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squid_vicious 's review for:
Spirits Abroad: And Other Stories
by Zen Cho
Zen Cho is quickly becoming an important author on my speculative-fiction radar, with her lovely whimsical style and her stories that are much deeper than they appear at first sight. I had seen her name on my Goodreads feed for a while, and I took the plunge earlier this year with “Black Water Sister” and now I am hooked!
This collection of short stories and novellas touch on similar themes as the ones explored with “Black Water Sister”: immigration, cultural clash, transformation, self-discovery, family (what it actually means and how generations can’t understand each other), and sexual awakening. Those are all very contemporary topics, but I love that Cho chose to explore them through the lens of folklores and legends from South East Asia – with a few Celtic faeries sprinkled on top for good measure! She also effortlessly draws up characters who are beautifully diverse – it never feels like box-checking, it just is.
Vampires, gods, dragons, ghosts, automata, aliens, sentient plants : I learned a lot about mythology reading this book, but I also got a wonderful glimpse of the inner lives of such creatures, their loves, motivations, desires and fears. I think that Cho’s gift truly lies in opening her readers’ heart with her little fables, and while there are a few weaker stories in this book, none of them are bad, and they are all thought-provoking.
A very charming collection, recommended to fans of Asian mythology and soft sci-fi.
This collection of short stories and novellas touch on similar themes as the ones explored with “Black Water Sister”: immigration, cultural clash, transformation, self-discovery, family (what it actually means and how generations can’t understand each other), and sexual awakening. Those are all very contemporary topics, but I love that Cho chose to explore them through the lens of folklores and legends from South East Asia – with a few Celtic faeries sprinkled on top for good measure! She also effortlessly draws up characters who are beautifully diverse – it never feels like box-checking, it just is.
Vampires, gods, dragons, ghosts, automata, aliens, sentient plants : I learned a lot about mythology reading this book, but I also got a wonderful glimpse of the inner lives of such creatures, their loves, motivations, desires and fears. I think that Cho’s gift truly lies in opening her readers’ heart with her little fables, and while there are a few weaker stories in this book, none of them are bad, and they are all thought-provoking.
A very charming collection, recommended to fans of Asian mythology and soft sci-fi.