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A review by wealhtheow
The Apex Book of World SF by Yang Ping, Lavie Tidhar, Jamil Nasir, Kaaron Warren, Anil Menon, Nir Yaniv, Zoran Živković, S.P. Somtow, Mélanie Fazi, Aliette de Bodard, Dean Francis Alfar, Han Song, Guy Hasson, Jetse de Vries, Tunku Halim, Aleksandar Žiljak, Kristin Mandigma
2.0
A collection of sci fi, fantasy, and horror from all over the world. Some was written in English, others translated.
I didn't like most of these stories. Some were too surreal for me to get a handle on what was happening and, even more importantly, why I should care (most obvious example: Zoran Zivkovic's "Compartments," in which the main character walks through train compartments and various characters tell him stories). Others were too obvious and cliched for my tastes (ex: Yang Ping's "Wizard World," in which a MMO player gets hacked and eventually decides to live life outside his computer, or the love spell gone wrong in Tunku Halim's "Biggest Baddest Bomoh") or were too fundamentally unbelievable for me to get engrossed (why did the butcher's boy agree to leave his family and all he knew just to help some stranger collect items for a magical kite for thirty years, as in Dean Francis Alfar's "L'Aquilone du estrellas"?) A few were nicely creepy but I didn't get the point of them (Jamil Nasir's "The Allah Stairs"), or why they were so recursive (Nir Yaniv's "Cinderers"). I didn't particularly enjoy Anil Menon's "Into the Night" or SP Somtow's "The Bird Catcher," about old men and cultural change, but I bet if I cared less about sf/f and more about literary considerations, I'd like them better.
I liked Kristin Mandigma's "Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-Realist Aswang": the premise is great fun, and the style of the letter is as well:
I was very intrigued by the world building in Aliette de Bodard's "The Lost Xuyan Bride," in which North America is dominated by Greater Mexica and Xuya, with all the alternate cultural and historical shifts that implies. I'd like to read more by this author.
Overall, this book was a collection of stories that just didn't fit my tastes. I wanted more worldbuilding, more characterization, more plot, and instead I got a lot of surreal nonsense, hackneyed plots, and very little plot indeed. This is not to say that these stories were bad, but they weren't what I look for in sf/f.
I didn't like most of these stories. Some were too surreal for me to get a handle on what was happening and, even more importantly, why I should care (most obvious example: Zoran Zivkovic's "Compartments," in which the main character walks through train compartments and various characters tell him stories). Others were too obvious and cliched for my tastes (ex: Yang Ping's "Wizard World," in which a MMO player gets hacked and eventually decides to live life outside his computer, or the love spell gone wrong in Tunku Halim's "Biggest Baddest Bomoh") or were too fundamentally unbelievable for me to get engrossed (why did the butcher's boy agree to leave his family and all he knew just to help some stranger collect items for a magical kite for thirty years, as in Dean Francis Alfar's "L'Aquilone du estrellas"?) A few were nicely creepy but I didn't get the point of them (Jamil Nasir's "The Allah Stairs"), or why they were so recursive (Nir Yaniv's "Cinderers"). I didn't particularly enjoy Anil Menon's "Into the Night" or SP Somtow's "The Bird Catcher," about old men and cultural change, but I bet if I cared less about sf/f and more about literary considerations, I'd like them better.
I liked Kristin Mandigma's "Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-Realist Aswang": the premise is great fun, and the style of the letter is as well:
With regard to your question about how I perceive myself as an "Other," let me make it clear that I am as fantastic to myself as rice. I do not waste time sitting around brooding about my mythic status and why the notion that I have lived for five hundred years ought to send me into a paroxysm of metaphysical angst for the benefit of self-indulgent, overprivileged, cultural hegemists who fancy themselves writers. So there are times in the month when half of me flies off to--as you put it so charmingly--eat babies. Well, I ask you, so what? For your information, I only eat babies whose parents are far too entrenched in the oppressive capitalist superstructure to expect them to be redeemed as good dialectical materialists."
I was very intrigued by the world building in Aliette de Bodard's "The Lost Xuyan Bride," in which North America is dominated by Greater Mexica and Xuya, with all the alternate cultural and historical shifts that implies. I'd like to read more by this author.
Overall, this book was a collection of stories that just didn't fit my tastes. I wanted more worldbuilding, more characterization, more plot, and instead I got a lot of surreal nonsense, hackneyed plots, and very little plot indeed. This is not to say that these stories were bad, but they weren't what I look for in sf/f.