A Stormy Affair

Never delve too much into a stirring fantasy-romance romp between two enigmatic characters. Because that's what I did with Thea Guanzon's novel, The Hurricane Wars, and now I know it belongs to the romantasy subgenre and could be based on Guanzon's Star Wars fan fiction that ships opposing characters Rey and Kylo Ren.

Reading parts of it again, the parallels are hard to unsee. Stormships? Star Destroyers, maybe? Lightweave and Shadowgate? The light and dark sides of the Force. The in-story Kylo has a mask too. And the female lead wields weapons made of light, like lightsabers? The beginning kicks off with a battle between an alliance and an empire in a setting reminiscent of The Empire Strikes Back. Even the title is a nod to the franchise.


The review continues here.

Don't Fight Sleep To Chill Out

So who else is having trouble returning to daily life post-holiday in the new year because they borked their sleep cycles, especially after being on leave for over a week? Or are you (still) losing sleep over having to return to a full five- or six-day work week?

Tips on sleep like this are all over the web, so picking one or two lists to fix our sleep cycles and get better sleep should be a cinch. But not all of us can be bothered with execution.


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Book Marks: Somewhere In The Kuala, Dalit Literature

A picture book with no dialogue, Somewhere in the Kuala, an illustrated children's book published by Suburbia Projects, takes readers around Kuala Lumpur. Readers follow two children who try to return home after being separated from their parents while on a tour of the city.

"Produced by illustrator Lisa Goh and lecturer/freelance designer William Chew, the book is a recipient of the Think City–PNB 118 Merdeka Grants Programme," The Star reports, adding that "the idea for the book was inspired by their love of walking in cities, a habit picked up during their time in university and working in London."


Elsewhere:

• "India publishes around 90,000 books a year," South China Morning Post reports. "Among these, around 150 titles in 2017, less than half a per cent, were by established Dalit authors, according to Frankfurter Buchmesse, which runs one of the world's largest book markets." Hence, small publishers in India are stepping up to push Dalit literature.
• "The stories of these time-honoured street vendors have always captivated me. Particularly my father's story, as he's been a hawker for the better part of his life." Tan Chew Ngee speaks about her debut novel, Sweet Braised Duck, which was launched at last year's Singapore Writers Festival. The book is loosely based on her father's life.
• "...a lot of social conservatives seem to believe that if their kids simply never find out about homosexuality or transgenderism, they're guaranteed to grow up to be cisgendered heterosexuals," writes Laura Miller at Slate. She then argues that teens aren't getting that knowledge from such books and that the book bans aren't about LGBTIQ+ issues.
• "In [Bianca Bosker's] book [Get the Picture], she dares to break down the strange codes and customs of the contemporary art world – why, for instance, it is entirely gauche to call something 'beautiful' or why must gallerists say they 'placed' a painting rather than announce that they 'sold' it?" This book sounds intriguing; hope it won't disappoint.
• Pro-Palestine authors continue to face censorship and punitive actions for their stance, and among the latest is Bosnian author Lana Bastasic, who, according to Middle East Eye, "cut ties with her German publisher over its 'silence on Gaza'" and has been dropped from a literature festival in Austria.
• "[Kristin] Hannah wanted both to shine a light on the nurses who served in Vietnam and to explore the larger context of a changing America. 'Americans were learning that their government was lying to them about really important facts, and the whole national consciousness began to change,' Hannah said." Kristin Hannah speaks to Seattle Times about her new novel The Women, women in war, political divides, and honouring and helping war veterans.
• "It was the right time for a book that pokes fun at the thoughtless way in which we've been building up images of other people, making assumptions about people's reputations and inner selves, and how we've had so much fun tearing them down." Ahead of her appearance at the Brisbane Writers' Festival, R.F. Kuang speaks to the Sydney Morning Herald about her book, Yellowface, and the themes behind it.
• Michela Wrong, a British journalist and author of Do Not Disturb: The Story of a Political Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad, said she feared being attacked in her home after receiving online backlash. The Independent reported her claim that "an unnamed British public relations firm played a 'key role in orchestrating' an online hate campaign against her in response to the book, which includes strong criticism of rebel leader turned Rwandan president Paul Kagame."
• The BookTok phenomenon has undoubtedly led to more people reading. But has it also contributed to overconsumption in books? The Student ponders this question, pretty much arguing "yes", stating that "Much of the content on BookTok centres around reading as many books in a short time as possible", with less emphasis on the quality of what is read and more on what is popular. One antidote to this might be putting more time into the reading hobby: be selective about what one reads and to enjoy a book at one's own pace.
• Oh g*ds no, J.D. Barker, this is not how you promote a book on BookTok. Soliciting racy clips from influencers for your latest release? Barker claimed that a PR agency issued the call via email. He has distanced himself from it and apologised, but that was not enough for his agent, who dropped him. Seriously, folks, don't.

Tales of Heartache, Hurt, and Hope

Common threads run through the stories in Saras Manickam's My Mother Pattu, a collection of short stories that doesn't look like one from the outside. In the face of adversity and its accomplices: racism, classism, cultural differences, patriarchal attitudes, suffocating traditions and others, the characters struggle to maintain their dignity, ideals, individuality, and humanity.

The window into Saras Manickam's portrait of the human condition is the first story, "Number One, Mambang Lane", in which Meena, a precocious teenage Indian girl, is exiled to her relatives' quiet homestead in the fictional small town of Mambang after committing what her Tamil household considers cardinal sins: falling in love and getting a boyfriend.

As Meena settles in, she is slowly introduced to the community. Towards the end, we do not know of her fate or when her exile will end, which is fine because the thing about stories is that they just keep going – and in directions you least expect.


Read the full review here.

Book Marks: Local Author News, Hugo Exclusions

I know I've been away for a bit, dropping my pledge to update once a week. But the publishing sphere seemed to have been quiet at the year-end and beginning of January 2024, so there wasn't much of note happening.

Also, I caught COVID in early January. The worst I've ever felt in a couple of years and I had to go see a doctor for medication and get more RTK test kits while ill. To my dismay, the nasal swab returned a strong positive result, though I should have guessed from my feverish brow and limbs that felt like lead.

And who knew all the medical equipment I bought on separate occasions on a whim – pulse oximeter, digital thermometer, and blood pressure monitor – would come in handy?

So I'm taking it easy for now, and I'll only be posting as and when sufficient material is available, while I wait and see what else COVID has done to me. Back to the usual programming...


Ipoh-based teacher Aishah Zainal's debut novel Hades was nominated by the National Library for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award. Published by Gerakbudaya, the novel is about a delinquent called Kei who forms a bond with a young mother who's his neighbour in a dilapidated flat. "At its core, Hades is a tale of the underdogs – of those living in poverty and what it does to people, especially women," Aishah tells The Star.

Getting into the shortlist will be hard as the competition is tough. There's Eleanor Catton (Birnam Wood), Paul Harding (This Other Eden), Barbara Kingsolver (Demon Copperhead), and Gabrielle Zevin (Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow), among others. Still, Aishah is with good company, and we wish her the best.

Also in the news is Vanessa Chan, whose debut novel The Storm We Made has been named the "Good Morning America: Book Club Pick" for January by US television channel ABC. Set in Malaya before World War II, it follows a Eurasian housewife who is lured into spying for the Japanese and the consequences that follow for her and her three children.

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RF Kuang's novel Babel should have been a nominee for last year's Hugo Awards. But the organisers of the award seem to have felt differently. Apparently, Kuang and fellow author Xiran Jay Zhao were excluded from the 2023 Hugo Awards that took place in Chengdu, China, as were several others.

The Mary Sue failed to get any explanation from the Hugo Awards for this exclusion, but speculates that politics may have been a factor. "Through their books and social media activity, Zhao has spoken out against the alleged Uyghur genocide in China and even once questioned if they would be allowed into the country for this reason, while Kuang has been open about how her father was a part of the Tiananmen Square protest."


Okay, what's next?

• "Writing about books means there is always something new I should be reading. But there is also always something old that I should understand—there are always books whose moment I might have thought slid past me, but it didn't, or books I just never saw before." Molly Templeton ponders why some books meant for their readers take so long to find them. Perhaps "the time wasn't right", as some would say.
• "Usually there are about eight or nine books per month that I'm interested in, that I note down on my trusty spreadsheet, and I get a chance to read four or five of them. But in March of 2024 there are 30 books on my radar that I want to read." Some might consider this a good problem to have but Maris Kreizman isn't so sure. In Literary Hub, she explores what's behind the deluge of new releases for March 2024.
• Associated Press reports that Max Chapnick, a postdoctoral teaching associate at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, "believes he found about 20 stories and poems written by Louisa May Alcott under her own name as well as pseudonyms for local newspapers in Massachusetts in the late 1850s and early 1860s." Best known for Little Women, Alcott wrote a whole lot under various pseudonyms, leaving behind a pile of material for scholars like Chapnick to go through.
• A Q&A with Lucille Abendanon about her debut middle-grade historical novel The Songbird and the Rambutan. "The book is inspired by the real life stories of my Oma ["Grandma" in Indonesian] Emmy," Abendanon tells The Nerd Daily. "She was a prisoner of war in Tjideng during WW2. I would visit her in The Netherlands from wherever I was living in the world, and we would talk for hours about her life during the war."
• A recent Twitter drama involves a poet called John Kucera who was revealed to have plagiarised the work of other poets, including local writer May Chong. Various journals and other publications have discovered evidence of Kucera's plagiarism and removed the problematic pieces. Dude was prolific, it seems.
• Speaking of plagiarism, a court in Turkey ordered Turkish author Elif Şafak and Doğan Publishing to pay a total of 252,000 Turkish liras for plagiarising the work of another Turkish author, Mine Kırıkkanat. "The case was brought to light by Turkish author Kırıkkanat, whose work 'Fly Palace' was copied by Şafak in her 'Flea Palace'," the Hurriyet Daily News reported. From the publisher's response, an appeal may be filed.
• "I never imagined that my own manuscripts would end up in the hands of an editor like Marek, much less be the last he ever worked on. In 2018, I was searching for an agent for my first novel, The Reflecting Pool. Connections and good fortune put me in touch with my agent, Judith Ehrlich, who, in turn, introduced me to Marek. I couldn't have known just how impactful this introduction would be." Otho Eskin recalls his publishing journey and Richard Marek, the editor who changed his manuscript and his life.
• "...sometimes research becomes an excuse not to write, because you can endlessly go down these rabbit holes. There comes a point when you just have to write." The Indian Express speaks to Abraham Verghese about his novel, The Covenant of Water, "a multi-generational epic inspired by his grandmother's memoirs of what it felt to be a child."

New Mess, New Mystery

The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose picks up from her previous book, The Maid, which came out in 2022 and features the same few characters that include Molly Gray, the protagonist and a maid at the Regency Grand Hotel.

In The Maid, the death of Molly's grandmother, who was also a maid, left her to navigate the messy webs of life by herself. She found comfort and security in her tasks, but her quirks put her in the crosshairs of the police when a guest was found dead in his hotel room.

We know Molly is cleared in this second novel because several years have passed since then, she's still employed at the Regency Grand, and she's now the head maid with a trainee under her wing. She even has a boyfriend...


Continue reading here.

Teetering On The Brink

Imagine a future where weather can be controlled, gnat-sized drones guard private property, and apps feed growing stores of data that reveal much about their users than they realise – all in the palms of several wealthy and powerful individuals obsessed with control and seeing steps ahead of other people. Meanwhile, climate change wreaks havoc here and there in the world, almost as if heralding the end times.

A scary premise and maybe a bit too close for comfort. But that's what makes Naomi Alderman's The Future a timely novel. We have climate disasters, drones, and we're already seeing how our data on web portals and social media platforms is being used. Alderman's imagined future foreshadows our own and it looks bad...


Click here to read the rest of the review.