Usok: The Webzine of Fantastic Filipino Fiction

Hi guys! Been busy over at Rocket Kapre, but for those of you who still check BT, I’m proud to announce that Rocket Kapre has just launched Usok, a free webzine for Speculative Fiction by Filipinos. Issue 1 is now live, and we’re also accepting submissions for future issues. Come over and check it out ^_^ Here’s the Table of Contents for Issue 1:

Table of Contents:

* The Startbox by Crystal Koo

* The Saint of Elsewhere: A Mystery by chiles samaniego

* Mouths to Speak, Voices to Sing by Kenneth Yu

* The Coming of the Anak-Araw by Celestine Trinidad

* The Child Abandoned by Yvette Tan

~ Coverart by Kevin Lapeña

Rocket Kapre: Fantastic Filipino Fiction

We have lift off ladies and gentlemen.

After months of planning, I’m proud to announce the official launch of Rocket Kapre Books and rocketkapre.com.

Rocket Kapre Books is a digital publishing imprint dedicated to bringing the very best of Filipino-made Speculative Fiction (Fantasy, Science Fiction and other works of a fantastical nature) to a worldwide audience by means of affordable and accessible ebooks (stories contained in digital files that can be read from computers, smart phones or ebook readers).

Rocketkapre.com endeavors to serve not only as the online headquarters for the imprint, but also as a home for creators and fans of Philippine Speculative Fiction, incorporating an active blog that will showcase interesting links as well as generate exclusive content such as interviews, contests, writing tips and original fiction.

So come on over and join the fun! For launch day we’ve got a round table discussion of our favorite Filipino-created fantastical stories, a preview of the ambitious Mind Museum going up at the Fort, and an interview with Kate Aton-Osias regarding the upcoming Farthest Shore anthology. And hey if you want a more complete explanation as to why I put up Rocket Kapre, you’ll find that there too.

Hope to see you there! And please, spread the word: feel free to use our banners and promotional comic strip to get the message out: there’s a new home for Fantastic Filipino Fiction.

T-Minus One Day to Lift Off…

[click to enlarge]

Curious? Check back tomorrow, 9/9/09 at 9 a.m. (Manila time) for the launch of a dream.

[The awesome comic above is a gift from the awesome Dado de Guzman. Watch out for an interview with him, which will be released on the new site!]

9/9/09: The Future of Pinoy SF Wants You

Are you ready to soar?

Sorry if that was a bit dramatic but it got your attention didn’t it? And while there is a time for circumspection, for earnest modesty, this is not one of those times.

Some of you might remember these posts and the promise I made to establish a digital publishing house for Philippine Speculative Fiction. I’ve been hammering away at that dream for half a year now… and I’m about to take the first major step at making that dream a reality.

On 9 September 2009, our new imprint will launch its website/blog dedicated to all things relevant to the readers and creators of stories of the Philippine Fantastic. Our aim is that the site can serve  as a launching pad for great Filipino SF, and also a venue for a greater understanding of the magical, speculative and scientific aspects of our culture and heritage. But most of all, want we want the site to do is create a community, and for that we need your help. We want to hear what you guys want in a site that aims to be something akin to the io9 or Tor.com of the Philippine Fantastic.

Tell us: what kind of topics would you like to cover? What kid of features or posts would keep you coming back? Here’s a list of things we’re working on:

• A free online zine with SF short stories from Filipino authors old and new
• Interviews with creators/writers/artists
• Reviews of Filipino created books and komiks
• Roundtable discussions on important issues or interesting questions
• Reviews of non-Filipino created media that would interest Filipino SF readers
• Articles exploring our myths, legends, culture and history
• Silly–but sincere–fan speculation about our favorite local characters (I’m working on a post pitting certain cast members of Trese ant the Mythology Class against each other)

If you have content you want to see on the new site, please let me know in the comments section (which will be moderation free). On September 9, at 9:00 a.m., we’ll post the address for the new site here (those of you who’ve already seen it please don’t make the URL or the imprint name] public–it’s not quite ready for prime time yet -_-).

Hold on to your seats everyone. Not sure where this journey will take us, but I promise you we’re going full speed ahead.

Link Drop August 2009

Apologies for the late update–working on something… special. More on that tomorrow–I’ll need your help guys–but for now, enjoy some interesting links I’ve picked up over the Inter-tubes (though you might have seen some of these on the Twitter feed):

• Local News:
  • Bob Ong as National Artist: An article in the Philippine Star by Isagani Cruz where he breaks down why anonymous author Bob Ong might qualify as a National Artist–as opposed to you-know-who.
  • District 9 Review: by David Hontiveros. Protip: He liked it.
  • Cosplay Mania 2009 Contests–Updated: Some interesting upcoming events for cosplayers, listed over at the New Worlds Alliance.
  • Filipino-made Film Named Best SciFi Film in California Festival: The article doesn’t really describe the film much so can’t say how SciFi it is… but thing that saddens me about this is the comments section.  I understand not getting worked up about the achievements of another just because he’s Filipino, but to justify such disregard by labeling him a “Fil-Am” seems to me small-minded in the extreme. It builds walls where we should be breaking them down.
• Science News:
  • Spiderbot: It looks kind of… awkward. But hey, I’m sure I did too when I was learning how to walk. (Cors’ I never did master the walking on the ceiling bit…)
  • Theatrical Robots Kiss: I want to see robot musicals now. Are you listening Repertory Philippines? ROBOT MUSICALS!
• Book News:
  • Google Opens Up Its EPUB Archive: Download 1 Million Books for Free: Need I say more? I probably had you at “Books for Free” For the curious “EPUB” is an ebook file format that quite a few groups want to see adopted as the standard ebook file format, sort of how the MP3 is for audio.

Komikon Awards 2009: Online Voting

I’ve mentioned the on-going voting for the 2009 Komikon Awards, as well as the nominees, but for those without easy access to participating comic book stores (which is, let’s face it, everyone outside of Metro Manila) you’ll be pleased to know that you can now vote for your favorites online via two methods:

The first is through a poll on deviantart which is accessible for deviantart users. It’s not all that difficult to register on deviantart, so don’t look on that as an obstacle.

You can also vote at the official Komikon website–look for the drop down awards menu at the top of the site. Registration (on the Komikon site) is required, as is to be expected to avoid a scenario where the winners are determined solely by dint of which nominee has fans with the most free time. One difference between the Komikon site and deviantart though is that on the Komikon website, you can see the current tally of votes before casting your own.

Voting is until September 20, so I urge everyone to take the time to familiarize yourselves with the nominees before voting–try not to just vote for the nominees already familiar to you @_@. Consider it as practice for the research we’ll all (well all of above 17 that is) have to do for May 2010.

Moxyland Short Story Contest

Fanfiction (or fanfic for short) is a phenomenon close to my heart. The first stories I ever wrote, before the Internet even reached the shores of the Philippines, were stories about my original characters running around other people’s worlds, whether it be the halls of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters or the or the End of Time. While fanfic and doujin productions seem to be embraced in Japan, the West has had a much more ambiguous relationship with it, which makes this new contest from Harper Collins and Angry Robot Books so interesting: they’re encouraging people to write short stories set in the universe of Lauren Beukes’ Moxyland novel, and up to three winners will have their stories published in Beukes’ next book, Zoo City, coming in May 2010. The contest ends on midnight 11 September 2009 (which I suppose means that 10 September is the last day). The announcement can be found here, the terms and conditions here, and some more information here. For the duration of the contest, you can read Moxyland at Authonomy or you can virtually browse the book. Of course you can also buy the book from Play.com, and for express delivery it is also available in ebook formats.

A few things prospective entrants should note: (a) you need to post your entries on the Authonomy page for Moxyland here (you can also see any entries already submitted which… seems kind of a strange way to run things) and that requires registration at Authonomy; (b) note that you don’t get monetary compensation if you win–the prize is publication and 5 copies of Zoo City; and (c) your story will be published under a Creative Commons 3 License.

Absence of royalties/monetary compensation aside, I have to admit it’s a very interesting promotion. Best of luck to everyone who intends to join!

Duties on Books: Who You Gonna Call?

Why isn't Winston here though? -_-

As posted over at Philippine Genre Stories and via comment from Bookmarked! here’s a number concerned book lovers can call if their precious books are being unjustly detained:

Hi, you should not have to file for exemption for items that are non-taxable. From my understanding, exemption is only filed if you or your organization is tax-exempt.

Please call Mr. Jaime Regala of the BOC IIPD-CIIS
(Internal Inquiry and Prosecution Division-Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service)
(632) 5274522

On the Great Undead Blockade

Ah, my old foe… we meet again. Or do we?

So a commenter over at the Philippine Genre Stories blog has raised the specter (pun not intended) of a necromantic revival of the Great Book Blockade (credit for that particular metaphor goes to the New Worlds Alliance twitter). You can get a summary of these new developments at the aforementioned PGS post, or over at the Philippine Online Chronicles.

While it is clear that once again there are forces once again attempting to keep the precious pulpy goodness from our grubby hands, and this is something we should not stand for, it would be best to know whom it is we’re actually fighting.

The Problem: People are being asked to either pay customs duties on imported books, or get an exemption from the DOF.

We can divide the problem in to two aspects then: (a) The duties; (b) The exemption requirement. In each case what we need to ask is a question every reciting law student dreads to hear: “What is your legal basis?”

[Legal analysis. Oh, what fun!]

Books. Matter. Stories. Matter. (Or: How a Book Made Me Cry After Six Pages)

Damn. Six pages in.

I don’t usually blog about personal matters but…

Books have brought me to tears before. I’m kind of a sap that way. Usually though this happens at the end of a novel, when I’ve become so attached to the characters that when the time comes for something, or someone, to be sacrificed in order to lend the heroes’ eventual triumph the proper degree of drama and pathos; or, rarely, in very personal non-fiction accounts such as Didion’s “A Year of Magical Thinking” where the language is so beautiful and the event (the death of a loved one) so close to our own hearts that sympathetic heart-wrenches are unavoidable.

But while reading a factual report of an event? Never happened before. And I’ve certainly never teared up six pages in to a book.

This is the culprit: Every Book Its Reader by Nicholas A. Basbanes. The subtitle is, fittingly enough “The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World.” By all means click the image to peruse the first few pages of the book… Amazon’s preview covers the entirety of the section which had me sniffling, since it didn’t take that friggin’ long. (Go on, I’ll be here when you get back. Still sniffling probably.)

[All done? Join me after the cut.]