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

Book Launch: A Time for Dragons

It's late but I managed to eke out a post on Bahay Talinhaga about the book launch of A Time for Dragons yesterday. It was an honor and a great deal of fun. ^_^ More on it later but for now, zzz....

Apocrypha

In commemoration of the launch later today of "A Time for Dragons" (and in line with having BaTa serve as a home for some original fiction) I thought I'd post over at Bahay Talinhaga a slightly cleaned up version of a story of mine that didn't make the cut. It's a bit of an odd story - is "quasi-Genesis-myth "a genre? - but I felt nostalgic after reading it again so I decided what the hell: it'll stand as a testament to the fact that not everything I submit will make the grade ^_^;

[BaTa] Review: Philippine Speculative Fiction IV (1 of 4)

Just a heads up that I've posted my thoughts (let's call them "reviews" for convenience) on the first six stories of PSF 4 over at Bahay Talinhaga. I'm almost done with it but it's good to know that I'll have "A Time for Dragons" waiting for me come Sunday ^_^

In unrelated news, don't forget that Monsters vs. Aliens is showing today ^_^ Oh and for all those who've read and loved the book, check out the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are. You know... they might actually pull this off...

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 ^_^

Open for Submissions: Crossed Genres Magazine (SFF + Western issue)

Crossed Genres, an online magazine, is looking for submissions for its latest issue. Each month a new non-SFF genre is selected and this MUST be combined with some aspect of Science Fiction and/or Fantasy - and this month that theme is the Western.

Submission guidelines and other info can be found here while notes on this issue's theme can be seen here. Deadline is March 31.

Ugh, I don't think I'll have the time to submit anything (especially because my exposure to Westerns largely consists of Firefly and, er, Woody from Toy Story) but hopefully some of you have more time/working knowledge than I ^_^

BookRix: First Attempt

Spent some time fiddling with the BookRix interface:
* Much more convenient to upload a .pdf file than have to redo the formatting of a copy-pasted text;
* The speed that the pages of the "book" load still leave a lot to be desired;
* Size 22 font seems to be the minimum for easy reading - I'm using size 24 in the example below;
* The embedding code works on blogger, but not on multiply or livejournal - they have another type of code that does, but that one doesn't show the cover page of the book;
* The embedded book is a lot bigger than I thought it'd be - I thought it'd just be the title page that, when clicked, would open the book in another window.
* EDIT: AAand, its so big it isn't completely seen. That's really bad @_@
* EDIT2: Changed the blog template so the whole book is visible - but that shouldn't have been necessary. BookRix needs a way to re-size the thing.

So I think BookRix still has a way to go before it becomes a viable marketing tool. Still, the idea of embedding "books" on sites appeals to me for some reason.

In any case, here's my first "BookRix" book: the script for my Animax 2007 entry:

Years ago Taryn Damour was a normal child, content to play games of make-believe with Andel, her best friend; now she is a Knight of the Twin Swords, sword to eradicate the scourge that is the Orkoi race. On the eve of her greatest mission, she finds herself suddenly reunited with Andel... but is he the same boy she once knew? Or will the secrets he carries bring her world crashing down upon them?

PSF IV Story Thoughts (The Secret Origin of Spin-Man)

I think I remember an editor (Lou Anders maybe?) saying that people don't usually read stories in anthologies in the order listed in the Table of Contents: I guess I'd be one of the minority in that sense. Maybe it just comes from long habit resisting the urge to "skip ahead" when reading novels.

Anyway I'm about a third of the way through Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 4, and I thought I'd post my thoughts on each story as I go along. While I'll try to avoid out and out spoilers - spoilers may still be present.

---

The Secret Origin of Spin-Man by Andrew Drillon:

I have to admit - it's hard to look at this story objectively, since the narrative touches upon names and images that trigger so many nostalgic memories: Virra mall, CATS and comic books have a special place in the heart of many Xavierians. (All it would have taken was a mention of Green Rose barber shop and the brief period where we actually had an Arbys here in the Philippines, and I think I would have been moved to tears @_@)

I'd like to think though that even without the benefit of drawing upon the same pool of memories as the reader, the story does a good job of transporting one back into the past of the POV character. It also shows clearly the close bond between the brothers - a good thing too because it is essential to the story - though there were some points where (at the expense of a greater focus on mood/setting) that focus wavers a bit.

The speculative twist is one many will see coming - but that doesn't dilute the feeling of loss that pervaded the last few pages. That the scenes that unfolded had an emotional impact, even if I was expecting their occurence, is a testament to the fact that in the space of a few pages, the story had created in me empathy for the characters.

I was surprised though that the POV character never engaged in a what if rumination about what would have happened if he had taken up his brothers offer. Hey, a Watcher cameo would have fit in with the theme :)

BookRix - Embedding Books?

Alright, I still need to do the due diligence (legal-ese for making sure something that a client is buying is up to snuff/ has no hidden pitfalls) on this site, but if it is what it says it is, then this looks to be a very, very interesting new way to market books/stories. (Ah, serendipity... how I love thee.)

At the Tools of Change for Publishing Community, I ran into a post advertising a site called BookRix which dubs itself as "an internet portal and the first book community where anyone can place their own books, short stories, poems etc. to be promoted on the web, just like a published piece."

OK, nothing special so far - just another manuscript display/peer critiquing site right? Writer Beware Blogs has an article to that effect. It's not the "put your unpublished works up here and be discovered" part that intrigues me: it's the fact that, from the looks of things, the site allows you to create something akin to a widget in the form of a picture of the title page of the story which, when clicked, opens up a new window that allows a user to read the story using an interface that tries to emulate a physical book. This can then apparently be embeded in websites/social networking pages and spread in that manner.

Haven't given it a whirl yet, but I just might to see how it goes. No analysis of the terms and conditions yet as they are particularly obtuse (the site originated from Germany I think and the terms were translated awkwardly.)