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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.
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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

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