Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Rocket Kapre: Fantastic Filipino Fiction

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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.


Saturday, April 4, 2009

Ozine Fest 2009

Visited my first ever anime convention while searching for local komiks/ indy manga/ doujin. I've got two posts on this: the more professional article is at Bahay Talinhaga while the more rambling, personal impressions (and more pics) are at my livejournal account.

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

More on the Book and the Launch

I put the event post up on Bahay Talinhaga but I did have some more personal thoughts on the launch of "A Time for Dragons" as well as the book itself. Since they were more personal in nature, I put them up on my livejournal account instead. It has a picture of my super special "reversal-of-talent-signed-edition" :P

Monday, March 23, 2009

Enter: Bahay Talinhaga

So, my resignation takes effect this Friday, after which (between what I hope will be semi-regular writing/lawyering gigs) I will be doing a lot of planning, a lot of research, and a lot of writing. When I made the decision to put up an epublishing house and finish my novel, I knew I'd be spending a lot of time in libraries doing research into old books (partly for the story, partly to find some old tomes which I might conceivably acquire the e-rights to) and I thought it'd be a shame if I kept all that data to myself. That was when I thought about putting up a site that would gather my research into, say, Philippine mythology, (from my own books, the interwebs, and my library raids) and make it available for anyone else interested in an organized format.

From there the idea kind of... morphed, as ideas tend to do: The more I thought about putting up a site, the more I thought that it would be cool if it would not only serve as a dumping place for my research, but also if it could be something of a Tor.com or io9 (though obviously not of the scope of such professional giants) for those interested in the "Filipino Fantastic" - books, art, games, comics, shows and strange news of interest to people who make or are fans of Philippine works of sci fi and fantasy. I think that we're pretty much covered when it comes to news sites for prose and comics (what with Bibliophile Stalker, Philippine Genre Stories, Philippine Speculative Fiction, Komikero Comics Journal and Komiks News Now Philippines) but I think it'd be great to have a place where we could geek out over stuff like Trese and the Mythology Class and, yeah, downhill wooden scooter races.

So, without further ado, I present to you Bahay Talinhaga.

So far I have three articles up (not counting the intro) on google book search, Filipino deviantartists and the Igorot wooden scooters. I'll have a review for the first 6 stories of PSFIV up within the week as well, then hopefully I can fall into a T-Th-S routine.

If any of you have any ideas/suggestions or want to volunteer to write anything, let me know! (And let me know if I screw anything up site-wise too... It's a bit more complex than a typical blog.) Hopefully in the future I can beg/borrow/buy stuff like the short-short stories on Tor.com for the site ^_^

Friday, March 13, 2009

Persona 4 - Hesitating at the Finish Line

Last December, when I first got my grubby not-so-little hands around a copy of Persona 4, I positively lived and breathed the game. I spent most of my free time either playing it or thinking of what I would do the next time I could play it – how I’d try to solve a murder mystery while simultaneously learning how to juggle treasure hunting and persona fusing with girl-wooing and good old fashioned studying; one would almost think I was trying to fall into the TV world myself, by sheer dint of the number of hours I spent glued in front of the television. By January, I’d reached the end game, and I knew I was only a few hours away from culminating what, to that point, had been a truly exemplary gaming experience.

Two months later… and I’ve barely touched my PS2.

This isn’t to say I don’t want to finish the game, because I do. I like being able to wrap up a narrative, tie up the loose ends, and have some sort of resolution that makes me feel that the journey I (for in Persona moreso than even other RPGs, it is “me” who is the protagonist) have undertaken has had some weight, some consequence in that other world. There are other advantages as well to finishing the game: I can move on to another game for one thing, and I’d be safe from any game-end spoilers I might encounter in forums or fan fiction.

And yet… I hesitate. I tell myself that there’s no real rush, that I can finish it anytime I want to, when I’m not too tired or too stressed to fully appreciate the ending, when everything is “just right.” There’s always something just a little bit more urgent to be done: work to finish, a show to watch, a friend to visit… and then, lo and behold, months have passed.

I think that the more I enjoy a game, the harder it is for me to write finis to the whole experience. Of course I could always replay it, but while Persona 4 certainly does offer a lot of replay value, I’m a man who plays games primarily for the story, and while the depth and breadth of the narrative may change on subsequent playthroughs, the climax and the “truth” of the narrative will – except for games with truly divergent multiple endings - remain largely unchanged. In Persona 4, I can do different things during the year of gametime – but no amount of variation in my playing will give me a story which happen after the events of the ending.

In Neil Gaiman’s “The Graveyard Book,” an adult explains to the young protagonist the distinction between the dead and the living as a matter of potential: the living have an infinite amount of it, and the dead have none. I suppose in some way, I feel that in completing a game, I “kill” it – I have fulfilled its potential, seen all it has to offer. The characters who I’ve grown to love will never again say or do anything I haven’t seen before – oh sure different dialogue choices may lead to different responses for them, but I have to “reset” their lives to see these alternate possibilities – their growth as characters has stopped. The end of the game is the limit to which I can follow the lives of these characters, these friends… and as long as I don’t reach it, their potential remains; their life remains.

I will finish Persona 4. It is too good of a game, of a story, for me to relegate it to the ranks of the never-finished: one can only hold off completion for a certain amount of time before one forgets the details of the story, and the ending loses its impact. Soon, I’ll return to Inaba, put on the glasses, and call out my inner selves one last time…

But not before I will have hesitated at the edge; and, when I do take the plunge… not without a trace of regret.


Sunday, March 8, 2009

Empathy

[There's a bit of graphic detail here. Please proceed at your own discretion.]

They found the body of a twenty year old girl near an irrigation ditch last Thursday. She'd been kidnapped the day before, then tortured, then killed.

I read it in a newspaper article Saturday afternoon, while my wife and I were having a late lunch. My mind didn't really process the information until 2 a.m. the following morning.

They found the body of a twenty year old girl the other day. She was tortured.

The article stated that she was the daughter of one of the leaders of the New People's Army in the South. The family blamed the army. The army denied involvement. The mayor of Davao vowed to personally arrest the perpetrators. The NPA stated that they would launch no retaliatory attacks against the families of soldiers.

The facts seemed completely unrelated to the truth.

They found the body of a twenty year old girl the other day. Her body showed signs of beating, stabbing, and laceration of her genitals.

Her mother asked: "Where is justice?"

Where is justice?

At mass today, the priest started his homily with a story: he related how impressed he was when he visited the convent run by a group of devout nuns: apparently they had moved into the convent - which would also house children and elderly in the care of the nuns - recently and had been shocked by the state of the comfort rooms - because they were too comfortable. So they had the comfort rooms changed, to be more in line with their teachings regarding the utility of suffering.

I almost walked out of the church.

I believe that Christ died on the cross for our sins. I do NOT believe, that the only way we get to be virtuous people is by actively seeking out nails to ram into our palms. Good can come out of suffering... but suffering MUST be alleviated whenever possible.

There are too many people suffering. Too many people willing to inflict it.

Who tortures a twenty year old girl for the sins of her father?

And what the hell can we do about it? Guy Davenport once said that "Distance negates responsibility." If so, knowledge can negate distance: That's the problem with the internet age. In a world of instant access to information and 24/7 news, every statistic can have a name, every name can have a face.

They found the body of a twenty year old girl the other day.

Steinem was right. Empathy is the most revolutionary of emotions.

Even when the same can never come close to the reality.



Wednesday, March 4, 2009

WATCHMEN

... is out now. As in, today. Here. (Just called Podium to confirm)

What the hell cinemas? If you're going to show the movie of the year one day early, at least tell us @_@


Friday, February 27, 2009

A Declaration [Up the (Main)stream Without a Paddle (Part 2)]

I love stories. I love science-fiction and fantasy. I think a lot of us here in the Philippines love it. I’ve read some of our cracks at the genre – and I really like what I’ve seen. I want to see more of it. I want more people reading it.

Yesterday, I gave my thirty-days notice; come the 28th of March, I will cease being an associate at the 4th largest law firm in the country. (Hence the reason why I couldn't post these thoughts with Part 1 of this entry @_@)

Come the 28th, two things happen: first – despite whatever odd jobs I may need to pull to keep from having to mooch off my wife - my primary vocation, my primary occupation will be that of a writer. I have an urban fantasy novel that needs finishing.

Second, I set about trying to establish a publishing house. A digital publishing house, with a special place for novel length Philippine Speculative Fiction.

The other week I attended a seminar on Publishing in Cyberspace, sponsored by the National Book Development Board (NBDB), in partnership with the Book Development Association Of The Philippines (which I heard of at Philippine Genre Stories). The publishers in attendance were affable, intelligent sorts, but many of the representatives seemed to be at a loss with regards to the full potential of the Internet (with the exception of those who sent younger representatives). This shouldn’t come as a surprise – many big US publishers seem to flounder a bit in the ebook realm.

Yet, the ebook market is here, and it's steadily growing. Lots of people all over the world already read reams of stories online, on their computers - just look at how popular fanfic is. Mobile devices that can read ebooks will only become more prevalent: the iPhone has apps like Stanza – which is free – which can read most ebook formats (though there are some formatting issues) and can receive files via wifi. The Kindle 2 has just been released, and late this year/early next year, the plastic logic reader might finally come out. In a year where traditional publishing struggled, Ebook sales increased - by quite a bit.

Back at the local level, at the Publishing in Cyberspace conference, a representative from yehey revealed some telling numbers: around 27 million internet users in the country, 83% of whom were part of a social network (1st in the world); 90% of whom have perused blogs. Even just limiting ourselves to the Philippines, there are a lot of eyes on the internet, a lot of people before whom we can display our works. I think there’s an audience here for genre fiction: look at the number of people who flock to the SFF section of Fully Booked – the people from all social classes who splurge on complete collections of the works of Rowling and Meyer; the number of fans drawn by Neil Gaiman whenever he’s in town; the droves who descend upon Komikon; even the popularity of story-intensive RPGs.

There’s room for growth in this market I think. As I said last post, I think there would be a market for homegrown SFF novels and serials… These are the type of stories I’ve always loved to read. These are the type of books that create not only readers, but FANS. Let’s go make some.

Of course, going digital also means that whatever the state of the market here may be, we don’t have to limit ourselves to our own shores: the accolades received by the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler of Charles Tan and Mia Tijam should be encouraging. In the United States, the number of people reading fiction is on the rise. Books can do well even during a recession – all the more when they are so much cheaper than other entertainment forms… as ebooks have the potential to be.

That doesn’t mean that the author will be getting less – ebooks can allow an author to get a larger slice of the revenue pie. Ebooks allow the author to do things which would be difficult (high def color photographs on every other page) or impossible (experimentation with audio files, or hotlinking, or what have you) with a physical book. We could even experiment with visual novels – the Ren’Py Visual Novel Engine is free and, from personal experience, I know there’s a great community that supports it. This is a great time to be an author.

There’s a lot of work to be done yet: a business plan to make, investors to convince, bandwidth to purchase, editors and codemonkeys to hire, marketing strategies to figure out. It will be hard work. It may fail horribly – but if it does, I hope others will learn from my errors and push forward.

But for now, I am throwing my hat in the ring. I am 29 years old and from now on I’m setting out to cross out quite a few things from my list of potential mid-life regrets. If I don’t end up contributing anything to the development of Philippine Speculative Fiction… well, at least no one will be able to tell me I didn’t try.

I’m betting on us – us as readers, us as writers. If you like the odds – or, hell, if you don’t like them but want to spite them anyway, then welcome aboard.

Let’s do this.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

50 Odd Eucharists: Week 3

[Valle Verde 5; 10 am]

On the First Reading: Is 42: 1-4; 6-7' I'm not a literal-minded person, but how I wish this passage could be replicated literally. If only justice could be brought forth without any shouting, or crying out, or voices on the street. If only it were that easy...

On the Second Reading: Acts 10: 34-38; "In truth, I see that God shows no partiality." Would that we could say the same for his church and his creations...

On the Gospel: How many people nowadays could take on John's role? One who can achieve so much yet acknowledges that he is but a harbinger of a better man. In the realm of leadership, political or otherwise, rare is the person who would willingly seat himself or herself at the end of the table - and rarer still would be someone recognizing that and moving the humble guest to his proper place of honor at the head.

We've had our share of purported Saviors - did they fail because we had a surplus of saviors, and a famine of baptists? Do they fail because they try to do too much instead of laying the groundwork for those that come after? Or do too many cooks simply spoil the broth?


On the Homily: As a believer, I do admit that I find the idea of a smug atheist looking down his nose at me to be irritating as hell. That being said however, I think the priest needs to learn that one cannot refute the argument that "the Bible is wrong - there is no God" by saying in turn "God is real - see, our 2,000 year old Bible says so!"

I did however like his prayer for the poor - not the material poor, but the poor in spirit.


Other Notes: "The Lord will bless his people with peace," we chanted during the responsorial psalm. Let it be so. Let it be soon.



Sunday, January 4, 2009

50 Odd Eucharists: Week 2 (Epiphany)

[Tiendesitas, 11 a.m.]

On the First Reading: Isiah 60:1-6; Any mention of Jerusalem and the Israleites (read as: practically any Old Testament reading) cannot but evoke images of the ongoing strife in Gaza. No signs of the conflict dying down any time soon as of my last visit to CNN.

On the Second Reading: Ephesians 3:2 - 3:5-6; I wonder if we Christians truly realize the significance of Paul's statement here. The focus is usually on the part of the reading which states that we Gentiles are co-heirs through the Gospel. What I find more significant is the statement that this revelation "was not made known to people in other generations..." Something for people to remember when they cling to the immutability of doctrines and interpretations made centuries ago.

On the Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12; I suppose that the prophecy regarding a ruler coming from Bethlehem wasn't really known widely amongst the Israelites: otherwise I find it hard to imagine why ambitious people would leave anywhere other than Bethlehem.

The Gospel also contains one of the dream-warnings that are so often used in the Bible. Not that I'm complaining in any way about the result, but I tend to wonder what circumstances justify such intervention, and whether the world might be a better or worse place if it happened more often.

On the Homily: There's something to be said about a homily which hits not one, but two of my "weak points" in a span of less than 20 minutes.

Almost right off the bat the priest says something to the effect that "while some theologians seem to suggest that other religions such as Islam and Buhddism have their own saviors, I remind you this is inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. Jesus says he is the way the truth and the life - not that he is A way." (At which point I am tempted to stand up and say: "But he didn't say he was he ONLY way either" but I don't think the priest would have appreciated my attempts at a legal construction of scripture.)

Now, this kind of statement seems completely at odds with the inclusive and welcoming tone of the readings, and the very symbolism given to the three wise men, who represent the fact that Jesus came to save all people. The attempt at straightjacketing the good news in literal word play also pointedly ignores the underlying message that I personally got from the readings - revelation is subject to growth and change. In the old testament, God was pretty clear about the Israelites being His chosen people, but nowadays Christians feel free to re-interpret many explicit old testament passages as referring not just to the Israelites, but to all Christians - something which we can probably safely say was not the literal meaning of those passages, as Christianity had yet to exist.

The second issue I had with his sermon was that old chestnut that when bad things happen, they do so because of some sort of fault on the part of the afflicted. It's strange really - he started off by saying that as Christians, we don't (or rather, should not) believe in karma (which I think he meant in the "ma-karma ka sana" sense rather than the complex Hindu sense). He says that the disasters that befall us are not God's vengeance against us, which I agree with, - but then goes on to say they are instead the natural consequences of deviating from His will, which I disagree with (rather strongly). He illustrates his point by saying that the origin of the word disaster comes from the greek words dis + astra, which appraently means to deviate from one's course (as determined by the stars).

Putting aside the accuracy of the etymology (some web sources instead interpret that combination as meaning something bad happening due to a misalignment of the stars [i.e. fate]) if that kind of correspondence between godly acts and good fortune existed, then I think there would be a lot less prosperous crooks, or incidents of the saintly dying young. Don't get me wrong, I do think that we all reap what we sow - but not necessarily in this life, and never through anything but human agency. If a thief gets put behind bars due to dilligent cops, that is a consequence of the crook's actions. If that self-same crook falls in a manhole and breaks his neck, the only way that is a consequence of his actions is if he stole the damn manhole cover.

Why would God go through the effort of giving us free will if he was going to go all Pavlov on us?

Other Notes: I think it adds something to the atmosphere of the mass when there are animals in attendance. Particularly when they come in the form of cute Shar Peis.

Word of the Day:
Religious Pluralism:
"The Second Vatican Council states that salvation includes others who acknowledge the same creator, and explicitly lists Muslims among those (though it refers to them as Mohammedans). The official Catholic position is therefore that Jews, Muslims and Christians (including churches outside of Rome's authority) all acknowledge the same God, though Jews and Muslims have not yet received the gospel while other churches are generally considered deviant to a greater or lesser degree."