Ex Libris: China Mieville's The City & The City (and other stuff)

Okay, my review is technically not here. It's actually here, which I wrote for carljoe's Metacritiko section of the Philippine Online Chronicles.

Here's an excerpt:

But it is in his book The City and The City that he opens up a new chapter—as well as new paths to explore—of how we view our cities. He does this by introducing the fictional twin cities of Besźel and Ul Qoma located somewhere in Central Europe—and whose interesting feature is that the two different cities occupy the same place at the same time.

Go read it. (And my rating? Three paws out of four.)

In other news, I feel that our love of stories stems from our culture of oral storytelling-- from our ancestors listening around the evening fire to us as children listening to our parents during bedtime. Heck, I'm sure everyone here as heard of Lola Basyang and her book of stories.

So it's no surprise that elyss would bravely venture into podcast territory with her newly-launched Pakinggan Pilipinas ("Listen Philippines"). The site has its first outing with dean's story, Six from Downtown.

Check it out.

Thirdly, don has finally resurfaced after constantly popping in and out of the online radar. Where have you been, man? As an apology, he lists all the best spec fic stories of this year and last that he's read and cites three of them from The Farthest Shore:

1. Dean Alfar's "Strange Weather"
2. Mia Tijam's "Spelling Normal"
3. Eliza Victoria's "The Just World of Helena Jimenez"

Excellent news. And yes, I should pay don for pimping my stuff but where's the fun in that?