protect Khan and his wife, Belinda Freeman, after a failed suicide attack almost kills them both.

John Ling then goes on to weave a fast-placed story that includes drugs, thrall-like Somalis, two hired assassins (with the names Devlin and Emmerich; see if you can catch the reference) and a mysterious man with an aim to create Mayhem and Mischief.

The action scenes are taut and written well with good detail. And with good reason. The author spent some time interviewing members of special forces, and it shows. John Ling describes the action scenes clearly and with great detail but it never feels like he is being didactic.

The other main character in the novel, that of Maya Raines, should be well received by lovers of strong female leads. She is a no-nonsense, professional operator and knows how to get her job done. She's not two dimensional either as we learn that she has had some personal trouble with her mother, Dierdre, who incidentally happens to be her supervisor in her mission.

On the whole, a great fun, fast-paced read. I can't wait to read the sequel, of which the ending of The Blasphemer strongly suggests.

The book also contains some essays and excerpts of aborted novels. The essays cover interesting topics and issues such as Shiites in Malaysia and the Arab Spring but the essays are too short and one is left wanting after reading them.

The excerpts of John Ling's aborted novels are also interesting but one gets the sense that they are only there to pad out the book. Also, if they are abandoned novels, why should the reader want to read those excerpts, because it is clear the author does not intend to finish them. If anything, these extras are not detriments to the novel and can be considered like the "Bonus Extras" in a movie DVD.

As a final note, I think it is interesting that while both Taslima Nasrin and Salman Rushdie are Muslim-turned-Atheists, Abraham Khan remains Muslim even after he publishes his book.

The Blasphemer is available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book.

Hey look! Someone reviewed Zombies Ate My Muslim!

2012-01-22T10:44:00.003+08:00

And has nice things to say about it as well:

I’ve recently read a bit of bizarro and have to say even the one with freshly birthed wolves being shot out of a bears mouth isn’t as strange as this book. It’s stupid but funny. I was like wtf! while reading it. This book is weird, wacky and funny.

Thanks, Jessica! This is exactly the kind of reaction I was going for with the story and was glad to see it worked. That makes me feel glad.

My Guest Post on John Ling's Blog.

2012-01-10T15:37:00.000+08:00

My guest post about my experience self-publishing e-books is up on John Ling's blog.

I give a basic rundown about what it takes for a newbie author to get his or her e-book published on Smashwords and Amazon and I also touch a little on what it is like to put your e-book up on Amazon for free.

If you've been wondering what the process is for publishing e-books, do check it out.

John also has a new, exciting thriller out called The Blasphemer, available on Amazon right now.

From the blurb:

When Abraham Khan releases an e-book condemning radical Islam, the consequences hit him fast and hard -- an armed fanatic smashes into his home one evening, trying to kill him. He survives the harrowing attempt. Just barely. But will he survive the next one?

Maya Raines is the security operator brought in to protect Abraham. She is tough and committed. The very best at what she does. Always one step ahead of the threat.

But Abraham is no ordinary principal -- he will not hide, and he will not stay silent. And as rage explodes on the streets and the nation is propelled to the brink, Maya will have to ask herself the hardest question of all: how far would you go to protect one man’s right to speak?

Buying the book not only gets you a fast-paced, action thrill ride, you'll also be eligible for a giveaway contest in which you can win either a Kindle Fire, a Kindle Touch or a $150 Amazon gift card! (Giveaway ends 11th February 2012.)

As for the book itself, I will be writing my thoughts on The Blasphemer soon. (Hint: I liked it.)

2011 and how I discovered e-Books.

2011-12-31T06:58:00.000+08:00

Every time I reach the last day of the year I chastise myself yet again for not having finished writing a novel.

It's been happening for nearly a decade now. Well! The year isn't over yet so maybe I will manage yet. You will know tomorrow if I succeed, I am sure.

As for the year that is past, what can I say? It's been a somewhat challenging year for me but there were lots of good mixed in with the bad. But in general I would call it the year Ted discovered the eReader.

I've been somewhat vocal on my dislike of ebooks, if not on this blog, then in conversation with fellow readers and friends. My dislike for them was borne out of a time when Amazon had not yet launched its Kindle, and the only eReaders available on the market were expensive, bulky and most terribly, impractical to buy books for.

This was also a time when people still thought that eBooks were a thing you read on your computer screen. I thought this a terrible thing, and still do. Reading a 150,000 word novel at my computer desk is not a comfortable thing to do.

Everything I knew about eBooks seemed to be wrong. It just didn't fit for novel reading. Computer screens strained your eyes. The sitting position was painful over long periods. Reading software were buggy, slow and inconducive.

But that was five years ago. I heard about how eReaders with e-Ink had advanced so far that they were now able to replicate perfectly the appearance of ink on real paper but those eReaders remained elusive and I had no friends to demonstrate me its wonders. Until a colleague at work decided to get a Kindle that is.

At first I mocked him for getting one. I asked him why he would want to get an eReader when he could just go out and buy the book he wanted to read at the bookstore. In Malaysia, getting a Kindle is a bit of a hassle, legally getting books on to them is a bigger hassle. I really didn't see his need for getting a Kindle especially when our office is located next to a shopping mall which hosts two of the nation's major bookstores.

And then he brought it to work and showed it to me. It was a Kindle Keyboard. It was light. The screen was perfect for reading text. It could hold a gajillion books. It's only flaw was it didn't have a backlight, which wasn't a big deal, since normal paper books don't have backlights either.

I understood. I got it. I saw how this thing was the future. No, not the future. This was the present. Normal books are obsolete. Yes, they smell nice but that's it. I saw the Kindle and I knew, I wanted one as well.

This was around the same time Amanda Hocking was making the headlines for becoming successful as a self-published author on Amazon's Kindle Digital Publishing programme. I was aware of her successes and envied her but I wasn't paying attention just yet.

Not until my friend John Ling announced that he was starting a small press that would publish e-books and asked if I was interested in submitting that I felt I needed to pay more attention to digital publishing.

So I started researching. I rediscovered several writer friends who had found success with digital self-publishing. I discovered new authors and new books that I loved.

But most importantly, I learned how to publish an e-book. I published two short stories as an experiment and as a learning project for myself. They didn't sell well (I didn't expect them to) but I learned a lot putting them out for the world to download and read.

Now, on this last day of 2011, I've rediscovered a new vigour for not just reading but writing as well. I've been buying and downloading a lot of new books for the Kindle app on iPad (something I'll have to make do with until I get a real e-Ink reader) and reading much more than I used to. I'm also writing more than usual because I feel I can get my stories out faster to an audience rather than waiting several miserable months from a magazine only to get a rejection.

All's good, I say. Now... if only I could finish that elusive novel...

Staring At Your Sales Figures.

2011-12-22T11:29:00.000+08:00

I don't remember who said this, it was either J.A. Konrath or David Gaughran, but it goes something like this:

"Staring at your sales figures every minute will not make them go up."

Very true indeed.

Then why the hell can't I peel my eyes away!!!

In the Top 100 Best Selling Book for Horror!

2011-12-21T16:30:00.000+08:00

I had a promotion yesterday to coincide with the launch of my short story ebook, Zombies Ate My Muslim, where I gave it away for free.

If you missed out, well... sorry! Keep checking this blog or subscribe my to Twitter feed @tedmahsun to find out when my next promotion will be.

At the end of the day I managed to get 93 downloads on Amazon US and 30 downloads on Amazon UK. The book also wound up on the Top 100 Best Selling Kindle Books for Horror. (EDIT: It's since gone back down to somewhere in the 80,000s.)

So, not bad I guess? 100+ downloads was more than I expected. My aim for making the book free was for exposure and I got that. But I also wanted the people who downloaded it to write reviews on Amazon and so far I've had none. Reviews are important to get people to buy the book as well as visibility of the author.

Perhaps in the coming days?

If you're one of the awesome readers who downloaded Zombies Ate My Muslim and you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon! I would appreciate it very much!

Zombies Ate My Muslim.

2011-12-20T14:58:00.001+08:00

Zombies Ate My Muslim is my latest short story ebook:

All he wants is to have a simple life.

And that simple life he wants to spend with his celebrity girlfriend, Barbra Streisand. But unbeknownst to him, his darling Barbra has become a Muslim... which isn't a bad thing. Except for the rampaging zombie horde outside his front door who only want to eat Muslims.

Between the Muslim-hungry zombies and the Google Robots that want to steal his Brussels Sprouts, can he save the woman he loves before she gets eaten? Will things ever be simple for him?

Available at:
Amazon.com

The Worst Part is Waiting.

2011-12-18T15:07:00.001+08:00

I had a lightning flash of an idea last weekend. It was the midnight of Sunday turning into Monday and I had wanted to go to sleep but suddenly there came into my brain a brilliant seed of an idea for a short story that I just had to sit down and write then and there.

So I did.

I hammered out a 3700 story about zombies. I don't usually like zombies. In fact, I hate zombies as a genre, but this idea seemed so good at the time I didn't want to lose the energy of the moment. When I was done, I reread it and I was pleased. It came out not-so-bad, if I do say so myself.

Over the next few days, I rewrote it, gave it to some friends for advice on improving it and rewrote it some more after I got said solicited advice. My friends said they liked it and well, if they liked it, I suppose some other people out there would like it as well.

At first I had wanted to self-publish the story on Amazon but something inside me said I should try submitting it to a certain magazine that I had had my eyes on for a while now. So I said to myself, why the heck not. Let's submit this story. If it gets accepted, hey nice, I'll have another published credit to my name (something I haven't had in a while) and yet another leaf in my laurel wreath. And if it's rejected, no probs, I'll just pub it on Amazon myself.

But I forgot it's the Christmas season. I don't think the magazine staff are going through the slushpile at the moment and even if it's just for the rejection I'll probably have to wait until next month the earliest to get a reply. Gahhh.

I hate waiting.

Thoughts on Medieval Islam.

2011-12-17T13:28:00.000+08:00

I was asked yesterday to write something fictional that was related to my Malay background. I replied that I wasn't interested in doing that anymore because I was more interested in writing something that was inspired by medieval Arab/Islam.

My friend asked why medieval Arab and not Malay. And while at the time I simply answered, "Cos the medieval Islamic period is more interesting", I feel I should expand on that a little bit.

The truth is, when I first started this blog, I was all about writing something that reflected my roots and heritage. I wanted to write The Great Malaysian Novel. I wanted my stories to be infused with Malaysiana.

And I did. I wrote several short stories of which I feel reflect quite accurately the Malaysia that I personally know. Unfortunately those stories have never really been published, not because I think they're rubbish (although I do occasionally reread them and think they are a bit rubbish) but because I feel they are a little too personal for me to share with the rest of the world. They are just fiction but somehow I have an emotional bond attached to them that I cannot sever by releasing them into the wild. Doing so would be to bare my soul to the judgemental masses and I don't think I can do that.

Publishing those stories would mean exposing them to be criticised by readers and while I'm generally immune to brickbats and am quite welcoming of constructive criticism, I really cannot allow any leeway when it comes to these stories.

After writing those stories I realised that I had needed to write them as a sort of cathartic process and after I had done that I was ready to move on to other things. And so I moved on to writing fantasy inspired by the medieval Arab era.

And why that particular period? Well, it's like asking someone why they like the European Renaissance period. Because the period featured interesting people such as Galileo and Da Vinci.

Well, the medieval Arab period was the Renaissance before the Renaissance. The Muslims had conquered most of what remained of the Roman civilisation during this time and the great Arab scientists and thinkers of the era were lucky to have been able to study well-preserved documents of science, mathematics and history dating back to the Greek period.

Using ancient texts as their reference, the Muslim scientists began to build upon and add new information to what had already existed and these new developments were documented. This was the time of Ibn Sina, Ibn Battuta, Al Khwarizmi and Omar Khayyam.

The discoveries of these Muslim pioneers would later be brought over to Europe where it would inspire the Europeans to greater heights and usher in the Renaissance.

To say that the Medieval Islamic period is rife with inspiration for fantasy and science fiction stories is an understatement. I'm surprised more people haven't dug in this treasure trove of inspiration but hey, more for me I guess?

Occupy Amazon!

2011-12-08T01:00:00.001+08:00

Hey guys, check it out:

Secret Operation in the Matriarch's Kitchen (Kindle Edition)

I'm finally on Amazon! Hurray! I'll probably hit Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and Kobo within the next two weeks as well. Hopefully this will improve sales... even if a little bit.

Pat on Back.

2011-11-29T22:55:00.001+08:00

Well it's almost 24 hours since I unleashed my first ebook into the world. (You didn't buy it? Why the heck not? Go and correct this grievous error right now!)

How many people have bought it so far?

*drum roll please*

A grand total of TWO.

That's actually two more than I expected so I guess that's not so bad, even if I sold those two copies to two close friends. Definitely not something to sniff at!

Secret Operation in the Matriarch's Kitchen is now an ebook

2011-11-28T23:29:00.001+08:00

About four years ago, I wrote a story about alien home appliances that came to Earth to save their fellow instruments from the shackles of human enslavement. It was called:

The story was published in an anthology called Write Out Loud which I haven't seen in bookstores for quite a while so I think it must be out of print. Even when it was in print many people complained they couldn't find it and unfortunately I could not help them as distribution was out of my control.

Well, four years later and we're in the midst of a digital revolution when it comes to book publishing. I thought I might as well publish the story as an ebook and see what happens. Consider this some kind of experiment on my part.

You can get The Secret Operation in the Matriarch's Kitchen on Smashwords for US$0.99 in every digital format you can think of. If I'm lucky, one day maybe the ebook will appear on the big online bookstores such as Amazon, B&N and Apple.

Related:
Bibi Misbah's Review of Secret Operation in the Matriarch's Kitchen

Stephen King: 1, Haruki Murakami: 0

2011-11-25T15:52:00.001+08:00

I started out reading Murakami's behemoth of a book, 1Q84, but when a friend gifted me an e-book copy of Stephen King's 11/22/63, I read the first few pages to check it out... and was hooked.

Now I cannot go back to 1Q84. Well, at least for now. King has me caught in his death grips of superb writing and excellent plotting.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Learned to Love the E-book.

2011-11-17T17:46:00.001+08:00

Okay. I can now admit it. I love e-books. Digital ink.

O! glorious digital revolution, let it wash over me and cleanse me of my perve for paper!

A friend let me testdrive his Kindle some time back and ever since then I've been slowly falling in love with the idea of digital books. Today, I had a trial run of sorts with my iPad loaded with Stanza and Naomi Novik's Tongues of Serpents by taking it on my daily commute to work, and it's been brilliant so far.

Enjoying very much the ability to define words as I read them. Vocabulary +1!

1Q84 and NaNoWriMo.

2011-11-01T21:49:00.002+08:00

Well, I just bought something:

Thing is, as huge a Murakami fan that I am, I wasn't planning on buying it so soon. I felt I had outgrown Murakami and didn't really feel like reading a huge tome, especially if it was a meandering one like Kafka on the Shore. Not that I do not like Kafka. Far from it. It's just that, well, I want to read other stuff too.

But it seems the God of Books has other plans and sent fate to intervene? I was made aware of some excerpts of reviews with statements such as "his best work since Wind-up Bird!" and "the opus that would define his oeuvre!"

I realise this might be hyperbole but come on! I had become intrigued. And then today a colleague said he had it for his Kindle and had already started reading it. He said it was great so far. That was the last straw. I knew I had to read it as well.

So, one trip to Borders... and here I am. I haven't even ripped off the plastic wrapping yet. I am savouring this delight of holding a virgin Murakami book that I know nothing about. (I've been avoiding articles about Murakami for the past year to stay as spoiler-free as possible.)

Rather surprised it contains all three volumes, though. I thought the British edition lacked the third volume and I don't think this is the American edition. Weird.

Anyway, time to write for Nanowrimo and then start reading as my reward for hitting 2000 words!

Nanowrimo Day 3: Still doing all right.

2010-11-03T15:30:00.000+08:00

Well, I'm still alive. I've managed 5073 words and I'm still on target for 50k by the end of November.

This year has been a different kind of Nanowrimo for me. Usually, I'd write like the wind and would churn out about 15,000 words in less than three days then after that I'd stop writing for a while, and most often, I would not even continue.

This year though I've taken a very marathon-y pace at doing Nanowrimo (which is what Nanowrimo really is -- a marathon) and haven't done any ridiculous wordy sprints. I've managed to meet the daily target of 1667 words so far and haven't gone overboard.

I can't keep this pace however, because Friday is a holiday (Happy Diwali, people) and that's followed by a weekend which means I'll be at home, which means I probably won't do any writing. I have a baby and wife and both of them are huge attention seekers so I doubt I will get any writing done while they're around.

So today I really wanted to add an extra 1500 words to my wordcount but I'm not sure if I can because my mind goes blank every time I look at the Word document in front of me.

Hmm, did I say I want to tell you about the novel I'm writing? Eh, maybe some other day. The last thing I want to do right now is to talk about what I've been writing the whole day (and the whole of the past two days).

Nanowrimo Day 1: And we're off!

2010-11-01T18:54:00.000+08:00

Yes, I'm taking part in Nanowrimo again this year. This will be my first serious year taking part in Nanowrimo since 2007. I gave my all in that year and finished with 52,000 words.

I would not be able repeat that feat the following two years due to work and life constraints. Even though I told people I would take part I never really took it seriously. So I never won Nanowrimo again for those years.

So this year, I'm putting on my bandanna Rambo-style, this music video is playing in the background and I'm gonna hit that 50k word mark again. This is a promise. I've already put down 1812 words for today, so I'm on track.

I'll write more about the novel I'm writing for Nanowrimo in the coming days.

Thoughts on 1Q84's impending English translation.

2010-10-27T14:47:00.000+08:00

I like the thinking that 1Q84 is pronounced "Q-teen eighty-four". It rolls off the tongue much nicer than "one Q eighty-four". I'm not sure where I read this first but I'm guessing it's Literary Saloon. I'll have to check (but I won't cos I'm lazy today. Well, I've always been lazy. Anyway, I digress.)

I'm guessing the huge tome will be making its way to the English-speaking shores by the middle of next year. In a recent interview at asahi.com, Jay Rubin (one of Murakami's translators) revealed that he'll be finishing his translation of books 1 and 2 of 1Q84 by mid-November and Philip Gabriel is supposed to finish book 3 by then.

So my first reaction to this is, "yay! There's finally some real progress and I can hope of reading it soon(ish)!" but my second reaction is more important, which is, "WHAT, there's two translators working on this???"

Now I understand why they chose to go this route, the 1Q84, as a whole, is a massive beast after all. One translator just might not be enough! But if anyone who's read enough of Murakami in English knows that his three different translators all have different styles. I don't want to be reading the first two books and then have my enjoyment pulled out of me when I get to the third book just because of a change of translation style.

Oh well, if they give this the same care they did while editing the English translation of Wind-up Bird Chronicles, I think there really won't be much of a problem.

The Oxford English Dictionary is dead...

2010-09-01T06:39:00.000+08:00

...and we killed it!

Jaymee Goh's Intro to Malaysian SFF.

2010-07-26T08:21:00.000+08:00

From Jeff Vandermeer's Ecstatic Days, Jaymee Goh writes (too) briefly about Malaysian science fiction and fantasy:

I’m not home enough to be able to judge Malaysian sf/f very much. I’ve got one book from PTS Publishing, and I didn’t like it. The writing was poor, like that of a new scifi writer who has yet to master the craft of storytelling before going on about How! Cool! This! Hero! Is! I like wish fulfillment fiction as much as the next person – it’s one of the reasons why I read sf/f – but like my friend cycads says, about another different genre of writing in Malaysia, “Can do better.”

However she fails to give any examples, save for a link to the science fiction section on the PTS website.

Thoughts on Recent Goings-on in My Life.

2010-07-12T14:37:00.000+08:00

In past twelve months, I have worked in an art gallery, taught English to a variety of non-English speaking but very willing to learn students, taught English to unwilling students (ugh), programmed a computer game, formed a company to sell said video game, had a baby girl, got into a fight with my brother (jealous of the baby), got into a fight with my mother (protective of her favourite son, i.e. not me), and finally, moved into a new house, as far away as I possibly could afford from my insane family.

I can, with all honesty, say that writing is much better than everything I've mentioned above. Well... save for having a baby girl. That was pretty awesome. The new house is pretty nice too.

So! What's been going on with you then?

Thoughts on the New Layout.

2010-07-12T14:29:00.002+08:00

PRETTY NEAT HUH!

Thoughts on Writing About Your Own Country.

2010-07-12T14:12:00.002+08:00

Four years ago, around the time I started this blog, my wish was to write a novel about the country I live in, Malaysia.

I wanted to write my version of the Great Malaysian Novel, something that delivered the essence of Malaysia within 100,000 words or so. A novel that would bring together varied characters that reflected the many aspects of Malaysiana, yet without descending into the stereotypical tropes the Malaysian Tourism Board seems to celebrate.

That was then. I have since realised several awkward things about my ambition. I don't know enough about my own country to write about it. And the most awkward: I've fallen out of love with my country. I no longer want to write about the things I wanted to write about, because everything just makes me feel sick.

How to continue? My only solution right now is to wait for the malaise to fade away. In the mean time, my fantasy novel(s?) get written.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is, I'm just not old enough; not experienced enough.

Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy wins BBC Samuel Johnson Prize.

2010-07-09T09:00:00.002+08:00

I have a list of 3 countries I really want to visit, and number one on that list North Korea. North Korea is fascinating in that it is now one of only two truly communist countries in our time and also the only country that is properly Orwellian, down to its worship of a Big Brother-type figure.

I've been reading in interest in how North Koreans live their lives, mostly from brief articles on the BBC News website, so when a book like Nothing to Envy, written by LA Times journalist Barbara Demick, gets published, my attention is piqued. But when it wins a prestigious literary prize, well! Consider that a must-buy then.

Check out a review at the Guardian, while I go to Kinokuniya and ask if they have it.

A young Haruki Murakami.

2010-07-08T16:43:00.001+08:00

Love, love, LOVE this picture. Via the very resourceful murakami Community Livejournal.

From the pages of Mata Harian...(2)

2010-01-03T17:40:00.005+08:00

In today's Mata Harian:

Christians offer Muslims the use of 'Jesus Christ'

by Yu See Lee

GUNUNG RAPAT: In another twist in the controversial saga, Malaysian Catholics have offered to Malaysian Muslims the use of the words 'Jesus Christ' in return for allowing them the use of the word 'Allah' in their Catholic weekly, The Herald.

'This is our way of expressing gratitude, a way of saying "no hard feelings, eh, chaps?"' said a member of the church body who declined to be named.

This has resulted in yet another controversy, this time among Catholics who protest the decision.

'We have been using the name Jesus Christ for centuries, even millennia. We called him Jesus Christ our saviour back when the Bible was only being read by the unwashed Hebrews,' said Yvette Yvangel. 'It's just not fair to let the Muslims have their way with it now."

Many others are also dismayed with the decision, especially those who were vocal against the government ban on the use of 'Allah' in The Herald. 'Why should we let those Muslims say the name of God in vain, especially when they didn't let us use theirs in the first place?' said Mathias Matthew, defacto leader of the Catholics Cross With Government Brigade.

'I hope this becomes clear when you realise that if any of our fellow Catholics ever read any of their Muslim weeklies, they will get confused and start believing their insidious lies. This is because we Catholics, like all Malaysians, are stupid, and are prone to believe everything we read without critical thinking.'

Mathias Matthew also said that he was confident the Malaysian government would ban Muslims from using the words 'Jesus Christ' because he knows the government also thinks Malaysians are stupid and gullible and therefore will do the 'right thing'.

He has threatened to take the fight online, starting with a group he is starting on Facebook. 'If we can get about a million fans, then maybe we can get this overturned," he said in a passionate plea to fellow Catholics.

Most Muslims on the other hand did not know what to make of this. 'Why would I want to use Jesus Christ?' asked Dato' Seri Mohd Muhammad Mohamed, lead cleric of the Association of Muslims Who Know How to Spell Propeli. 'It's much shorter and simpler to use "Nabi Isa Alaihissalam." Well, it is, if you abbreviate the last words into two letters. It's simple. Really!'

Atheists have also gotten into the controversy. 'As supreme leader of the Cult of Ath, I also hereby grant Muslims the right to use the name "Ath" for their god,' said the supreme leader of the Cult of Ath.

However this claim has not been sanctified by rival Atheist temples such as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Bertrand Russell's Temple of the Celestial Teapot.

Previous articles from Mata Harian:

'I could have done better.'

Neil Gaiman's Personal Library.

2009-09-05T08:30:00.000+08:00

Neil Gaiman's personal library is like... well... it's like a library. A really nice and cosy library.

Tunku Halim's Speculative History.

2009-08-31T14:29:00.000+08:00

Tunku Halim has an intriguing post which starts with the sentence:

"On 26 April 1994, in an elaborate ceremony at the Istana Negara, Tuanku Simon Mackay was appointed as Malaysia’s 10th Yang DiPertuan Agong"

What follows is the best speculative writing I've read this year. Tunku Halim, I want more!

REVIEW: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami.

2009-08-28T10:11:00.001+08:00

A review I wrote ages ago finally got published in The Star. Well, that review had a crazy journey from my keyboard to print, but I shall not dwell on the matter.

This review was published in The Star on 28 August 2009.

Marathon chronicles
Review by TED MAHSUN

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Author: Haruki Murakami
Publisher: Harvill Secker, 180 pages

PEOPLE don’t usually associate running marathons with writing novels. Not Haruki Murakami. For this award-winning Japanese author, the act of training and eventually taking part in a marathon is no different from the arduous task of writing a novel.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is Murakami’s attempt to coagulate and combine his thoughts on these two seemingly unrelated activities into one book. As a result, this book ends up being a memoir as much as it is about running and writing.

The book is divided into chapters that are essentially journal entries, chronicling Murakami’s progress as he prepares himself for the New York Marathon in 2005. The journal entries note his moods, thoughts and observations while he trains and how he reconciles the lessons learnt during the training with the art of writing.

For example, Murakami notes that pacing is important in writing novels, as much as it is in running, and he uses this to carry his “enthusiasm” over from day to day: “Right now I’m increasing the distance I run, so speed is less of an issue. As long as I can run a certain distance, that’s all I care about. Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace I shorten the amount of time I run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly.”

Before I had read this book, a writer friend had told me that he didn’t think it was that good. He felt that it was an essay extended too far and too long. Having read the book, I can tell you that what my friend said was true, in a way. The book does feel a little padded in some places. There are sections where Murakami goes wildly off tangent. While he’s talking about running, he might wander off to talk about the weather and global warming. It doesn’t help that that particular passage doesn’t reflect the best of his writing: “There were torrential rains in parts of the country, and a lot of people died. They say it’s all about global warming. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. Some experts claim it is, some claim it isn’t. There’s some proof that it is, some that it isn’t.”

This wishy-washiness could be the translator’s fault but I doubt it. I personally like this sort of thing, even if it is a bit strange and badly worded. To me, this sort of strangeness is exactly what appeals to me in a Murakami book, be it fiction or non-fiction. He’s a master of strange non-sequiturs and to be honest, I’m glad this book is not just a dry book about running with some thoughts about writing thrown in for good measure.

It’s great that the weirdness that is the trademark of his novels can also be found in this non-fiction.

But the real treasure in this book is Murakami’s thoughts on writing (although running fans might disagree). I’m always fascinated with what published authors have to say about their writing and here I am not disappointed. Murakami thinks of literature as “... something more spontaneous, more cohesive, something with a kind of natural, positive vitality. For me, writing a novel is like climbing a steep mountain, struggling up the face of the cliff, reaching the summit after a long and arduous ordeal. You overcome your limitations, or you don’t, one or the other. I always keep that inner image with me as I write.”

This is a difficult book to recommend. Sure, marathon fans will love reading the details of Murakami’s training and preparations. But they might be turned off by the detours into writing and other wild tangents. Likewise, budding authors would love to hear Murakami’s thoughts on writing but would they wade through all that talk about running? Perhaps not.

This book is obviously not for everyone. But it might just be the fix loyal Murakami fans need right now since there’s no word yet when (or even whether) there will be an English translation of his massive, double-volume 1Q84, released to great acclaim in Japan in May.

What's Up Ted.

2009-08-01T18:35:00.000+08:00

Just a small update for you. I've just had the craziest week... and signs are pointing that the weeks to come are just going to get crazier.

Probably not as crazy as winning RM50,000 though, which I (along with my fellow team members, Ash and Lina) did.

A couple of months ago, me, Ash and Lina decided to take part in a little competition. All we had to do was send in a proposal to design a computer game.

No problem. Except that I was doing (and am still doing) the CELTA course, an intensive English teacher training course. I ended up having to accomodate sleepless nights just to get the presentation for the game proposal, my lesson plan for a class the day before the game presentation AND an assignment done in time.

So! The lesson here: burn the midnight oil if you want to end up holding a mock cheque like this:

Hurray!

3 Language-related Things Which Really Annoy Me.

2009-07-05T05:19:00.002+08:00

1. Excuse, please.
Guys, it's "excuse me, please." Every time I hear this on the train I have to fight the urge to reply, "excuse who?" and not move aside.

2. Pronouncing the word "liaise" as "lie-us".
It's pronounced "lee-eh-zz", not "liars". I swear if I hear someone call me a liar(s) again I'm gonna punch him/her in the ear.

3. Could of, should of, would of, must of
It's could've, should've, would've, must've. Why the hell is that so hard to get???

Signed,
Ted
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Grammar Nazi

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

2009-06-01T17:58:00.002+08:00

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago.

Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time!

The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it.

All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame.

On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day covers for years and was hoping to get back into it with a really cool cover but I guess this was not to be. I was expecting much more effort for something like this. Hopefully the next one will be more interesting but I doubt it. The next theme planned is "Conservation of the Environment" which isn't exactly an inspiring theme.

My Resolution for July.

2009-06-01T01:22:00.004+08:00

Waking up before 11am would be nice. Also might get me in less trouble at work.

UPDATE:
Epic fail. Woke up at 10 minutes to noon.

UPDATEUPDATE:
I can no longer tell the difference between June and July. DOUBLE EPIC FAIL

Commies in our Midst.

2009-05-29T16:53:00.002+08:00

I have a little time on my hands again! Time to blog! Can't be bothered to continue where I left off the previous time because I don't remember I wanted to talk about now so I'll just mention something strange I saw in the online edition of a widely read national newspaper.

The recent issue our esteemed politicians have gotten themselves in a fit concerns The Red Menace, more specifically, Chin Peng, leader of the ageing and no longer scary Communist Party of Malaya, and whether he can be forgiven and allowed to return home to our country to die.

With that in mind, here's a screenshot of today's local news page of said national newspaper:

Take note of the news items in the red boxes. While our benevolent leaders don't seem to want to forgive the communists closer to home, they seem to have no qualms with getting in bed with Chin Peng's sponsors.

It all becomes even more weird when you take into account that the newspaper in question here is called "The Star", which employs a very communisty red for its masthead.

Having said that, the first day cover mentioned in the second news item looks rather nice. I recently topped up my standing order deposit account with Pos Malaysia, so I'm hoping to get it in the mail quite soon.

I didn't bother thinking of a title.

2009-05-21T20:12:00.001+08:00

Well, I'm back.

I thought I'd better start blogging again before some part of my brain starts sprouting cobwebs or something. The reason I stopped blogging was things were starting to become a little out of control in my life and so I had to put blogging on the back burner while I...

...goddammit. I was just called into a meeting. I'll finish this rant whenever.

RIP, JG Ballard.

2009-04-20T11:34:00.000+08:00

I didn't intend to blog again so soon, but news of JG Ballard's death kind of shocked me. I know I should've expected it, since he's been ill for some time now, but I guess I was hoping he would make it.

Haven't read Crash, but I watched the Cronenberg movie and thought it was really bizarre. Loved his more conventional––if one can truly say that about him––science fiction novels though.

Okay, back to being on hiatus.

Celebrating World Book Day with BookXcess.

2009-04-18T14:56:00.000+08:00

Received an email from BookXcess:

Hi Ted!

We're having a super promotion in conjunction with the World Book Day celebrations. Even our latest shipment arrived in time for our latest sale! :-D Award-winning books with 20% discount, free books for nett purchases above RM20, RM20 vouchers for nett purchases above RM200... there's just so much going on at BookXcess! We would truly appreciate it if you can help spread the word in your blog to your esteemed readers and share the joy of reading more for less at BookXcess! Attached is the e-poster we have created for the occasion.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend! Hope to see you soon at BookXcess!

Warmest regards,
Andrew & Jacqueline Yap

Click on the poster to enlarge.

Sorry this isn't a proper post or anything. Just don't have the time to concentrate on blogging at the moment.

Still Alive.

2009-02-03T14:08:00.015+08:00

I'm still breathing! But this blog seems to be on life support. Well, you know the story ... busy and all that.

Hopefully I'll be back in full force around March or April.

HOWTO: Write in a World Full of Distractions.

2009-01-10T13:54:00.000+08:00

Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing fame and author of quite a number of SF novels (look 'em up 'cos I'm too lazy to google them for you), has an article up on Locus Online on how to deal with the distractions of the Internet while writing.

He doesn't believe in switching it off--the most obvious route--but has a number of useful tips to keep those distractions at bay. Some of them are obvious, like switching off your IM and carving out a regular writing routine, but the one I find most useful is his cautioning not to research:

Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't. Don't give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction — an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day's idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type "TK" where your fact should go, as in "The Brooklyn bridge, all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite." "TK" appears in very few English words (the one I get tripped up on is "Atkins") so a quick search through your document for "TK" will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards. And your editor and copyeditor will recognize it if you miss it and bring it to your attention.

Follow the link to read more!

It is the New Year! Time to write about porn.

2009-01-06T16:43:00.001+08:00

Yes! What an excellent idea!

Unfortunately, though excellent it may be, it is only impossible for me to do so. Therefore, permit me to pass you an equally excellent link: Soiled Doves of the Old West.

And if you're wondering what prompted this non sequitur of a post, I will have to say I've changed genres in my reading. For the past year or so, I've been telling everyone who's bothered to listen to me that I was in my Science Fiction phase and most of my reading has been SF-related. I guess it's safe to say I've since switched to reading Westerns...

...yeah, I know. Not an improvement on my literary tastes, but I rewatched Sergio Leone's masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West recently and it dredged up a longing inside me for the Wild West.

Am currently reading Louis L'amour's Flint, which is enjoyable but the writing keeps raising my inner editor's warning sirens (Character perspectives change mid-paragraph! Repetition!). I also found True Grit by Charles Porter at BookXcess which I bought immediately and will read once I've finished Flint.

Retrospective 08.

2008-12-31T21:00:00.000+08:00

While 2007 was awesome for me, 2008 was not.

A lot of things did not go well for me and people close to me this past year, and I'm not even counting my writing failures yet. I won't go into my non-writing disappointments this past year but I will touch on my writing disappointments.

Of the three resolutions I made earlier this year, I achieved none. No surprise there, really ... since when have I kept a resolution? But still! Pretty disappointing! I mean, I would have loved to have finished that novel and would have been blown away to be able to write 12 short stories, one for each month.

As it stands, not only have I not finished the novel, I went and started another unfinished novel for this year's NaNoWriMo, and I didn't even finish that. I did write 5 or so short stories this year, but all of them are unfinished.

Yep, 2008 was an epic fail and not a year I will look back on fondly. On the other hand, I did have more book reviews published this year than the previous year. Yay!

I look forward to 2009, a chance for me to redeem myself.

Resolutions for 2009:

Finish that novel. (One day I will achieve this, you wait and see!)
Write six short stories, one for every two months. (Maybe that's more doable...)
Start submitting to foreign pubs again. (Didn't submit at all this year, how embarrassing!)

Okay! Enough whining and self-pitying! Happy New Year everyone!

REVIEW: Six Suspects by Vikas Swarup.

2008-12-30T09:00:00.006+08:00

This review was published in The Star on 28th December 2008.

Unusual Whodunnit
Review by TED MAHSUN

Instead of following along in the steps of a detective unravelling a crime, we’re given a different perspective in this simply-told but cracking good mystery.

SIX SUSPECTS
By Vikas Swarup
Publisher: DoubleDay, 472 pages
ISBN: 978-0385608169

VIKAS Swarup’s latest book, Six Suspects, looks conventional at a glance: a notorious mob tycoon, Vicky Rai, is murdered in his own house during a party, and there are six suspects. Sounds like a straightforward whodunnit, right?

Not quite. Unlike most crime novels, this novel does not employ a sleuth; well, not it in the conventional sense, anyway.

But then, Swarup is not your conventional novelist, either: he is a diplomat, currently posted in Pretoria as India’s Deputy High Commissioner to South Africa. His debut novel, Q & A, was also unusual in that its protagonist is a slum dweller who wins the jackpot on the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire TV game show. Q & A was made into a film called Slumdog Millionaire by British filmmaker Danny Boyle. The recently-released movie garnered critical acclaim and made it into Time magazine’s list of top 10 movies of the year. (Both Six Suspects and Slumdog Millionaire are available at a discount in the coupon below.)

In Six Suspects, a sleuth does initially appear, in the form of investigative journalist, Arun Advani, and it is his newspaper articles that bookend the novel. However, though it is Arun who eventually uncovers the clues that lead to the murderer, it is not his story we follow. Instead, the reader is given the stories of each of the six suspects, with each story resembling a self-contained novella, detailing their varied backgrounds, mishaps, and adventures that will eventually lead to and converge on the scene of the crime.

It is to Swarup’s credit that he has managed to imbue each of these six suspects with enough character and detail that the reader cannot help but be swept along by the narrative.

Each suspect is distinct from each other with nary a generic character in sight:

There’s Mohan Kumar, former Chief Secretary of Uttar Pradesh state in India, once corrupt and selfish, now channelling the soul of Mahatma Gandhi himself.

Shabnam Saxena, a Bollywood star who quotes French Existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

Eketi, a 1.5m tribesman from the Andaman Islands who has come to the Indian mainland to search for a sacred stone stolen from his tribe.

Munna Mobile, so nicknamed because of his career as a mobile phone thief.

Larry Page, who isn’t the famous co-founder of Google, he just shares the same name and is in India to get married

And, lastly, Jagannath Rai, father of the murdered Vicky Rai, the corrupt Uttar Pradesh Home Minister who aspires to become Chief Minister.

Of these six, the most developed and interesting character to me is Eketi, the Onge tribesman from the Andamans.

It comes as no surprise to me that in the acknowledgements at the end of the book, Swarup mentions at least three books and a website about the Onge tribe that aided him in researching the character.

Eketi’s story is perhaps the most epic of the six. It is a sort of mini coming-of-age tale, with Eketi embarking on a quest across India to recover his tribe’s sacred stone, and discovering disappointment and betrayal along the way.

He is aided by the scheming Ashok, a junior welfare officer stationed in the Andamans who has a selfish reason of his own for finding the sacred stone.

Their travels through various locales, from a eunuch colony in Kashi to the slums of Mehrauli, provide many chances for the author to give readers a tour, albeit a generalised one, of India. Some readers may appreciate this, but I suppose those familiar with the country would likely be unimpressed.

The least interesting character – though I have to say this is a novel in which even the least interesting character remains engaging – is Larry Page.

It certainly seems as if Swarup didn’t put in the same amount of research and effort into creating Larry that he did for Eketi – and what research he did do was based on episodes of the TV soap, Dallas! You see, Larry comes across as a stereotypical redneck American. While such people may exist in real life, in fiction, this simplicity in personality comes across on the page as nothing more than a two-dimensional cardboard cutout.

Even so, as trite as the character may be, Swarup’s fast-paced and easy flowing prose allows the reader to forgive this setback. Larry’s misfortunes in India – losing his passport and money, and eventually being kidnapped by a terrorist cell – thankfully, make for a delightful and humorous read, and provide yet another chance for the author to caricature India’s “exotic” elements.

Taken as a whole, Six Suspects is an enjoyable and light read. Granted, it is no literary masterpiece; in many ways it is too generalising and too stereotypical.

Don’t go in expecting a Salman Rushdie or a Vikram Seth novel. There are certainly no verbal pyrotechnics to be found, and the only glimpse of magic realism remains just that, a tiny glimpse.

But I say this not because I scorn the novel. On the contrary, I rather like the simple tone the book takes. Swarup does not seem to want to show off; there’s no putting on of airs here.

Six Suspects may lean towards being literary by being slightly unconventional but it doesn’t take a Sherlock (sorry, couldn’t resist!) to know what the author intended to write: a good mystery crime novel – and in my opinion, he’s succeeded.

REVIEW: The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb.

2008-12-29T09:00:00.005+08:00

This review was published in The Star on 28th December 2008.

Revisiting Columbine
Review by TED MAHSUN

THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED
By Wally Lamb
Publisher: HarperCollins, 832 Pages
ISBN: 978-0007290697

THERE’S a selection of the book-reading populace that thumbs its collective noses at books picked by talk show host Oprah Winfrey for her Oprah’s Book Club.

I don’t get this. Shouldn’t one judge a book by its own merit rather than dismissing it just because one isn’t fond of the talk show host?

I was pondering this after I finished reading The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb, whose previous two novels had both been selected for discussion by Oprah’s Book Club. It would be such a shame if Lamb’s latest novel is disregarded just because Oprah likes it!

Well, those who hate her book club ... they won’t know what they’re missing. The novel is intriguing and enjoyable; it constantly reminded me why I enjoy reading.

The novel weaves fiction and fact by placing its two central characters, Caelum Quirk and his wife Maureen, at the centre of one of the United States’ most tragic events in recent history, the Columbine high school massacre.

Both of them work at the school: Caelum is a teacher and Maureen is a school nurse. On the fateful day of the tragedy, Maureen is trapped in a closet while she listens to the students getting shot.

Caelum – though away during the tragedy to visit a dying aunt – is deeply affected when he discovers that many of the students he once taught and teachers he worked with were either dead or terribly wounded.

Lamb should be given credit for being able to write about Columbine in an intriguing way, yet treating the subject respectfully by not resorting to sensationalism or finger-pointing.

In fact, the chapters focusing on the tragedy are written in a neutral, journalistic style and Lamb tries to be as unbiased as possible.

Although, at first, it may appear that the novel revolves just around the Columbine massacre, the author cleverly uses this tragic event as a jumping point and takes us further by following the lives of the two characters after the tragedy.

Though she survives the ordeal, Maureen is psychologically scarred and finds it hard to recover from her trauma. She winds up being addicted to painkillers and antidepressants and so Caelum decides that it may be a good idea to move back to his family farm in hope that getting Maureen away from it all might increase her chances of recovery.

The Quirk family farm, which Caelum inherited when his aunt died, is not the solve-all that Caelum hopes it to be. Maureen shows little signs of improving and while Caelum tries his best to help her, he is obviously not a flawless human being either.

He has anger management and insecurity issues, which result from his wife having had an affair some years earlier, as well as his own painful childhood.

The Hour I First Believed, it turns out, is also a novel about the burden of family and the many skeletons a family can hide in its closet.

Caelum’s attempt to confront his past while coming to terms with his own tragedy ultimately become the path towards finding faith and meaning in his own life.

All this adds up to a wonderful and engaging read, a truly modern and contemporary epic journey.

Tales of the Unexpected.

2008-12-28T13:19:00.001+08:00

Well, that was unexpected. I not only have one, but two book reviews in today's Star. The other review is for Wally Lamb's Hour I First Believed.

I only noticed when I went out to get my own deadtree copy. I'd have noticed sooner though if only Google Alerts wasn't being so choosy...

Anyways! A few months ago, I was given an advanced review copy (or as they call it, ARC) of Wally Lamb's Hour I First Believed for review, but when I finally finished writing the review, MPH Bookstores, who provided the ARC, told me they decided not to have a promo for the book so I thought, well that's that. Maybe the review wasn't going to be published.

Turns out the Star editors turned to another bookstore to get a promo discount coupon from them instead. Neat!

So there you go. If you get a copy of today's deadtree edition of The Star, you'll get a 25% discount coupon for both Hour I First Believed, Six Suspects and even Vikas Swarup's earlier book, Slumdog Millionaire (formerly published as Q&A).

I have a review in The Star today.

2008-12-28T12:28:00.000+08:00

Dude, I totally forgot. I woke early today too – a rare event for me on a Sunday – to go to the dentist's. If I had remembered then I could have just picked up a copy while I was out. Dammit, now I have to make the long trek out to civilisation.

Anyways, behold, a review of Vikas Swarup's Six Suspects, just for you.

Met An Old Friend Last Night.

2008-12-15T15:13:00.001+08:00

Met an old friend last night. It was his wedding. Haven't met him in at least 8 or 9 years. And now he's a doctor!

That Post-Writing Feeling.

2008-12-01T22:25:00.000+08:00

Ahh! I feel pretty good.

I just finished writing a book review and it was the easiest peasiest book review I've ever written. Usually a book review would take me days to finish (sometimes even weeks!), but this one just took me 45 minutes.

Can't say what book the review is for, because I haven't sent it in for publication yet. This isn't on commission so I won't know whether they'll publish it ... until they do.

In the meantime, I'll be basking in that nice post-writing afterglow. It feels nice and warm!

It's December.

2008-12-01T14:03:00.000+08:00

And before long it will be the New Year.

Hurray.

Well, NaNoWriMo was a complete and epic fail for me. It wasn't all a loss though. I do have the beginnings of a novel that I'm pretty excited to continue writing, but for now I'll have to shelve it because I'd like to continue writing the novel I was working on before November ... which was really last year's NaNo project.

Anyways, did you hear the news? Syed Alwi passed away. What a bummer huh? I enjoyed immensely his play "Alang Rentak Seribu" and regret I haven't seen any of his other theatre productions.

Al-fatihah.

One can never claim a shortage of short story writing opps in these parts.

2008-11-26T13:20:00.000+08:00

From Amir's blog again:

BODY 2 BODY
Writings on Alternative Sexuality in Malaysia
Edited by Jerome Kugan and Pang Khee Teik
Published by Matahari Books

-

CALL FOR ENTRIES

1. Writings should depict queer or alternative sexuality in Malaysia, or of Malaysian queers' experience in the world.

2. Possible Genre: fiction, true life accounts, essays, memoir, excerpts from novel or play. We do not accept verse.

3. Queer includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, transgendered, intersexed.

4. Possible topics: coming out, forced out, going back in, love found, love lost, love squandered, encounters with homophobia, trying to go straight, married life, being friends with a queer person, being seduced by a queer friend, self-loathing, religion, family, work, studies, activism, etc.

5. Writers can be Malaysian or non-Malaysians. Writers can be queer or straight.

6. All writing must be in English, or translated into English. The writers are responsible for getting their own translations done. Minimal use of other languages is acceptable with explanatory notes.

7. Writers should use their actual names. A pen name is allowed when the writer has been publicly associated with that name.

8. You're advised to submit no more than 3,000 words. However, the maximum is 4,000.

9. Deadline: Sat 28 Feb, 2009

10. The editors plan to select up to 20 pieces of writings.

11. Book will be launched at Seksualiti Merdeka 2009 at The Annexe Gallery in August 2009.

12. Please email entries to matahari.books@gmail.com with the heading "Body2Body"

13. Writers who are selected will share 10% of the royalties from the sales. Conversely, they can choose to receive 4 books in lieu of royalties.

-

EDITORS' BIO

Pang Khee Teik is the Arts Programme Director for The Annexe Gallery, Central Market Annexe, Kuala Lumpur. He was formerly the editor of Kakiseni.com. Pang has also been involved in theatre, independent films, writing and even a spot of experimental dancing.

Jerome Kugan is a writer and musician who has been living and working in Kuala Lumpur since 2000. Besides being the Media Manager at The Annexe Gallery, he is the creator of Poetika and one of the organisers for KL Sing Song.

In Aug 2008, Pang and Jerome organised Seksualiti Merdeka, Malaysia's first sexuality rights fest at The Annexe Gallery.

PUBLISHER

Matahari Books is a publishing company, set up by the writer and occasional movie-maker Amir Muhammad, that specialises in non-fiction books about Malaysia. Its first book in 2007 was Volume 1 of Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things, which was an immediate best-seller. It published five books in 2008, including a tie-in screenplay book for the hit film Kami. All its books are sold in major Malaysian bookstores as well as Amazon.com.

* If you have comments on this, do post them on the Matahari Books Facebook group :-)

A-ha! Malaysian Gay Lit! A veritable Blue Ocean in the Malaysian publishing industry, if ever there was one.

George.

2008-11-25T15:42:00.000+08:00

Three eggs. Hah! Take that, George Orwell!

Jemputan ke Peluncuran Kitab Pengetahuan Hantu Malaysia.

2008-11-21T14:20:00.001+08:00

Here's an announcement from Amir Muhammad:

Bapak-bapak, ibu-ibu, jambu-jambu dan awek-awek hadhari dijemput ke acara yang santai lagi gerek: Pelancaran buku KITAB PENGETAHUAN HANTU MALAYSIA.

Buku sususan Danny Lim ini telah diterjemahkan secara sahih oleh Ahmad Kamal Abu Bakar.

Ketahuilah asal-usul, sifat serta tumit-tumit Achilles puluhan hantu dan roh yang menjadi khazanah budaya masyarakat sibilis (sekular, pluralis dan liberalis) kita.

Tempat: Bau Bau Cafe, The Annexe, Central Market.
Tarikh: 5 Disember (Jumaat)
Masa: 8:30pm hingga LRT senyap.

Terdapat hiburan oleh beberapa kumpulan gitar rancak yang akan diumumkan kelak. Juga pembacaan mengejut oleh:
Ahmad Kamal Abu Bakar
Amir Muhammad
Danny Lim
Fahmi Fadzil
Shahril Nizam
Sharon Bakar
Ted Mahsun
dan beberapa lagi artis yang tak sempat masuk Bi-pop hari minggu lepas.

Buku akan berada di toko-toko hanya 2 minggu setelah tarikh pelancaran, jadi dapatkanlah di sini agar anda tidak frust menonggeng.

Harga buku: RM20. Tebal: 115 mukasurat.

Bisa konfirm di Facebook

Hold on a sec. Is that my name there?

NaNoWriMo 2008: Day Twenty - Tempus Fugit Edition.

2008-11-20T13:19:00.000+08:00

Crap. Has it been twenty days already? I don't think I need to say I'm seriously behind on my word count.

It's not that I haven't been writing. I have. Lots of it. It's just that all the writing I've done this past month has mostly been of the speeches, essays, book forewords and book reviews variety. After all that, the last thing I want to do when I get home from work is to wrack my brains for a novel. In addition to that, the gallery I work for just held a HUGE event (I've mentioned this before I believe) yesterday, where People of Royalty came and graced us with their Presence. It was all a huge fuss and all so we were all understandably kept busy.

It's true what they say. If you want to write a novel, don't have a writing job as your day job. You'll have written a lot during work, and by the time you get home, you'll be too tired to write anything for yourself.

Having said that, I believe NaNoWriMo's not over yet. So there's still time for me to catch up on my word count. Even if some people might consider what I'm about to take on as madness.

Madness?! This! Is! NaNoWriMo!

Okay. Sorry. That was lame.

NaNoWriMo 2008: Day Thirteen - Procrastination Is Our Enemy.

2008-11-13T01:38:00.001+08:00

Hmm. Well I've been real busy of late so I have had to abandon my NaNoWriMo efforts for the time being. Also! My brother bought the Dragon Quest IV remake for the Nintendo DS...and it's completely captured me within its evil grasps.

I'm making up for lost time. I never finished it the first time I played it on the NES all those years ago, and when they released the Playstation remake, I couldn't read Japanese.

Now I'm determined to save the goddamn world, NaNoWriMo or no!

(The following paragraph might only be interest to a special breed of nerd–the video game soundtrack nerd. I was digging through my video game soundtrack CD collection yesterday, and I could only find the soundtracks for Dragon Quests 1 to 8 except 4. I'm pretty sure I bought the soundtrack for 4. Did I lose it or something? Oh well, at least I rediscovered a CD I thought I had long ago lost: the Saga Frontier II OST! Yay! Only the best jRPG soundtrack evah! Well, next to Final Fantasy 6 obviously.)

Oh yeah! NaNoWriMo! I'm planning to catch up soon. Stay tuned!

NaNoWriMo 2008: Day Five - Obama Edition.

2008-11-05T16:42:00.000+08:00

Woke up this morning to a NaNoWriMo pep email written by Jonathan Stroud in which he equates writing the first draft of a novel to an epic, heroic journey starring Charlton Heston: "Full of dramatic highs, dreadful lows and endless tedious bits when the audience goes out to make a cup of tea."

How very true!

Last night's writing session went better than the day before with me being able to hammer up to 2200 words. I had a target of reaching 3000 words but it was not to be. Still! 2200 words! That's a lot! My overall word count is now 5236.

I'm happy with that number and also happy with the direction my story is taking. I didn't expect it to take a life of its own just yet, but that's what happened. I certainly did not expect the protagonist to impersonate a masseuse to break into a house. Weird.

I think I'm beginning to feel the NaNo vibe now!

NaNoWriMo 2008: Day Four.

2008-11-04T13:24:00.001+08:00

Yesterday's word count was much better. It didn't reach the requisite daily count of 1667, but I did write more than a thousand words and managed to reach 1400 words.

If it's better than yesterday and the day before, than it's good enough for me.

There's another thing that's good about all this. The fact that my daily word count is getting higher everyday might mean I'm gaining momentum so things might get better in the coming week.

I'm still preparing for the worst though, so I can't get too cocky now. The art gallery I work for is planning a huge (HUGE!) exhibition launch this month and my wife's office deems it fit to make it compulsory for husbands to attend their family day, also happening later this month. I foresee these two events threatening to derail my NaNoWriMo efforts so I'll have to take some precautionary measures if I want to make sure my word count is good enough.

Lastly, FUCK YOU PJH Corporation for forcing husbands to come to your stupid family day. (But thanks for the generous medical coverage.)

NaNoWriMo 2008: Day One, Two and Three.

2008-11-03T11:24:00.001+08:00

NaNoWriMo is here again! I would've blogged earlier but somehow the Internet keeps acting up everytime I want to log into Blogger.

So anyway! To catch up, there was a book launch party on October 31st, and by the time I got home at about midnight, the last thing I wanted to work on was a 50,000 word novel. (What I did was fire up Thief: Deadly Shadows. Have you played it? It's awesome.) When I did finally start writing – at 8pm on 1st November – I only managed to crank out 670 words.

This is something new for me. Usually with every NaNoWriMo I've taken part in, I start writing furiously, fueled by enthusiasm and ambition. This year, even though I've got a story I want to put down on paper and have the basic outline in my head, I don't really seem too excited by it. Not like previous years anyway. This seems to be reflected in my miserable wordcount.

(Talking about my wordcount, the NaNoWriMo site seems to be having its annual early hiccup, wherein the their servers NEVER work for the first few days of November. This means that I cannot post up the magic wordcount updater on my blog, which is a bit of a downer. I'll have to be patient and wait.)

I thought about this on the drive to work today and I think this could be the effect of completing last year's NaNoWriMo challenge of reaching 50,000 words but not actually finishing the novel itself. The novel I wrote last year is still being worked on; sadly, at a pace slower than your grandma's driving (sometimes even slower than Streamyx). I still want to finish that novel, but it will have to wait until after November, when I'm done with this year's novel...or at least 50,000 words worth of it anyway.

So with that in mind, could it be I feel less excited about the novel I'm currently writing because my enthusiasm is spread over two ideas for books? Perhaps.

Or maybe I'm just lazy. But then again the potential of having two unfinished novels by the end of 2008 is something to look forward to! One finished novel is better than two unfinished novels, but two unfinished novels is better than saying "I'm going to write a novel one day" every time you go to a literary meet.

That concludes my first NaNoWriMo stream-of-consciousness rant.

If anyone's interested, right now I'm up to 1636 words. Only about 3400 words behind schedule. No biggie. I can catch up ... I hope.

Haruki Murakami: "Something's wrong with this town."

2008-10-18T12:28:00.000+08:00

Finally! Something new about Haruki Murakami I can feast my brains on!

He was in Berkley to receive the inaugural Berkley Japan Prize (wtf? I have a feeling they created this one specially for him...) and was kind enough to have a reading and a conversation with the many fans who attended. (The session sold out fast.)

Ben Dooley of The Millions was there and reported back a lot of interesting stuff I still didn't know about the writer, such as Murakami's likening of writing to playing video games: "Writing a story for me is just like playing a video game. I start with a word or idea, then I stick out my hand to catch what's coming next. I'm a player, and at the same time, I'm a programmer. It's kind of like playing chess by yourself. When you're the white player, you don't think about the black player. It's possible, but it's hard. It's kind of schizophrenic."

He also says he doesn't dream the conventional way: "I don't dream. I use my dreams when I write. I dream when I'm awake. That's the job of a novelist. You can dream a dream intentionally. When you're sleeping and you have a nice dream, you're eating or with a woman, you might wake up at the best part. I get to keep dreaming. It's great."

He also drops a small hint of his next novel which might take a long while to reach English readers due to its overwhelming size: "I hope you're not a commuter... The new novel is in the third person, from beginning to end. I need that room, because the story is getting more complicated. I need many perspectives."

Lots more good Murakami trivia when you click the link, like finding out that South of the Border, West of the Sun was born out of a rejected part of the Wind-up Bird Chronicles. Neat.

Fadli Al-Akiti in The Sun.

2008-10-15T12:40:00.004+08:00

My pal, Fadz, who had his second SF novel published earlier this year is featured in The Sun. Congratulations Fadz, and major props to Bissme for writing about a very much disregarded genre in local writing.

As for the novel itself, Saga Horizon is set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans struggle to survive against a never-ending rampaging hoard of robot soldiers. (Think Terminator.)

Haven't finished reading it yet, but so far it's quite an okay read...albeit a little too depressing for me to stomach at the moment. Am in the mood for light and happy lit right now. So sorry Fadz, your review will have to wait :p

MPH-Alliance Bank National Short Story Prize 2009.

2008-10-13T23:00:00.000+08:00

Pretty good news for Malaysian writers writing in English!

From Eric:

(27 October 2008 - 31 March 2009)
In Support of Malaysian Writing in English

MPH Group of Companies has collaborated with Alliance Bank Malaysia Bhd as our main sponsor and the Malay Mail as our official media partner to create a national short story prize in support of the arts and to encourage Malaysian writers to showcase their literary talents. The Prize is also supported by the Reader’s Digest, Seventeen Malaysia, Discovery Channel Magazine, The British Council, the National Library of Malaysia and the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage.

We aim to promote the following objectives through the administering of the Prize:
To encourage reading and writing in the English language;
To recognise new writers and give them increased confidence to pursue writing as a career;
To make more widely known the work of rising literary talents;
To encourage more people to write about their lives in Malaysia; and
To highlight a diversity of cultures, voices and viewpoints
We hope that the creation and administration of a short story competition with substantial prizes, courtesy of Alliance Bank, will help foster talented Malaysian writers to move on to publishing books of their own. It is also a platform to encourage Malaysians to write about their lives in Malaysia, overcoming ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences through the common language of English.

The competition is divided into two categories: adults and teens. There is no specific theme for the adults category; for teens, the theme is ‘Staying and Leaving.’ The Prize is open to Malaysian nationals and residents only. The word count for the adults category is from 2,500 to 7,000 words and 2,000 to 4,000 for the teens category. Stories must be previously unpublished and each writer is only allowed to submit a maximum of two entries.

MPH as administrators of the Prize will select a longlist from the entries received, from which the judges will select a shortlist of six stories. The winner of the adult category will receive RM5,000 cash, a laptop and magazine subscriptions; the other five shortlisted entries will each receive a laptop and magazine subscriptions. The winner of the teens category will receive RM2,000 cash, a subnotebook and magazine subscriptions; the other five shortlisted entries will each receive a subnotebook and magazine subscriptions.

Entry forms are available at all MPH outlets and in MPH Quill and can be downloaded from www.mphonline.com. The competition is free for MRC members and Alliance Bank cardholders; otherwise, a minimum purchase of RM10 from any MPH bookstores is required. Entries are to be sent by post to MPH Group (M) Sdn Bhd or dropped off at collection boxes in selected MPH outlets. Emailed entries are not accepted.

For full terms and conditions, please log on to:

www.mphonline.com

For other information, please contact:

Ms. Kuah Sze Mei
MPH Group (M) Sdn Bhd
Lot 1, 1st Floor, Bangunan TH
No. 5, Jalan Bersatu, Section 13/4
Petaling Jaya, Selangor
MALAYSIA
E: szemei@mph.com.my
T: 03-7960 7334

Mr. Eric Forbes
MPH Group Publishing Sdn Bhd
E: mphpublishing@mph.com.my
T: 03-7960 7334

Blip.

2008-10-07T17:16:00.000+08:00

Am having net problems, so won't be blogging until my ISP gets its priorities right.

Design a Cover for Lydia Teh!

2008-09-26T11:47:00.002+08:00

Lydia Teh, author of Honk! If You're Malaysian and Life's Like That is having a book cover design contest for her new book, Do You Wear Suspenders? – The Wordy Tales Eh Poh Nim, a collection of her vocabularistic column in The Star.

Check it out! You could win a RM100 worth of book vouchers which I assume can be used at MPH Bookstores.

My feet are killing me.

2008-09-25T05:50:00.001+08:00

The Gallery had a buka puasa cum launch event yesterday so I left later than usual from work. Even stopped by Kinokuniya to pick up a copy of Murakami's Running Book.

But if I had left like usual, I probably would have been on one of the trains involved in the collision near the Bukit Jalil station on the Ampang LRT line yesterday. The time and place of the accident is right about the time and place I would have been on the train if I hadn't gone home late. That is a very scary thought. (But not as scary as the thought that the Ampang Line has been becoming less and less reliable ever since RapidKL took over 4 years ago.)

It was a really unusual scene when I got on the platform at Masjid Jamek around 10pm. I was expecting it to be more or less devoid of people, but what greeted me was a scene equal to rush hour at 6pm! Had to wait for the train for ages, and it only went on till Tasik Selatan. From there there was a temporary feeder bus service to ferry passengers to the remaining stations.

You'd expect RapidKL to provide these feeder bus services for free to make up for the inconvenience, but no! passengers had to pay an extra RM1 to get on. What a bunch of lowlife scammers.

Anyways, all the while I was standing and now my feet hurt like heck, which doesn't give me the right mood in which I can read Murakami's Running Book. Sigh.

Shoulda just bought it instead.

2008-09-24T05:50:00.000+08:00

There was some confusion with Kinokuniya (and maybe even The Star) and I won't be reviewing Murakami's Running Book. They gave the review copy to someone else instead. Ah well. Alea jacta est and all that.

Wish they could have told me earlier because then I could have just bought the book and read it already instead of having to twiddle my thumbs.

In the meantime I'm reading an ARC of The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb which MPH kindly gave me. So far so good, although the protagonist is getting to be a little too flawed for my liking.

rip

2008-09-23T07:05:00.001+08:00

Feeling a little sad. No. Scratch that. A lot sad. My iPod Shuffle just died.

It's a first gen Shuffle so it looks like a stick of gum rather than a silly clip-on. I bought it right after launch and has served me well for the past 3 or so years. I guess it was time. The headphone socket had been having problems recently with the audio dying out on one side of the 'phones, and then switching to the other for no reason at all.

But even then I loved using it as a general-use thumbdrive. When not using it as a music device, just plug it in and it becomes a spare backup drive. Very useful, unlike the 2nd gen clip-on Shuffle, which you have to plug into a dock before you can connect it to a computer.

I'll miss you 1st gen iPod Shuffle! *sniff*

On the upside! The new shuffle doesn't cost more than RM200 while I bought my old 1GB Shuffle for RM500. (It was right before CNY and my old company had recently given out a bonus). These days you could get a Nano with 8 times the memory AND a screen with that kind of money.

New Hitchhiker Book in the Making.

2008-09-17T13:40:00.000+08:00

Young Adult author Eoin Colfer has been chosen to write the sixth book in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker Trilogy (yes, yes you read that right).

But why?

I have never read any of Colfer's books and I'm sure he must be a good writer but I doubt anybody could match up to Adams' wit and talent. The Hitchhiker series isn't even remembered for its story more than its jokes and clever wordplay so why bother continuing it?

I just hope Eoin Colfer is an atheist. Only an atheist can properly write another Hitchhiker novel!

Can't find the right word...

2008-09-15T14:46:00.000+08:00

Don't you hate it when you're seeking le mots juste but the damn word just keeps being elusive? What's ironic about this is while I cannot find the word I'm looking for I can however remember an uncommon phrase like "le mots juste". The mind boggles.

On Apologising.

2008-09-15T02:36:00.000+08:00

Okay! Moving on.

After all the brouhaha about Ahmad Ismail's unwelcome commentary, as well as the subsequent illogical actions, I found it heartwarming to read Amitabh Bachchan's quote on apologising:

Bachchan, 66, had asked for "forgiveness" for his wife's remarks, saying they were without "malice."

When asked whether he felt it demeaning for a star of his standing being forced to apologise to a political group, he told reporters in New Delhi, "by apologising no one becomes small".

(Emphasis mine.)

I've always wondered my Malaysian politicians have always found it hard to apologise even though it's very clear to everyone with half a mind that they're in the wrong. After all, no one becomes small.

I am a Dork. In a National Newspaper.

2008-09-14T08:16:00.000+08:00

Okay, so I'm in The Star again! Not as a book reviewer though, but in a Roald Dahl profile written by Rouwen Lin.

As evident in the article, I am a dork. Seriously. Look at this photo:

Haha!

Anyways, thanks Rouwen, for giving me my fifteen minutes of fame.

Happy Roald Dahl Day!

2008-09-13T00:01:00.000+08:00

It's Roald Dahl Day again and this year I haven't forgotten! (Thanks to Blogger's scheduled publishing feature.)

So last Roald Dahl Day, I showed you pictures of my autographed first edition copy of Rhyme Stew and the previous year I told you my experience at the book signing. This year let me show you a photo of the book signing.

Look at that! My glasses are the same colour as Roald Dahl's!

So this Roald Dahl fellow? What's so awesome about him anyway?

Let me tell you!

Roald Dahl's works appeal to me because there's always a sense of childish craftiness or mischievousness in the writing, as if he's letting the reader in on a secret joke. It's like Roald Dahl was this good-hearted prankster who never really grew up, and he threw all his good ideas for pranks into the books he wrote.

Add to that his silly and funny made-up words, is it any wonder he won many a child's heart?

In a way, he never really did grow up. I remember watching an interview with him on television when I was little, and he said he preferred the company of children rather than adults.

My favourite Dahl book has changed a few times since my childhood. It used to be I loved The BFG, and then later, it was the Willy Wonka books, and then when I was a little older and when I managed to find a copy of My Uncle Oswald after a long search, that became my favourite. But I think nowadays I've settled on his autobiographies, Boy and it's sequel, Going Solo. It's the only two books of his I keep returning to every year.

The reasons I love Boy and Going Solo is that in those two books, you come to realise why exactly he turned out to be the writer he was.

Boy chronicles the years of his life from when he was born until near the end of his school days; his life as a prankster schoolboy makes for very good reading. Going Solo picks up right after Boy, and follows his young adult life, initially as an employee with Shell in East Africa, and then as a fighter pilot for the RAF in the Second World War.

In both books, the events he writes about are made more interesting because its true, but knowing Roald Dahl, I suspect the stories were embellished with extra details to make them more interesting, exciting or even funny.

I was introduced to Roald Dahl when I was first able to read, probably at the age of 6. My father was studying in England then so I was sent to an English school. The teachers encouraged the pupils to read Roald Dahl, and they even read to us aloud his books after classes had finished and before our parents came to take us home. I don't remember the teachers reading anything other than Roald Dahl; it was always a book of his one after another. Probably the first Roald Dahl book a teacher read to me was The Magic Finger.

I'm not sure what impact Roald Dahl had on me, to be honest. This sounds entirely cheesy, but in my childhood, his books were my greatest friends. When you're a kid, adults are always the baddies, and in Dahl's books the children always triumphs against the machinations of the adults. I read and reread the books to comfort myself especially in times when I felt the adults were being unfair to me. Maybe the biggest impact was that Roald Dahl made me a rebel?

I have read (and own) all his children's books but only some of his adults' books. I think I'm missing one adult novel, which is rare and disowned by the author anyway, and his earliest short story book, which I keep meaning to read but having delayed it because his early writings were a bit dry. He hadn't found his voice yet at the time.

There are some differences between his children's and adult books. The first thing you'll notice is that all his children's stories are novels but all his adult ones are short stories, save for one novel, My Uncle Oswald. The second thing you'll notice is that while Dahl maintains his trademark prankster tomfoolery intact in his adult stories, the jokes tend to be much more sinister, and more often than not it involves various naughty bits a person in his or her right mind would never allow a child to read.

This is most evident in My Uncle Oswald, which is about a team of conmen who go around stealing the sperm of famous personalities worldwide, and in Switch Bitch, the book that compiles the short stories he wrote for Playboy Magazine.

The other thing is, the adult short stories always, always have a brilliant twist ending. Roald Dahl is the man who mastered the twist ending. Somehow this talent was never really brought over into his children's books as they concentrate more on telling jokes and evoking a child's sense of wonder.

Which is all right by me.

More About Roald Dahl in More About Boy.

2008-09-12T16:40:00.001+08:00

Just in time for Roald Dahl Day on the 13th, Puffin has published an "extended" version of Roald Dahl's boyhood memoir, Boy, called More About Boy.

From the Amazon UK page:

What were Roald Dahl's first words? Read his account of going to football matches with Joss Spivvis, the gardener. This new edition of a favourite book contains a wealth of new photos, facts and writings about Roald Dahl and his childhood, together with the original text and illustrations from his much-loved memoir. With lots of little-known details, this is a must-have for all Dahl fans!

I checked with Kinokuniya but they don't have it yet. Faster, Kino!

I guess we can expect More About Going Solo in the future? And then it won't take long before they start releasing More About Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator or More About The Magic Finger or More About The Vicar of Nibbleswicke or... okay, I'll stop here.

Thoughts on Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.

2008-09-09T10:00:00.004+08:00

I was writing an essay earlier this month and in it I quoted a children's poem which I knew since childhood composed by Robert Louis Stevenson. This made me realise that despite the fact that I knew the existence of R.L. Stevenson's works since I was very young I have never really read a novel by him.

Never read his famous pirate book, Treasure Island, nor The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and My Hyde and certainly not Kidnapped. The former two books are familiar to me thanks to the wonders of film and television (not to mention pop-cultural references) but I've never really known the story that moves Kidnapped.

Seeing as I've owned a copy of Kidnapped almost as long as I've known the poem I mentioned earlier, I thought I'd put this problem to a halt.

Having done so, I found Kidnapped to be an intriguing adventure story, filled with deception, sword fights and nasty, snarling men. This is also a very, very boyish adventure, due to the lack of prominent female characters; in fact, at one point in the story, there is a girl who provides an important role in the story, but unfortunately she was not even honoured with a name. Definitely not a book to pass the Bechdel Test then.

The story concerns young David Balfour, with parents newly deceased, and the farmhouse his father rented given to another tenant. He is told to seek his paternal uncle and as with stories like these, and with uncles named Ebenezer (for that is the name of David's uncle), he turns out to be a bit of a miser and a crankpot to boot.

Uncle Ebenezer soon reveals himself to be a mean plotter of schemes, of which one of them involves sending David on a Staircase Climb of Death. David, however, is equipped with a wit usually not found in characters in stories like these, and so manages to escape Certain Death.

However, his wits don't work all the time as soon the machinations of his uncle allow David to be kidnapped onto a ship bound for the American colonies where he is destined to be a slave.

This is where the story truly begins, and David soon meets Alan Breck, a Scot highlander who is on the side of the French in the currently ongoing France-Scotland war (and incidentally a real person in life). When David finally manages to escape the clutches of his kidnappers with the aid of Alan Breck, they are then reluctantly embroiled in a political assassination which leads them to fleeing for their lives across the Scottish countryside.

Modern writers are told not to use slang in their novels and for good reason. Slang is difficult to read and most often it annoys the reader rather than allowing them to absorb themselves into the story. One good example of this is Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn which contain liberal amounts of slang which prove too much of a pain to stumble through, at least for me.

Kidnapped is also a novel that uses liberal amounts of slang (this time, Scottish) in dialogue but somehow it doesn't get in the way of the story. In fact R.L. Stevenson's use of language is beautiful and rhythmic in the way only an archaic, Victorian use of the English language can be.

I really enjoyed reading Kidnapped and am a little surprised why it took me so long to get round to reading it (twenty-one years, to be precise, judging from the ancient receipt I found in my copy). Perhaps I shall try reading Treasure Island next. Ho ho ho and a bottle of rum!

Sponsored Links: Get these books from Amazon.com:
1. Kidnapped (Penguin Classics)
2. Treasure Island (Puffin Classics)

And now there's the Dahl Prize!

2008-09-09T00:33:00.000+08:00

From The Guardian:

Roald Dahl never won a children's book prize in his lifetime, but today he has gone one better, as the shortlists for a literary prize bearing his name are announced.

Founded by the children's laureate Michael Rosen, the Roald Dahl Funny prize celebrates honours the most hilarious children's authors. The inaugural winners will receive £2,500 - a slightly more serious prize than the Gloucester Old Spot pig handed over to winners of the Wodehouse prize for adult comic fiction.

Rosen founded the prize to boost the profile of humorous books as part of his campaign to put the fun back into children's reading.

"I have sat on judging panels before and what happens is that the funny books get squeezed out, because somehow or other they don't tackle big issues in the proper way," he explained. "They'll get through to the last four or five books, and then historical fiction, or something about death or slavery or new technology will win out. I think it's a great shame, because actually when I think about the books I remember from childhood they are the funny books."

If you're wondering why there's suddenly an increase of Roald Dahl-related news on the interwebs, it's probably because Roald Dahl Day is around the corner.

Sold out?!?

2008-09-08T14:37:00.000+08:00

I just came back from Kinokuniya where I talked with one of the merchandising peeps and she told me they actually had Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running in the store the other day but it sold out.

Sold out?! Already? Seriously, who stalks Kinokuniya for Haruki Murakami and buys up every new book of his? (Don't answer that.)

Anyways, Kinokuniya is only bringing in more stock in next week which is hopefully when I receive my review copy. Yes!

Google Chrome.

2008-09-03T16:35:00.003+08:00

Okay. Google Chrome? Total awesome. After using Chrome, using Firefox 3 is like driving a lorry after driving a Lotus Elise. Too bad the EULA isn't very writer-friendly.

Update:
Looks like Google is fixing that EULA snafu. Now if only they'd release a Mac version, I'll be ready to sell my soul to Google. Oh wait I already did. (I heart Google Reader.)

Update 2:
I forgot to include this, and I really should, because it's a comic by Scott McCloud. Yes, the very same Scott McCloud of Understand Comics!). The comic explains the whys and hows of Google Chrome and is a very good primer on understanding the reasoning behind the design decisions in the new browser.)

Update 3:
They've updated the EULA, so everything's peachy now. Well, except for the bugs I've been noticing. Doesn't work so well with Facebook.

Dahl... Roald Dahl.

2008-09-01T13:03:00.000+08:00

I've always known Dahl was a ladies' man (and even called upon his talents for writing his stories) and I knew he was somewhat of a spy (as we learn in Going Solo) but I never knew he used his manly charms in his work as a spy:

Drawing on previously unpublished letters and other documents, American journalist Jennet Conant has written about Dahl's numerous sexual conquests.

They include Millicent Rogers, the heiress to a Standard Oil fortune, and Clare Boothe Luce, a right-wing congresswoman and the wife of the publisher of Time magazine.

Boothe Luce proved so frisky, Dahl later claimed to have begged his superiors to take him off the assignment, only to be told to get back into the bedroom.

Conant writes: "Dahl's superiors watched his rake's progress with grudging admiration.

"A certain amount of hank-panky was condoned, especially when it was for a good cause."

Such a rogue!

Malaysiakini Publishes Science Fiction.

2008-08-31T19:01:00.000+08:00

I logged into Malaysiakini this afternoon to see if anything was wrong in the country, and instead of the news I was presented with a nice little science fiction story by Lim Teck Ghee:

It is Merdeka Day 2057. The Supremacist Alliance is in power. Having successfully re-engineered (and renamed) itself several times over, it has the record of being the longest-staying political party in power in the world.

Interviewed over Mal-Jibberish, the sole media agency (all other printed and electronic news media had lost their licences in the great media purge of 2020 or had been swallowed up by the national media Goliath) the Supreme Minister (SM) proclaimed that the Supremacist Alliance looked forward to another hundred years of ruling the country based on its past record of successfully managing the multi-racial society.

And you thought he only dabbled in political science!

Link might be for paid subscribers only. If you're not a paying subscriber to Malaysiakini then allow me to knock you on the head. *knocks reader on head* There.

1st Anniversary!

2008-08-31T00:15:00.002+08:00

People tell me today is some sort of special day for the country.

Well I don't know anything about that and I assume it is none of my concern. What IS of my concern is that today is me and L's first wedding anniversary. Yay!

It's been a challenging year for both of us but it's all good really.

Fellow Traveller by Hari Kunzru.

2008-08-25T17:24:00.000+08:00

The Guardian is celebrating the Beijing Olympics by publishing short stories, and the first one is a hilarious one written by Hari Kunzru, and it features pandas. It also reminds me of Chet. :D

First is the Worst, Second is the Best, Third is the one with the hairy chest.

2008-08-21T18:12:00.000+08:00

So the literary corner of the interwebs is abuzz with the latest news that the number one of the 50 best-loved authors is Enid Blyton. And people have since come out to say that they too like Enid Blyton, warts and all.

To say I'm dismayed is an understatement. I hate Blyton. Always have, always will. This may have happened because I was introduced to Roald Dahl first and only to Enid Blyton a few years later. If that have happened the other way round maybe my feelings for her books would be a lot different. But since we do not have the benefit of a time machine or a device capable of peeking into parallel worlds, who knows?

But I'm not here to complain about people liking Enid Blyton. For what it's worth, she was responsible for instilling the love of reading into at least a couple of generations so that's okay by me. Also, if it weren't for Enid Blyton, I would have never known what a Gollywog is. Ho ho!

As for the rest of the list, I think it's spiff that eight (EIGHT!) SF writers made it to the list.

Isaac Asimov, H.G.Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, George Orwell, Iain Banks, Arthur Conan Doyle, J.G. Ballard and Ray Bradbury.

All worth reading.

Okay, so Sir A.C. Doyle is a bit pushing it, but remember, he did write The Lost World, which inspired a lot of SF dinosaur stories afterwards, the most notable one being Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park.

To be filed in "You-should-have-done-it-earlier".

2008-08-21T15:08:00.000+08:00

In the first time he's actually done something I'm impressed with since he became Prime Minister, Pak Lah took a ride on the city's LRT:

He said the existing services were not systematic, there were not enough coaches and coverage was not comprehensive, leaving many areas not serviced.

"I just saw the plight of people using the trains to get to work every morning. They were jostling to get on board every time a train arrived. There appeared to be no system.

"I'm not happy with this because the people are not getting satisfaction from riding the trains. This we must fix," he said.

"I found the trains really packed with so many passengers. Some had waited for three trains and yet could not board.

"There's no queue. People push their way in, women with children and old people are pushed aside," he added.

I'm glad you've finally noticed, Mr Prime Minister, even if it has taken you four bleeding years to realise it. If only you'd done something like this before you raised the petrol price.

Not everything's about boats you know!

Miscellaneous.

2008-08-18T17:36:00.000+08:00

My brother-in-law got married yesterday and I was the best man.

Let me tell you something.

If you ever get the chance to become a best man at someone's wedding, at that wedding happens to be a Malay wedding and takes place in Johor, then I suggest you don't do it.

It's pure madness I tell you! And don't come to me crying afterwards. It'll be too late by then. I'll spare you the told-you-sos.

I have never seen such uncivilised behaviour at a wedding. Is that what the Malays call adat? Count me out of service, out of Johor, I wouldn't hang about.

But I'm one for talk aren't I? Should I be talking about barbarism in Johor when I will be seeing Wall-e tonight in IOI Puchong? You think the Goths and the Vikings were barbaric. Hah! I say you wouldn't know barbarism before you have had a chance to see a movie in IOI Puchong.

Also if anyone finds my syntax atrocious, please feel free to resyntax this post.

The Creative Process.

2008-08-09T01:00:00.000+08:00

Leon has started up a new blog called the Malaysian Poetic Chronicles which he promises will be a place to house your poetry or short shorts. He's open for submissions now.

The first two posts are a poem by Leon, and a short story from yours truly, which you have already read here.

However! My short story over there has something extra: a write-up of my creative process while writing the story. If you're interested, go take a look.

SHORT STORY: Untitled.

2008-08-03T22:42:00.002+08:00

I wrote this short story for a contest but then I got waaaay over the word limit, so I had to scrap it and start over again. I wrote another short story and sent that one in instead.

The abandoned short story is as follows. Tell me what you think.

It was already a week into the month of Ramadan but all Afiq could find in the dark corners of the sprawling town built on the back of the humongous beast, Buraq, was water to break his fast every evening. The water, whenever it was found, was not clean, and Afiq often had to lick it off the most repugnant of surfaces, such as the walls of an abandoned hut, rotting away, as was walls made from the skins of long ago deceased tics were wont to do after a brief period of time; or in huge acrid beads of sweat in between the the beast’s fur, where ever he could find it growing–sometimes in between buildings, other times in between blades of the beast’s fur, growing like tall blades of grass in patches very much like small fields, on the outskirts of the vast decaying Town.

It was the beads of sweat that kept Afiq going on. He had no doubt the odious and vile liquid excreted from underneath the beast’s back contained some vitamins and minerals–though perhaps limited, it was enough to keep his body alive. His, and other food scavengers as well.

The problem with the fur patches outside town was that it was getting harder and harder every day of Ramadan to find a big enough bead of beast sweat to last until the next breaking of fast. Competition was stiff. Fights often broke out amongst the scavengers and the militant Jayshists. Afiq had no intention of getting himself mixed in any of these squabbles. He knew that in his weak state, he would most probably die if ever he got into a fight. That was why he kept his searches mostly within the confines of the Town.

But that was before he stumbled into the house of the Imam. In his stupor, brought on by his extreme hunger, he had clumsily dragged himself into a district of the Town where he had not gone before. In this part of town, the houses and buildings were made of a different material, something more rugged and longer-lasting than the skins of tics. He did not know what it was but as he slid his palms on the walls while walking between the buildings, the walls felt coarse and slightly elastic, very much unlike the brittle and smooth qualities of tic skins. Even the ground felt different. In other parts of the Town, the ground was soft and springy, as a Buraq’s back should be. But here it was solid and hard and shiny.

The musty stench in the air quickly gave way to a fragrant aroma, something Afiq’s nostrils had not had the luxury of smelling before. His nose clearly could not cope with this new sensation. Small streams of blood flowed out his nostrils. He wiped the blood with his grimy wrist and licked it. His mouth started watering. He quickly swallowed the saliva produced. He was not one to waste moisture. He followed the aroma to an open doorway. Inside he saw a sparse room, decorated only with a table and two accompanying chairs, as well as a small black stove in the far corner. On top of the stove, there was a wok, and it was being used to deep-fry something. Attending to the wok, was a tall man wearing a white skullcap. This was the Imam.

The Imam turned around and saw the skinny figure of Afiq standing in the doorway. If the Imam had any change of expression, he did not reveal it. Afiq expected the Imam to burst into a rage, a reaction he was used to getting whenever he appeared in strange doorways. But the Imam did no such thing. He turned his back once again to Afiq and resumed giving his full attention to the wok.

Yes, yes. It's unfinished. Probably might stay that way for a long time too.

Excerpt From New Book On Mervyn Peake.

2008-07-27T21:00:00.000+08:00

Read an excerpt from Michael Moorcock's latest book, LOVERS: Mervyn and Maeve Peake. A Personal Memoir over at Enter the Octopus.

Murakami Review, Ten Things You Should Know About Him, and Fangirling.

2008-07-27T10:00:00.000+08:00

The Guardian has one of the first reviews for Haruki Murakami's latest, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, up online and is written by Alastair Campbell.

The Times meanwhile, has helpfully put up an article telling us the Top Ten things we need to know about Murakami, for those who haven't already.

MG Harris, owes her published book to reading Haruki Murakami...and is now all fangirl about him:

...I do know what reading Murakami did for me and it’s nothing less than this: it enabled me to write a publishable novel.

I’ve written before about the day I met several publishers who were interested in acquiring ‘The Joshua Files’. And one of them commented “We can’t believe this is your first novel!” to which I replied (laughing) - “Well it’s not - it’s my first publishable novel. I’ve written three before this.” “So what happened,” they asked, “between writing the other three and writing Joshua Files?”

So I told them the truth. In the meantime I’d read almost all of the works of Haruki Murakami.

Backtrack a little. There I was with two manuscripts written in 6 months and both getting essentially rejected by agents. Actually the second ms was getting some interest but it wasn’t quite making the grade. And I understood this: without a quantum leap, my writing was not going to be good enough to be published. Something had to change; something major. I had maybe 50% of what was needed. The rest of the 50% was going to have to come with hard study, graft and experience. Or a bolt from the blue.

I couldn’t be bothered to do it the hard way. Crumbs, I was almost 40 years old! I didn’t have too much time left to get a writing career off the ground whilst I was still young enough to enjoy it (both my parents died aged 46 - that gives you a sense of urgency…).

So I began actively to search for the bolt from the blue.

I read a book on how to structure stories for screenplays, even wrote a screenplay for practice. And meantime, I read all the works of an author until then unknown to me - Haruki Murakami.

Questioning Haruki Murakami.

2008-07-20T03:07:00.000+08:00

TIME Magazine is asking from readers what questions to ask Haruki Murakami in an upcoming interview.

Again.

2008-07-11T07:32:00.000+08:00

Not that there's any surprise in it but Midnight's Children is Booker of Bookers. Again. I approve. If you haven't read it yet, do so and you may not regret it. And if you haven't finished it, why not?

(btw, I read Satanic Verses last month and it was over-rated.)

RIP, Thomas M Disch.

2008-07-07T12:06:00.000+08:00

Was a bit surprised to hear that Tom Disch killed himself on the Fourth of July.

For those not in the know, Disch was a reknowned SF writer but he was most often overlooked and under-read. Even I haven't read his acclaimed books, Camp Concentration and The Genocides, mostly because they're hard to find. But I did read his non-fiction book about SF, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of and it was a blast.

Ironically, he's just had a book out, The Word of God, in which Disch writes as God. I guess embracing divinity was just too much for him.

Apple Sighting.

2008-06-30T16:06:00.001+08:00

Warning! I'm revealing the tech-side of my geekiness today.

I find it interesting Anwar is a Macbook Pro man. Why does he use an Apple laptop when every other Malaysian politician I see uses a Windows machine? Was it on the recommendation of his pal, Al Gore (who happens to be on Apple's board of directors)?

Maybe we can expect him to present some mind-blowing presentations using Keynote in the future. That is, if they don't throw him in jail that is.

Again.

Quick! How do you know when a new Murakami book is coming out?

2008-06-07T23:53:00.002+08:00

When it's excerpted in The Guardian of course! Woohoo!

I don't think most people would like my personality. There might be a few - very few, I would imagine - who are impressed by it, but only rarely would anyone like it. Who in the world could possibly have warm feelings for a person who doesn't compromise, who instead, whenever a problem crops up, locks himself away alone in a closet? But is it ever possible for a professional writer to be liked by people? For me, at least, being disliked by someone, hated and despised, somehow seems more natural. Not that I'm relieved when that happens. Even I'm not happy when someone dislikes me.

STICKY: Kata-Suara June 08

2008-06-07T17:00:00.001+08:00

KATA-SUARA

featuring

The Launching of Mustapa Haji Ibrahim's Poetry Book, Gemuruh Alam.

which will be launched by
Y. Bhg. Dato' A. Samad Said
National Laureate

Mustapa Haji Ibrahim was one of the artists who was directly involved in the formation of the 'Anak Alam' group, a seminal group of cutting-edge artists, poets, theater activists, dancers and various artistic personalities in the 70s.

and not forgetting these fine writers and musicians:

Mustapa Hj Ibrahim
Siti Zainon Ismail
Raja Ahmad Aminullah
Dr Iqbal
Chuah Guat Eng
Rahman Shaari
Nisah Haron

Date: Saturday, 7th June 2008
Time: 5pm
Venue: RA Fine Arts, 6 Jalan Aman off Jalan Tun Razak

Food and Drinks Provided. Admission Free.

Directions:

View Larger Map

Or if you choose to take the LRT, take the Kelana Jaya line (Putra line), and drop off at the Ampang Park station. Coming out of the ticket turnstiles, turn right and take the escalators up to get to the Ampang Park shopping mall. Go round Ampang Park and walk across the pedestrian bridge over Jalan Tun Razak to get to City Square. Walk past City Square and Empire Tower beside it to get to Jalan Aman, which is a small road by the side of Empire Tower. RA Fine Arts Gallery is the white bungalow house on the corner of the road with the number 6. You can't miss it.

Less Book-Buying For Now.

2008-06-05T18:02:00.005+08:00

Seeing as my country's government sees fit that me and wife starve to death, I don't think I will be buying more books in the near future.

We were amongst the crazy people stuck in last night's crazy jam and spent an hour and half in the car in what usually is a five minute journey to the local petrol pump.

Government says that they'll be reviewing the petrol price again next month. Not looking forward to going through that crazy rush to the pump again. Maybe next time I'll just resign myself and sit at home while muttering how cruel our PM is. Or read a good book. Or both.

Anyway it all boils down to having less money to spend on books. Which makes me sad.

For those curious, I am currently reading:

Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses (interesting at first, but gets a bit tedious towards the end. Surprisingly I like the parts with Mahound more...I guess that might reflect something in me?)
Jorge Luis Borges's Ficciones (very, very good; but not something to read in the LRT in the mornings...it's too heavy. His writing I mean, not the book. The book is light and easy to carry around.)
Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita (I had grown a little bored with Satanic Verses so I wanted to read something different...and I picked this up. I was reminded what irony was when I discovered that this had been the inspiration for Satanic Verses. It's still a good book though but maybe I will try to pick up a Murakami or an SF book if I want something totally different.)

Doctor Who and the Infinite Library.

2008-05-30T17:28:00.003+08:00

(Those who don't follow Doctor Who can just skip this post, thanks.)

Woohoo! I am totally stoked about tomorrow's episode of Doctor Who, mostly because it features an infinite library! Shades of Borges anyone?

While I'm on that note, I think Donna Noble is excellent as a companion. Who would've thought? I found her absolutely annoying in that one Christmas Special, and before the current season started, would have preferred Kylie Minogue staying on as companion. Alas! It was not to be.

I don't have any opinions about Martha Jones because after Rose left, I was left very upset and decided to boycott the show...only for The Master (played by that cool bloke from Life on Mars!!!) to return in that season's finalé! So yes, I regret that now.

Nvm!

I just hope the Doctor's daughter returns in style.

(If I was bothered to update my twitter account, I would probably type in: "is humming the original synthesized Doctor Who theme.")

Haruki Murakami Interview in the Mainichi Daily.

2008-05-30T11:35:00.003+08:00

It used to be that Haruki Murakami was very shy with the press, especially the Japanese press. But in recent years that shyness must have cast off a little. It looks like he's in the news every other month now.

While I won't be surprised if he gave a comprehensive interview to a foreign newspaper (it's outside the shores of Japan where he's celebrated as a literary sensation, while he's seen as more of a hack within), it does surprise me that Murakami would give such a long and interesting review to a Japanese paper–the interview spans 5 webpages over 5 days. (Personally I've been hopping with glee with all this Murakami news pouring in!)

I guess times must have changed?

There's a lot of new and interesting nuggets spilled by Murakami in the interview, which discusses his work translating English classics into Japanese, his next novel(an epic worthy of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle!), how English literature and translating English literature influences his writing, and his writing process.

It's a great read, especially if you're a big Murakami fan like me.

Here are the links:

Enjoy!

Gift of Rain Reviewed by Complete Review.

2008-05-19T19:25:00.003+08:00

Finally! Link.

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