Scan barcode
tregina's review
4.0
I thought I was going to pick this up and read a story or two and instead I blew off everything else I was doing and read the issue cover to cover. I'd love to be able to pick out a favourite story and talk about it but there wasn't anything here I didn't like, there wasn't anything that didn't make me think or see the speculative possibilities outside my own small sphere of experience. Oh, the stories, the wonderful stories.
ricksilva's review
5.0
This is the debut issue of Lontar, a magazine of speculative fiction from and about Southeast Asia (the countries it lists as its focus are the Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore, Laos, and Vietnam).
The journal contains four short stories, three poems, and an article on magical beliefs and traditions in the Philippines.
I enjoyed everything here. The opening story by Kate Osias presents a unique vision of a postapocalyptic Manila inhabited by the shades of those who died in a supernatural calamity.
This was followed up by story by Zen Cho set in a pleasantly utopian future Malaysia, one where affability is enforced by a rigid system of controls and the lines between utopia and dystopia become blurrier as love becomes part of the equation.
Elka Ray Nguyen's contribution is a straight-up horror story set in rural Vietnam, which was especially interesting for me because I am familiar with the author through the childrens picture books she has written, and this was a very different (and very effective) style.
The last story was Paolo Bacigalupi's The Gambler, which focused on the near-future of the news media with a reporter living in exile from an oppressive regime that has plunged Laos into isolation. I was introduced to Bacigalupi's work last year when I read The Windup Girl, and this shared some themes, but help up very nicely on its own, and its grim prediction of where the news industry is heading felt spot-on prophetic.
The poetry was also enjoyable, and the piece on magic in the Philippines had a clever approach, formatted as a course catalogue for a fictional school of magic.
All in all a very enjoyable collection, with some extra appeal to me with my own connections to Southeast Asia.
The journal contains four short stories, three poems, and an article on magical beliefs and traditions in the Philippines.
I enjoyed everything here. The opening story by Kate Osias presents a unique vision of a postapocalyptic Manila inhabited by the shades of those who died in a supernatural calamity.
This was followed up by story by Zen Cho set in a pleasantly utopian future Malaysia, one where affability is enforced by a rigid system of controls and the lines between utopia and dystopia become blurrier as love becomes part of the equation.
Elka Ray Nguyen's contribution is a straight-up horror story set in rural Vietnam, which was especially interesting for me because I am familiar with the author through the childrens picture books she has written, and this was a very different (and very effective) style.
The last story was Paolo Bacigalupi's The Gambler, which focused on the near-future of the news media with a reporter living in exile from an oppressive regime that has plunged Laos into isolation. I was introduced to Bacigalupi's work last year when I read The Windup Girl, and this shared some themes, but help up very nicely on its own, and its grim prediction of where the news industry is heading felt spot-on prophetic.
The poetry was also enjoyable, and the piece on magic in the Philippines had a clever approach, formatted as a course catalogue for a fictional school of magic.
All in all a very enjoyable collection, with some extra appeal to me with my own connections to Southeast Asia.
pearseanderson's review
3.0
The Gambler was a great tale, but of course Bacigalupi pulled it off, riding that Pump Six wave. Overall, I love Lundberg's project here. Southeast Asian speculative fiction deserves its own study, magazines, mythos. But I didn't love this issue. The pieces did not feel as coherent (incoherent != experimental) as I think they should have been. I know if I was a citizen of Kuala Lumpar or Jakarta or Manila I would get more out of them, but should such a broad magazine attempt to write only to a local audience? I don't think that's Lontar's intention, yet I came away from most of the collection feeling like that was the case. I will start issue two soon, so I'm excited to see if the stories build on each other and if I care about the included prose poems. This is by no means bad SEA SFF, like the majority of Flesh/Heat/Trash, but I'm not drawn to it.
joyfilledwander's review
4.0
The LONTAR collection of short stories was something I just stumbled upon. And I’m so glad I did. It’s a collection of Southeast Asian speculative fiction from Southeast Asian authors. Too often when I read something for this challenge, it’s written by an American or Brit with an American or British main character that travels to somewhere exotic. It’s almost always an "outsider looking in” perspective. Sometimes I really enjoy that kind of writing. But sometimes, I want to read something local and authentic from the culture. That’s why I loved finding the LONTAR journals. I live in Southeast Asia and I love dystopian, kinda weird fiction. And I really enjoyed this collection! From short narratives to poetic verse and even a creative course catalog description for a major in Philippine magic, these stories were full of creativity. In addition to the well written course catalog, I also enjoyed the dystopian love story from Malaysia and the combat story from Vietnam. Each of these were so unique, and I’m really looking forward to reading more of these collections. I found the first two volumes on Amazon in a Kindle edition, but when I was in Singapore, I found them in print at the Books Actually shop, which is the publisher. If you are looking for something out of the ordinary, check out this collection immediately!
More...