Skip to main content

Jaymee Goh's Intro to Malaysian SFF.

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.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Chet26/7/10 9:06 am

    Ted - you can leave a comment to ask for more examples.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted Mahsun26/7/10 9:33 am

    I should, huh?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jha5/8/10 1:38 pm

    If you want to know the book, it's Adamus, from PTS.

    I wrote too briefly on the SFF scene because it's barely there. Much of it is in Malay, and I'm not home enough to be able to dedicate myself to look for them (that, and my Malay is pretty poor! which, as it happens, is more encouragement for me to look for Malay SFF, if I were home more often).

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ted Mahsun5/8/10 9:32 pm

    Oh hi jaymee, thanks for dropping by.

    Thanks also for telling me the title of the book you were referring to. Now I'm intrigued to check it out myself.

    If it's of any use, there's a (fairly recently updated) website dedicated to Malay(sian) SFF here. Their SFF book registry isn't complete yet though.

    And if you're back in Malaysia, or can get someone to send you a copy, check out 1515 by Faisal Tehrani, if you haven't already. It's what you might call "literary fantasy" or -ugh- magic realism, so it isn't marketed as SFF but it's definitely a fantasy, and a brilliant one, too boot.

    It is a crime that the book has never been translated into English but apparently the author himself told me the reason why is that no translator has been brave enough to translate it.

    Such a shame! Oh, and if you do get it one day, you'll have to drag out your old kamus dewan cos you'll be needing it :D (but it's worth it... I swear!)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm going to Clarion West!

So yeah! I'm going to Clarion West this year! If you didn't know, Clarion West is a really awesome science fiction and fantasy writing workshop that runs for six weeks in summer every year at Seattle and is usually taught by a faculty of award-winning authors and editors. Many students who attend this workshop also go on to have illustrious writing careers of their own too. I've been meaning to attend this workshop (or its sister workshop, Clarion UCSD, which is the original Clarion workshop but runs in San Diego around the same time) for years now but never had the courage to apply. Many reasons as to why: didn't think I'd have money for the most part, didn't think I was good enough, didn't think I could leave work long enough, didn't think I could leave family behind, etc. But something sparked inside of me late last year. I felt I should at least give it a go this time round. So I did. They requested a sample of my best work and an applicatio...
Post a Comment
Read more

REVIEW: Confessions of an Old Boy by Kam Raslan

Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life. Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now. I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this ...
5 comments
Read more

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

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 cover...
5 comments
Read more