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A review by celinewyp
Creatures of Near Kingdoms by Zedeck Siew, Sharon Chin
4.0
I've always been a huge fan of fantasy and science fiction, so this book immediately drew my interest when I found out about it. Now, I've read compendiums of fantasy creatures before, but this is unique of course because it focuses on South-East Asia and Malaysia, more specifically.
What I enjoyed the most was discovering the quiet creativity of Zedeck Siew. Rather than retell stories of pontianak and other local beings, all of the fantastic flora and fauna in the book were unknown to me, all newly imagined into existence. While unique and certainly not real, I feel like many of the specimens found in the book could very well exist anyway.
Seeing as this is a local production, I was happy to find a distinctively Malaysian flavour in the book. Beyond that, I loved that certain topics were highlighted in the snippets about the creatures. Current international politics, local politics, conservation issues. As a environmentalist, I particularly like that current problems we have in nature were included. Reading the book, you can see that effort has been put in to make it logical, understandable and scientific. While you may not be able to learn biology from here, it is enough to spark an interest to discover more, I feel. Unfortunately, at times it feels like the author does not fully understand the ecological concepts that are used.
The best way I can describe the writing is by calling it whimsical. It's somewhat dreamy but still rooted in reality. Reading the stories for me was sometimes very difficult. The writing just wasn't as smooth as it could have been. I think that it could definitely have benefited from some more editing. And there too-liberal use of commas sometimes made me want to pull out a red pen.
On to the linoprints. I love them! They're all very detailed and paint a great picture of the creatures. However, I feel like the use of patterns for the plantlife could be very confusing. I understand and really like the reason for the choice, but I feel that it perhaps wasn't executed as well as it could have been.
Overall, Creatures of Near Kingdoms is a beautiful book.
What I enjoyed the most was discovering the quiet creativity of Zedeck Siew. Rather than retell stories of pontianak and other local beings, all of the fantastic flora and fauna in the book were unknown to me, all newly imagined into existence. While unique and certainly not real, I feel like many of the specimens found in the book could very well exist anyway.
Seeing as this is a local production, I was happy to find a distinctively Malaysian flavour in the book. Beyond that, I loved that certain topics were highlighted in the snippets about the creatures. Current international politics, local politics, conservation issues. As a environmentalist, I particularly like that current problems we have in nature were included. Reading the book, you can see that effort has been put in to make it logical, understandable and scientific. While you may not be able to learn biology from here, it is enough to spark an interest to discover more, I feel. Unfortunately, at times it feels like the author does not fully understand the ecological concepts that are used.
The best way I can describe the writing is by calling it whimsical. It's somewhat dreamy but still rooted in reality. Reading the stories for me was sometimes very difficult. The writing just wasn't as smooth as it could have been. I think that it could definitely have benefited from some more editing. And there too-liberal use of commas sometimes made me want to pull out a red pen.
On to the linoprints. I love them! They're all very detailed and paint a great picture of the creatures. However, I feel like the use of patterns for the plantlife could be very confusing. I understand and really like the reason for the choice, but I feel that it perhaps wasn't executed as well as it could have been.
Overall, Creatures of Near Kingdoms is a beautiful book.