Zamyatin, xiii.
Zamyatin, xiv.
Carden, Patricia. Utopia and Anti-Utopia: Aleksei Gastev and Evgeny Zamyatin. Russian Review, Vol. 46, No. 1. (Jan., 1987) pp. 7.
Brown, Edward James. Brave New World: 1984 and We, an essay on Anti-Utopia. (Ann Arbor: Ardis Press, 1976) 39.
Zamyatin, xii.
Zamyatin, xiii.
Ibid.
Brown, 43.
Chapple, Richard, L. Soviet Fiction in the Soviet Satire: Or Can’t Anyone around Here Write? The South Central Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 4, Studies by Members of the SCMLA. (Winter, 1977) pp. 141.
Carden, 2.
Ibid.
Carden, 11-12.
Booker, M. Keith. Dystopian Impulse in Modern Literature: Fiction as social criticism. (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994) 25-26.
Ibid.
Malia, Martin. The Soviet Tragedy: a history of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991.(New York: Free Press, 1994) 74, 100.
Atkins, John. George Orwell. (London: John Calder Press, 1954) 252-253.
Atkins, 238.
Ibid.
Atkins, 238-239.
Atkins, 243.
Orwell, George. 1984. (New York: Penguin, 1977) 214-215.
Orwell, 320.
Perhaps Rand was aware of Zamyatin’s death and became reacquainted with her own similar story, much the same way today’s pop culture is influenced by celebrity deaths.
Rand, Ayn. Anthem. (New York: Penguin, 1995) 20.
Rand, viii.
Rand, ix.
Review: The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005-2010
Sean Wright
The idiom “A rising tide lifts all boats”, attributed to the American President John F. Kennedy, generally applies to discussions of economics; a well performing economy benefits all. Likewise I think a well performing, accessible genre or cultural economy benefits all.
On reading Dean and Nikki Alfar’s preface and introduction to The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005-2010, I am struck by their somewhat similar approach to curating the Filipino speculative fiction community. Theirs is a consistent dedication to growing that community, to raising the tide, as it were. They are of course helped by numerous authors and commentators of, what appears to an outsider like me, to be a very tight knit and supportive community.
Where this collection differs from many Best of’s is in its construction and in the construction of the original publications it draws on. Here we have a collection that is not necessarily all the high flyers and award winners, though many are. No, this is a collection of the best and most diverse, chosen specifically to showcase the depth, variety and skill the Filipino speculative fiction community can draw on. If you want to begin to understand Filipino writing and writers in our shared genre, I can think of few better places to begin.
The collection’s diversity is apparent within the first handful of stories. Andrew Drilon’s The Secret Origin of Spin-man opens the collection and artfully blends Comic culture with speculative fiction and elements of the Philippine diaspora. It plucks at heartstrings and evokes nostalgia. International readers I am sure will have no trouble finding touchstones for memories of their own youth spent using relatives monetary gifts at the corner shop or the bookstore.
Pocholo Goitia’s, An Introduction to the Luminescent, was described as “Vat-less science fiction” in a Rocket Kapre roundtable discussion by author Kate Aton-Osias, underlining its originality. The piece certainly has that quality of good science fiction that bends genre to fit story rather than the other way around. My lack of understanding of Filipino culture and society leads me to think that I might miss some of the oblique criticisms in the work. What is obvious to me, however, is that commentary is made about the haves and the have nots, the widening gap between them and the reality that we are all still human. An Introduction to the Luminescent presents a wonderfully sketched futuristic Philippines and its base subject matter is accessible by all.
Now, I mentioned that this collection is diverse and by the third story we have traveled from modern day Philippines, to the near future and now back to a historical fantasy set around the time of early Spanish occupation. The Sign of the Cross by Russell Stanley Geronimo asks the question; what would happen if a live Gargoyle had crashed, wounded in the confines of the Monasterio de San Agustin? It’s an excellent examination of how any institution, in this case the Church and the Army, seek to deal with things beyond their knowledge. It is also an interesting observation on how a man of God can still approach the discovery of something new and unknown with a sense of wonder and discovery. The style in which the story is presented was a pleasure to read, evoking a verisimilitude through an 1800’s style of religious reportage.
The fourth story of the collection leaves behind the Philippines as a source of setting and culture. Rebecca Arcega presents to the reader a mythic secondary world fantasy tale in The Singer’s Man. The editors regard this story as one of the best examples of secondary world fantasy by a Filipino author. That statement does not and perhaps cannot capture that this piece of writing is one of the most poetic and distinctively voiced stories in the collection. Told in the first person, the poetic style that Arcega maintains throughout the piece does really immerse the reader. I feel as if I am experiencing reading some of the more mythic underpinnings of Tolkien’s world. That sense of deep history and wonder. Which is not to say that Arcega is giving us anything approaching the Euro-centric Tolkien, no, far from it. She deftly captures an immersive mythic tone in what is a wholly original world.
Paolo Chikiamco’s Carbon is a near future tale of clones and politics. It is the second tale in the collection to feature clones and I am reminded of the considerably longer work of David Hontiveros in his mosaic novel, Seroks, Iteration 1: Mirror Man. Three works do not make a trend but I get the sense that cloning and copying are two topics that figure large in the Filipino speculative fiction conversation. The same could be said for the wider community as well but I find that Filipino authors are approaching the concept in fresh ways, particular to a Filipino context.
The back story to Carbon is a presidential campaign, with the incumbent counting on the votes of soon to be emancipated clones. We have a Philippines that is well placed in the realm of Interstellar travel and I sense in Chikiamco’s work and others in this collection, an aspirational national pride. This sense is similar to that I experience as an Australian when reading works that feature Australians in places usually reserved for square jawed American heroes.
If I could make an observation of Filipino writing as presented by this collection, it is that on the whole, I am left with a positive, buoyant feeling. To be sure there are some dark stories featured, but overall I don’t feel like I have fallen down a dark, bleak, dystopic hole.
Mia Tijam’s The Ascension of Our Lady Boy, brought this home to me. It is one of those pieces that highlights the collection’s variety and inclusivity but it also presents a story that could have taken a quite different path. The Ascension of Our Lady Boy is a coming of age tale of a transgender character mixed with magical realism and a little folklore. It is a story that does not shirk from the realities of finding love as a woman with male biology but takes what could have been a sad realist tale and turned it into something positive. The ebullient nature of the main character left me with a smile on my face. Our community needs positive transgender tales as much as it needs to focus on the “horror” stories.
With Feasting by Joshua L. Lim So, we come across the first of the horror pieces included in the collection. It is stylistically matter of fact, letting the story unfold simply. A simple village, ordinary villagers and a time honoured, simple horror.
In contrast to this is Apol Lejano-Massebieau’s magical realist tale, Pedro Diyego’s Homecoming. A beautiful story about food and love and the effect that living in a different place, in a different culture can have on one’s sense of self.
Dean Francis Alfar’s, Six from Downtown, prese
nts itself as a mosaic, six snapshots of ordinary, everyday life, except the mermaids in the Wet Market available at an “astounding price per kilo” or the woman who leaves her legs at home as she flies out the window. The uncomplicated style and tone of the piece, juxtaposed with the fantastical elements produces a work that throws the reader ever so slightly off balance – an excellent exemplar of blending the familiar and the fantastical to produce the uncanny.
In Sky Gypsies by Timothy James M. Dimacali, the author states in the preface that he is a third world futurist and expresses the need for Pinoy [Filipino] writers to craft their own science fiction, to provide direction for dreaming and imagining their own future. Sky Gypsies reflects this sentiment with a family of Sama Laut, a distinct ethnic grouping, mining a claim in the asteroid belt. There are strong themes of independence and wanting to break away from necessary but uncomfortable reliance on the Outsiders of the Martian Union.
Charles Tan, known chiefly for his role as a speculative fiction commentator in the wider community, delivers a wonderful, slightly satirical piece in A Retrospective on Diseases for Sale. Good for a chuckle and a sideways glance at geek and consumer culture. Likewise Noel Tio’s, Revenge of the Tiktak, delivers humour with suspense. It is presented as an old fashioned vengeful ghost story—a boys orphanage, thumping sounds in the night, girl ghosts. I had visions of The Grudge or The Ring and the story could easily have gone that way and still have been entertaining. Instead, here was another choice to be positive and lighthearted.
Kate Osias’ The Maiden’s Song coming after much lighter pieces, is a return to folkloric roots and is considerably more downbeat. It is a story of love, unrequited love, a tale that says that sometimes base attraction, curiosity or lust are not enough. It is beautifully framed in a simple uncomplicated setting and by the concept of magical songs.
I detect a similar tone and similar themes in Isabel Yap’s Sink. It too centres around love and around letting go of emotions held for another. My advice is not to read the editor notes and launch straight into the story to experience the full effect. Even mentioning its themes is possibly leading the potential reader to prepare themselves. It’s a powerful story that would benefit most from as clean a reading as possible.
Nikki Alfar’s Bearing Fruit, a tale of a young woman impregnated by a mango, is dressed in the accoutrements of folktale and fable and is one of those pieces that deserves multiple readings. It’s not really (just) about a woman and a mango. A clever, subtle piece.
With Jose Elvin Bueno’s, All We Need is Five Meals a Day, we begin to round out the collection with less standard or straight forward speculative fiction. Two orphans - a boy with a Mango tree growing out of his stomach and a girl who flies by virtue of the thousand winged lice in her hair, are surviving on the edge of the city. Their parents have long ago left for the city and not come back. Is it a metaphor for the death of folktale or Filipino culture under the crush of global capitalism and a homogenous culture? Is it a metaphor for the end of childhood and wild imagination? I am not quite sure. It is odd but deliciously so.
Just Man by Rica Bolipata-Santos finishes the collection on a love story. What if the biblical story surrounding the new testament was correct? How would Joseph and Mary relate as people with desires for each other? How would knowing your wife was the chosen vehicle of God affect your feelings and urges? It is a delightfully honest and moving speculation on the human story surrounding the biblical narrative.
I have not mentioned all the authors collected in The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005-2010, there are notable absences like Eliza Victoria, whose piece here was featured in her collection mentioned in last issue’s review column. I have not mentioned some of my favourite stories either.
I hope I have given you a sense of the depth and variety that the collection showcases. It is not as the editors stressed, the best of every Filipino work published with in that span of years (an impossible task considering the logistics involved) but it is a remarkable and robust cross-section of what you might come to expect from the high calibre Filipino speculative fiction community.
If you are looking for fresh voices and ideas in your speculative fiction but want a touch of familiarity, this work is for you. If you want to begin to understand the similarities and differences of another culture within a familiar genre framework, this work is for you. If you truly love the genre and the possibilities playing and creating in it have to offer, hunt down a copy of The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005-2010.
The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005-2010
Dean Francis Alfar and Nikki Alfar Eds.
The University of the Philippines Press, ISBN 9789715427043, 2013
At Home in the Wasteland: The Art of Sergi Brosa
Saul Bottcher (Interviewer)
Sergi Brosa (Artist)
Wasteland Churches
When did you first become excited about visual art, and why?
I think I have been stunned all of my life by visual art.
The first things I saw when I was a kid were Dragon Ball (we all wanted to be like Goku) and some other animes, like Dr. Slump, Mazinger Z, and Doraemon. We also discovered the early 8-bit games for the first Game Boy and later for the Nintendo and Mega Drive, with all their vivid colors.
Then, at about twelve years old, I discovered manga comics, and the first pre-adult animes (like Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion) appeared on TV in my country. At that point, everything seemed to change from the classic Dragon Ball style of anime to a different type of production, more like a TV series with 25-30 episodes per season.
This changed my mind a little bit—I started to see anime from another point of view. More like a smaller production, long enough to be lovely, short enough not to be bored by them. At the same time, amazing video game productions were hitting hard.
After all this, at seventeen years old, I discovered French comics like Skydoll and Blacksad. Suddenly, they were doing the same as manga, but in full color like anime, and my head exploded. I was really amazed by French comics and how amazing they could be.
Then, I started to pay attention to movies, the concept art for games, and also to music videos and all the production that goes into them (because I am sure they also need concept art).
Beyond that, there are the other forms of visual art, like photography, wall paintings, clothing design, extreme sports decorations (decks, stickers, etc), vinyl toys... Actually, there are a ton of visual arts that are inspirations to me. Even a city or a building is a very good way to get inspired.
Much of your art involves fantastic or futuristic scenes. What is it that you enjoy about these subjects compared to realistic subjects?
I love high technology. I discovered sci-fi in comics, anime, and movies (Akira, Ghost in the shell, Blade Runner, Minority Report...). It’s just amazing when I see some story that is surrounded by amazing new technology, new little or big gadgets that solve some necessities that nowadays are not solved, or that are difficult to solve.
I am also a lover of industrial design, so I must love new vehicles, new gadgets, and new technology. This is the part I like the most in sci-fi worlds.
Sci-fi also brings us the possibility to create a new age based just in theories. Nothing is written in the history of the future, so we can sail on the waves of our creativity.
The Retro of Tomorrow
Did you make an intentional decision to pursue sci-fi themes with your art? Or did this evolve naturally, without a specific plan?
I can remember the year I discovered how much I loved sci-fi. There was a year when I decided sci-fi was going to be my genre, so I started developing my art and my ideas around the sci-fi world.
So, if I can say this is a plan, yes, it was my plan. My stuff must be sci-fi. Or at least, doing sci-fi is how I have more fun. Then, I also think it’s possible to turn every genre in sci-fi. It doesn’t need starships flying everywhere, just little details that makes it be sci-fi, mixing other genres.
I love this when it happens.
What were some of the challenges you encountered when becoming an artist?
The hardest challenge I had to face was to leave everything that seemed a safe path in a man’s life to start being an artist.
The moment came when I left university, and started studying drawing anatomy and perspective more seriously. I couldn’t have done that without the support of my mum and my girlfriend. I knew being an artist was a hard way to live, but they told me that it would be more hard to live all the days doing something I don’t like to do. So I could take the decision, and I am very happy to have taken it.
Early in your career, you spent some time trying to break into the comics industry in France. You were expected to do a lot of speculative work, and you were frustrated that you received very little feedback when your work was rejected. Do you think the French comic industry is discouraging talented artists with this approach?
Well, the French comics industry is not easy. It is awesome because it lets you try to do whatever you want to do. They touch every genre, and accept every drawing and coloring style. So, for someone like me, it is an awesome industry.
But, is very hard to get in, at least when I was trying it, some years ago. I think almost no-one got it in on their first attempt, so this means lots of months of working on new projects unpaid.
The problem is that a comic is a full pack. Maybe your drawing is good enough for them, but the story is not. Or maybe the story is awesome but they don’t like your art. So, it’s like a lottery. I am sure for me it was discouraging. But I’m sure many others just take it as a usual thing, and start again.
Every failure brings you the opportunity to stand up again, take a look at your mistakes, and learn to do it better. Or hate the world, cry, and eat chocolate. Ha ha ha!
I don’t think the French industry is harder than other industries. [American comic book publisher] Marvel seems to be hard to get into as well.
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