Reaching out to the future

After a much-delayed pronouncement, it's alive and kicking!

Go read and find out what the future holds for us!

Endings and Beginnings

Wow. Has it been seven years already?

I remember when Dean Alfar made the announcement of the table of contents for the first volume of the Philippine Speculative Fiction collection. And now it's the other husband-and-wife team of Kate and Alex Osias who recently made their announcement of the 7th volume of PSF of those who made it for this year.

To wit, PSF7's table of contents has the following stories and writers:

1. All That We May See by Kenneth Yu
2. All the Best of Dark and Bright by Isabel Yap
3. Bastard Sword by Nikki Alfar
4. Chasers by Chris Mariano
5. East of the Sun by Dean Francis Alfar
6. Faith in Fiction by James Constantino Bautista
7. Mother of Monsters by Philip Corpuz
8. Never Land by Mo Francisco
9. Oblation by Paolo Chikiamco
10. Pet by Kristine Ong Muslim
11. Sarsarita Time by Melissa Sipin
12. The Call of the Chained God by Dariel Quiogue
13. The Changes by Benito Vergara
14. The Commute to Paradiso by Charles Tan
15. The Day Nostalgia Swept Over a Town by F. Jordan Carnice
16. Dragon's Orb by Vincent Michael Simbulan
17. The Likeness of God by Crystal Koo
18. The Little Things the Datu Did by Andrew Drilon
19. The Love Spell by Julian dela Cerna
20. The Nature of Apocalypse by Joseph Anthony Montecillo
21. The Scrap Collectors by Arlynn Despi
22. username: tanglaw by Eliza Victoria
23. What the Body Remembers by Tin Lao
24. What You See by Ian Rosales Casocot

Congratulations to those who made it to the roster! I wish I could have been part of this collection also but alas, I wasn't able to submit last year. Will try for this year. Hopefully, unless the world ends.

Of course there are endings (of the solicitation-open reading type) and endings (like the Apocalypse). That's why publishing maverick Adam David has raised a call for submissions because it's 2012 and if the Mayans are to believed, the curtain's ready to drop on this show we call The World:

This is a call for submissions for THURSDAY NEVER LOOKING BACK, an electronic anthology that seeks to gather, process, and perform these various end-of-the-world scenarios – and hopefully more (and more imaginative or realistic) and hopefully beyond – in the endlessly inventive media of language, line, and light: send in your essays, fictions, poetry, songs, komix, doodles, photographs, videos, and everything else in between to 12202012antho@gmail.com. Texts should be sent as RTFs, PDFs if needing special design conceits; images should be sent as JPGs or GIFs; audio files as links to MP3 downloads; and videos as links to YouTube or whatever file sharing service is convenient for you. In any language intelligible by contemporary civilisation! Or actually, even not!

The deadline for the first wave of submissions is April 30, 2012, with a mid-year soft launch of July 16, 2012, which is also when the call for the second wave of submissions will commence for the eventual hard launch on December 20, 2012, when we will bid the end of the thirteenth b’ak’tun of the fourth world goodbye and say hi to the first of the fifth. A website will host the anthology as hypertext, with eBook formats for the Kindle, iPad, and Android a distinct possibility. This is the anthology for the end of the world as we know it! Be there or be spared!

So why not submit something before it all ends, right? You've got nothing to lose.

New stories for the New Year

From kyu:

PGS Online will be open to fiction submissions by Pinoy writers for reading and consideration from January 1, 2012 to April 30, 2012.

Here are the guidelines:

1. Word count: 1,500 up to 8,000 words.
2. Preferred genres: Science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery, horror, and all subgenres falling under these.
3. Keep in mind that PGS caters not only to adult readers, but also to minors. This is not to say that profanity, gore, violence, and sex will not be accepted in a story, but make sure that such is integral to the story and not just for its own sake. Otherwise, PGS is open to any type of story treatment.
4. Payment is P500.00 for an accepted piece.
5. Please follow standard manuscript format for short story submissions.
6. Email submissions as rtf or doc attachments to pdofsf(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Am glad that PGS is now open to stories for submissions. This country can't have enough Philippine speculative fiction outlets as it is! (Especially one that's online.) One thing I have to say though is I definitely like PGS's no-fuss, no-muss site design. Kudos to Dom on that.

One thing I've recently discovered is that there are a number of people out there who are secret writers in their spare time. They like reading, they like writing stories... and that's it. They have no plans in getting their stories published, read and enjoyed by other people. I hope to change that. If ever I have a mission for 2012, it's to get people who like to write to take a chance and let others enjoy their works. I did this how many years ago and I've never regretted sending my first story to Dean's PSF volume 1.

As a short term goal, I'll take this open-submissions call as a sign that it's time for me to get back to writing stories again after my long hiatus.

What I'd read to pass the time in 2011

So another year is about to pass. I look at the number of books I've read for the year and there's a slight feel of self-disgust. Really? Finishing only 40 books in a year? That's terrible. And that includes a handful of books I started but I really couldn't finish for one reason or another. But more on that later.

In any case, here's the list of books I read in the past year:

1. Amanda Downum, The Drowning City, Orbit, January 12, 20011
2. Mira Grant, Feed, Orbit, January 24, 2011
3. Ari Marmell, Conqueror's Shadow, Spectra, January 24, 2011
4. Andy Remic, Hardcore, Solaris, February 13, 2011

5. Neal Asher, The Voyage of the Sable Keech, Pan Macmillan, February 23, 2011

6. Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (editors), Stories: All-New Tales, William Morrow, March 2, 2011
7. Ekaterina Sedia, The Secret History of Moscow, Prime Books, March 10, 2011

8. Chris Evans, A Darkness Forged in Fire, Pocket Books, March 23, 2011

9. Paul Kearney, Corvus, Solaris, April 1, 2011

10. Ian C, Esslemont, Return of the Crimson Guard, Tor, April 14

11. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois (editors), Warriors, Tor, April 16
12. Jonathan Barnes, The Somnambulist, Gollancz, April 17

13. Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders (editors), Swords and Dark Magic, Harper Voyager, April 18

14. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (editors), The Year's Best Fantasy First Annual Collection, St. Martin's Press, April 19

15. Gene Wolfe and Neil Gaiman, A Walking Tour of the Shambles, American Fantasy, April 21

16. Jeff and Ann Vandermeer (editors), The New Weird, Tachyon Publications, May 7

17. John Shirley, Bleak History, Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, May 8

18. Scott Lynch, Red Seas under Red Skies, Gollancz, May 15
19. David Wellington, 13 Bullets, Three Rivers Press, May 20

20. James Lovegrove, The Age of Odin, Solaris, May 24

21. China Mieville, Kraken, Macmillan, June 4

22. Holly Phillips, The Engine's Child, Del Rey, June 8

23. M.K. Hobson, Native Star, Del Rey, June 26

24. Jesse Bullington, The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart, Orbit, June 28
25. Jonathan Howard, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer, Anchor Books, July 2

26. Mira Grant, Deadline, Orbit, July 13

27. Emma Bull, Territory, Tor, July 15

28. George R.R. Martin, A Dance of Dragons, Tor, July 27

29. Mark Charan Newton, Nights at Villjamur, Orbit, July 30

30. Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Past the Size of Dreaming, Ace, August 21
31. George R.R. Martin (ed), Suicide Kings, Tor, August 30
32. Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven, Roc, September 19

33. Dean Francis Alfar, Salamanca, Ateneo Press, September 29

34. Karl de Mesa, News of the Shaman, Visprint, September 30

35. Jonathan Carroll, The Wooden Sea, Tor, October 28

36. Kage Baker, The Graveyard Game, Tor, November 4

37. Rachel Pollack, Temporary Agency, Tusk, November 4

38. Mike Resnick, The Return of Santiago, Tor, November 5

39. Barry Hughart, The Story of the Stone, Bantam Spectra, November 6

40. Randall Garrett, Lord Darcy, Baen, December 31

There are a handful of books I that I didn't get to categorically finish (i.e. the works I italicized). I don't know; maybe they just didn't hit all the right chords in me when I was reading them. I would start reading them, put them down, pick them up, put them down-- and still no love in my heart, even if I jumped all the way to the ending to see what happened. So alas, I put them away one last time and moved on to other books. At my age, life is too short to keep enduring this.

As you can see, there's not much diversity here; mostly fantasy, SF and horror. But then again, I read to escape in 2011, what with work and life. Maybe I'll get to improve this 2012.

Random Shots of a Reluctant Traveler#4: Prague

1. The Lord of Time and Space lives in Prague, hidden in plain sight. It ruled all the clocks in the world, and some in others.

2. What is a memorial if people don't understand what is being remembered?

3. The two agents walked away from the past and into the present, not knowing that the future was watching them carefully. In a three-way war that involves Time, there are no civilians and there are no innocents. In a war that involves Time, everyone must choose a side.

4. One day, he woke up to find a river outside his apartment window. In this city-- like the streets-- even the rivers snake silently through the night to find their place in the sun.
5. Evil doesn't last forever. Even the historical Black Duke's feared torture tower has become a tourist attraction in this city.

6. I hate zombie apocalypse stories. The way they keep showing up in different stories, they remind me so much of flash mobs in fiction.

7. I was surprised to find out someone had kept an old tool of my trade and stuck it in an exhibit. As they say, old executioners never die, they just become HR consultants.

8. I could never figure out what I invented. But adding the spikes to it made it look cool.

9. He was chagrined. In his world, portals had power. He was amazed that this world had so much of it but everyone seemed to ignore what they had.

10. Mario finally escaped his prison but found himself lost in the wide, wide world where everything seemed too real for him.

11. He looked at the bridge, where he had last seen her. He wished he had said all the things that was inside him, but had just expressed as a sigh.

12. For each lock, two hearts had come together and promised to stay with each other. One would wish it were enough.

13. Ah, young love-- or young hearts in love. They scrawl their promises to each other, laughing as they do, not afraid of the future but only hoping to stay in the present forever.

14. As the sun set on the city, he lit his last cigarette. He had to buy another pack before he went out again to hunt the monsters that roamed the night.

15. The future was laid out before him, a future of running, of hiding in a mediocre, grey world where no one knew him and he knew nobody. This was his city and all the cities that he would eventually visit were all his.

Random Shots of a Reluctant Traveler#3: Prague

They had warned me about losing my shadow on this trip. They said he would wander away. So I tied him down to me using my shoelaces.

It broke my heart to set them free. But what could I do? The monsters were never meant to live in such a small cage. I think they would be happy living in the sewers of the city.

The wedding was a simple affair and all the ghosts attended with such solemnity.

Shush, my darling. Don't move, don't say a word. If we stand still, nobody will notice us. Don't look at their sharp teeth or their glowing eyes; I will keep you safe in my arms.

As he stood there, weighed down by all the history that surrounded him, he thought of flying away from this, from time and age and the present.

Do ancient cannons have memories of forgotten wars and battles? Do they remember the smell of smoke, burnt skin, and gunpowder as they sleep the sleep of just?

L'esprit de escalier, they call it, the spirit of the stairs. But they are such unfortunate things, really, tormented by the saddest word one could find in any lexicon: "Wait..."

The House of the Illuminati looks unprepossessing; it does not look like the place the whole world stands balanced on.

Toys are just silent memorials to dead heroes.

Can you hear it? The laughter of ancient cats sounds strangely like running water.

I visited the toy shop of the old Doctor who lived up in the castle. His marionettes always look so lifelike.

He manned the walls of his heart vigilantly, until at last he became a ghost of his own making.

These things we leave behind to mark our passage-- would people in the future see them like they see this seal? Take pictures and move on with their lives?

When the fossil-like disease first spread throughout the houses of our city, the doctors recommended using nets to prevent it from spreading. But eventually our houses died, suffocated by the suffocating stone, and we had to move to other cities.

The fortress sighed; where they used to be martial glories of soldiers marching on its roads, now there was only the lazy trample of tourists. Old soldiers never die indeed.

He shivered. He could never get used to the breaches of his reality, where one world melted into another.

"Help me!", he cried out to the people, finally wandering out of the maze. And with the last of his strength gone, he faded away unnoticed.

At first I spent my days of imprisonment looking through the bars at the world passing me by. But then they decided that the sight of my incarceration was bad for business so they covered my cage with a bamboo fence imported from the Far East.

Random Shots of a Reluctant Traveler#2: Vienna

Sadly, the place they had met and had fallen in love looked even more beautiful in the daylight.

So far, none of the giant moles that had made the secret tunnels that ran underneath the city had yet been sighted.

"Trust me, literary immortality is overrated," he ranted as he lit another cigarette. "Literary immortality is a statue sitting in the middle of the fucking park, covered in bird shit and ignored by the general public who haven't read a single piece of your work."

"Oh, they know it," he said slyly, "but they just don't have time to read it."

There are monsters in our city and these are their fossilized bones.

When he was a child, he remembered the giant clock that loomed over the dining room, larger than he was tall and quite, quite old. Because of this, he was never really comfortable about eating in general.

Shhh. The street is sleeping quietly now. But sometimes it wakes and moves into the next corner looking for sunlight. (With apologies to China Mieville.)

A fossilized church, finally revealed to the public after years of careful uncovering from the stone that surrounded it.

Random Shots of a Reluctant Traveler #1: Budapest

So the traveler sets forward, not knowing where the end lay but knowing at least that there is a beginning...

The church glowed in the night, a sanctuary to the fearful vampires that hid from the burning torches of the lynch mobs.

The boy sorcerer fell from the cliff and into history, the oppressed non-magic-using peoples setting up a hidden memorial for the one who tried to defy his own kind.

There is a sunset that will never come, one painted red and gold by memories that will never tarnish, that will never be forgotten by those who love us.

Do you see the secret? Do you? It's there, if you know where to look.

The lions of this place, they speak to me. They are old souls and they have seen so many things. That is why they are constantly laughing, for what other reaction would you expect them to have?

The master of all creative geniuses is an empty mask that hangs over your head and mocks your best efforts. Didn't you know that?

It was an old picture he found dumped in his closet. When he compared it to memory, they were the same: the colors faded by time and age.

She walked away, down and out from his life. From where he stood, it seemed like she was walking away into forever.

He shook his head: the defenders of the castle had finally come, in their tourist buses and bearing their weapons of digital cameras and tourist maps.

The sentinel does not mind. He will wait.

Their family portraits had always been grand and glorious affairs. Unfortunately, they took forever to create.

I finally understood what it means to be enshrined in people's memories, trapped by the weight of regret and anger bearing me down. Like a tomb.

The past is a palace that stands on the far side of the river of time, musty with age and lonely with echoes.

He sold crossbows and bows and arrows for a living. He used to joke that his target market was a hit-or-miss thing.

Look, over there. I can see you standing in the distance, waving at me. But I do not believe it's really you. It's just a dream and you are too far away to be real.