Love, hate, or indifference

Buddhist temple, Kek Lok Si (credit Daphne Lee)

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho.
Macmillan, 2021.

“She wasn’t Malaysian or American. Just as she wasn’t straight but she definitely wasn’t gay, if anyone was asking. She wasn’t her family’s Min, but she wasn’t the Jess who’d had a life under that name, before her dad had gotten sick. […] She was a walking nothing—a hole in the universe, perfect for letting the dead through.”

Chapter 17

Jessamyn Teoh accompanies her parents from the US back to Penang in Malaysia, a country she barely remembers. So it’s a shock for her to hear a very opinionated voice in her head claiming to be the ghost of Ah Ma, her maternal grandmother.

First shock over, Jess discovers Ah Ma had fallen out with Jess’s mother, and it’s something to do with Ah Ma having been a medium for a powerful local deity called Black Water Sister, named from a neighbouring locale. The third shock comes when she realises that Ah Ma, now a spirit herself, wants Jess to stop Black Water Sister’s shrine being developed by a powerful gang boss.

Jess – or Min, to use her Malaysian Chinese name – is therefore placed in a very difficult position, having to balance demands from all fronts – her parents, her secret girlfriend Sharanya, her relatives, her grandmother’s ghost, the boss, his gangsters, the boss’s son, construction workers, assorted gods and ghosts including, of course, the enraged Black Water Sister herself. What’s a girl to do?

#WitchWeek2022 wrap-up, plus …

#WitchWeek2022

Well, that’s it for 2022, our Witch Week exploration of fantasy offerings from around the world! As promised we travelled from the New World to the Old, from East to West, and across six of the inhabited continents in our quest to celebrate polychromancy. We hope you enjoyed the ride!

#WitchWeek2022 Day 6: Around the World

© C A Lovegrove

Around the World of Fantasy in 8.0 Books, by Lizzie Ross

Chris and I had an empty slot in this year’s Witch Week roster, so the two of us arm-wrestled virtually, best two-out-of-three, for the privilege of writing ANOTHER post.

I won, to Chris’s relief, as he’s been busy with all kinds of musical performances (come to think of it, I didn’t even break a sweat during our contest – I think I’ve been had).

Anyway, I now give you a mini fantasy-world-tour, via my bookshelves. It’ll be a quick trip, along the lines of “If it’s Tuesday, this must be Belgium”, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.

#WitchWeek2022 Day 5: Persian fantasy in Hindi literature

Chandrakanta cover

Chandrakanta: Bringing Persian Fantasy into Hindi Literature by Mallika Ramachamdran

A beautiful princess, a brave prince, scheming villains, battles, masters (and mistresses) of disguise and of every ruse and stratagem, enchanted mazes, and magic—this is the world that Devaki Nandan Khatri’s Chandrakanta wafts us off to.

Published in 1888, Chandrakanta was a milestone of sorts in Hindi literature, for while its author Devaki Nandan Khatri was fluent in various languages including Hindi, Persian, and Urdu besides Sanskrit and English, he chose to write the book in everyday, colloquial Hindi, making it accessible to a wider readership.

But more than just language, the novel, based on the Persian–Arabic dastan (story telling/ornate oral history) tradition but Indianizing and naturalizing it, is credited with introducing such Persian literary elements as aiyaars and tilisms to Hindi literature.

#WitchWeek2022 Day 4: The World of ‘Black Water Sister’

Ace Books edition 2021

Lizzie: Hi everyone! Welcome to our Read-along Discussion of Zen Cho’s 2021 fantasy novel, Black Water Sister. Chris and I were thrilled to have so many participants this year, and we hope you’ll join with some comments of your own after you’ve read this. This has been edited down, for length and clarity, but if you’re interested in reading the full discussion (with illustrations that Daphne provided), you can find that document here.

Participants were Chris, Lizzie (Lizzie Ross, writer), Lory Hess (Entering the Enchanted Castle), Jean Leek (Howling Frog Books), Mallika Ramachandran (Literary Potpourri), and Daphne Lee (Daphne Lee). To help you keep track of who’s “speaking”, each participant has been given a different color: Lizzie (black) – Jean (green) – Lory (blue) – Chris (red) – Daphne (orange) – Mallika (purple).

Note: In the WordPress Reader contributions may appear in monochrome.)

#WitchWeek2022 Day 3: Indigenous Futurism

Bunny Pierce Huffman design deposited in a Santa Fe, New Mexico museum.

by Lizzie Ross

Rebecca Roanhorse, quoted in a 2020 New York Times article, said, “We’ve already survived an apocalypse.” The “we” here refers to the Native American, First Nation and indigenous civilizations of North, Central, and South America, who were nearly wiped out as a result of European colonization.

For Roanhorse, it’s no surprise that authors from indigenous backgrounds would find a comfortable home in fantasy and science fiction genres, creating worlds newly invaded by monsters from native mythologies—monsters brought to life as a consequence of ecological, economic, and/or geopolitical disasters caused by white people.

These authors, tired of stories that wallow in past defeats, show us native communities that are strong, thriving entities, working to maintain their languages and cultures despite efforts to erase them completely.

#WitchWeek2022 Day 2: Travellers in Wallachia

Chris Lovegrove

The Deathless Girls
by Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
Bellatrix / Orion Children’s Books, 2020 (2019).

In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, they threw no shadow on the floor. […]

Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires.

‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker, chapter 3.

Marginalised for centuries in Europe, the Roma or Romani – here called Travellers – are known from linguistic and genetic evidence to have originated in northern India. Seen as entertainers and fortune-tellers by settled populations, they have been feared and abused for both their visible differences and their nomadic life.

And so it is that in eastern Europe Romani twins Lil and Kizzy, at some indeterminate time between the 14th and 19th century, find their encampment attacked and their people either trapped and burnt to death or captured by a boyar’s soldiers. Unbeknown to them their ultimate destination will be a castle in Wallachia, Romania, but in the meantime their main concerns will be to stay alive and to punish their persecutors.

Knowing that Kiran Millwood Hargrave drew one of her themes from Stoker’s Dracula, we can guess where the title may possibly lead us, but The Deathless Girls aims to be much more than simply another ghoulish Gothic tale. As the narrator Lillai tells us, “a vampire cannot love, only thirst,” yet the novel aims to explore other issues including prejudice, cruelty, power, carnal love, familial ties and, inevitably, damnation.

#WitchWeek2022 Day 1: The Mambabarang

Locusta migratoria manilensis, the migratory locust (Wikipedia commons)

by Daphne Lee

I’ve chosen to write about two books by a Filipino author, Joel Donato Ching Jacob, which I edited for Scholastic Asia. They are the first two in a trilogy set in what is now known as the Philippines. The era is pre-colonial (before 1521, which was the year Ferdinand Magellan came to the islands in 1521 and claimed it as a colony for the Spanish Empire) and, as such, pre-Christian/Roman Catholic, steeped in indigenous mysticism and animist lore. It is an imagined world, based on fact, the society feudal and ruled by the Maginoo class.

The first book, Wing of the Locust, introduces Tuan, a young man of the slave class, who is chosen to be apprentice to the barangay (akin to a borough or district) mambabarang, a healer, diplomat, spy, and assassin.

Because he has always been treated as an outcast, Tuan initially embraces his new role as an opportunity to improve his social standing and gain power over those who shunned him when he was a weak, awkward youth. Nevertheless, he soon finds himself wrestling with his conscience over the dubious morality of a mambabarang’s duties, while reeling in horror at the extent of the personal sacrifices that must be made to master the craft.

But it is only when Tuan reconnects with his childhood playmates, Liksi and Gilas, that he is forced to seriously consider the implications of his newfound status and power. And when his friends’ lives are threatened, Tuan must quickly decide if saving those he loves is worth the loss of his humanity.

#WitchWeek2022 begins: Polychromancy

#WitchWeek2022

Welcome to this year’s Witch Week event! The brainchild of Lory, of Entering the Enchanted Castle, it runs from Halloween on 31st October to Bonfire Night, 5th November. Co-host Lizzie Ross, writer and I aim to celebrate fantasy books and authors during the week designated by Diana Wynne Jones – in her fantasy called, of course, Witch Week – as “a time when anything can happen.”

This year’s theme is Polychromancy, a word concocted via Greek from polychromos (‘many-colours’) and manteia (‘divination’) to suggest a focus on fantasy/sci-fi by authors from diverse backgrounds. The idea is to explore the work of SFF authors who identify as or celebrate Black, Asian, Indigenous, or people of specific ethnicities such as Roma – or indeed who claim a multiethnic ancestry.

The schedule, below, includes a readalong that complements our theme: Black Water Sister by Zen Cho, a Malaysian author based in the UK. A number of bloggers have already conducted an online discussion of this, but please feel free to comment on the conversation we had.

Looking ahead a bit

#WitchWeek2022

The days are getting shorter and the nights … well, longer, and my thoughts are heading towards considering what to read as the dark gathers outside the window. Of course there is Annabel’s readalong of The Dark is Rising sequence which is due to take us up to midwinter, but what else beckons?

So, there’s Witch Week 2022, an annual meme run by Lizzie Ross and myself, focused on fantasy themes that suit the period between Halloween and Bonfire Night. This year highlights Polychromancy, a theme looking at fiction related to diverse cultures and stories, and runs till 6th November after the schedule of posts is revealed on 30th October. The featured book is Black Water Sister by Zen Cho.

#NovNov22 746books.com bookishbeck.wordpress.com

1st November also sees the start of Novellas in November run by Cathy at 746books.com and Rebecca at BookishBeck.wordpress.com. They’re basing their weekly schedules on four headings – short classics, novellas in translation, short nonfiction, and contemporary novellas – and I’m considering possible titles to read and review through the month, all chosen from books I already have on my shelves. Of course I reserve the right to change my mind at the last minute!

• Short Classics:
Good Morning Midnight (Jean Rhys) OR
Orlando (Virginia Woolf)

• Novellas in Translation:
Strait is the Gate (André Gide)
OR By Night in Chile (Roberto Bolaño)
OR Chronicle of a Death Foretold (Gabriel García Márquez).

• Short Non-Fiction:
We the People (Timothy Garton Ash)
OR The Viceroy of Ouidah (Bruce Chatwin).

• Contemporary Novellas:
The Lost Daughter (Elena Ferrante)
OR Ghost Wall (Sarah Moss).

@SciFiMonth

November is also when SciFiMonth (curated by Imyril at https://onemore.org and a couple of other bloggers) reaches its tenth anniversary. I’m generally on the periphery of bloggers marking the annual event but I shall attempt to read one or two titles at some stage during the month.

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So that’s me. Are you planning to join any of these events? Have you read any of the novellas mentioned? Pray tell!

Polychromancy #WitchWeek2022

#WitchWeek2022. Design after artwork by Bunny Pierce Huffman

In much of the inhabited world (90% of the global population lives in the northern hemisphere) the start of September marks the beginning of meteorological autumn, the season when our thoughts may turn to shorter days, colder temperatures and things sempiternally supernatural.

In just a few fortnights’ time Lizzie Ross and I will be celebrating another Witch Week, an event inaugurated by Lory Hess and inspired by fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones’s novel of the same name.

This year’s theme is Polychromancy, a word concocted via Greek polychromos (‘many-colours’) and manteia (‘divination’) to suggest a focus on fantasy/sci-fi by authors from diverse backgrounds. The idea is to explore the work of SFF authors who identify as Black, Asian, Indigenous, or other colours and ethnicities such as Roma – or indeed who claim a multiethnic ancestry.

#WitchWeek2021: wrap-up and 2022 theme

So, Witch Week 2021 has come to its end — hopefully with a bang and not a whimper! For the last few days we’ve put Treason and Plot under the spotlight as manifested in fantasy fiction, tales of adventure in settings both classical and modern, and in Shakespearean drama. Hosts and guests alike hope you’ve been mightily entertained, perhaps even shaken and stirred!

Co-hosts Lizzie and Chris are grateful for the help of everyone who participated:

• Lory of Entering the Enchanted Castle, who waxed lyrical about the work of Megan Whalen Turner;
• Jean of Howling Frog Books, for introducing us to an almost forgotten children’s adventure series written by John Verney;
• Ola and Piotrek, of Re-Enchantment of the World, whose enthusiasm for the late Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles shines through in their post;
• I can’t not include Lizzie of Lizzie Ross, Writer herself who has not only shared in preparations and contributed a post but has also edited down our Tempest discussion for posting;
• Citizens of the social media world, too numerous to mention, who added comments and questions; who may have tweeted/Facebooked/Instragrammed links to our posts; and who included pingbacks, links, and reviews on their own blogs;
• Readers around the globe who’ve viewed posts or even just ‘liked’ them!

And, finally, once again, a special nod of appreciation to Lory, who seven years ago started this annual celebration of Diana Wynne Jones and fantasy fiction. The first wonderful series of Witch Weeks appeared on Lory’s former blog, the Emerald City Book Review, between 2014 and 2017; since she’s moved to her new website they may be available if you search its archive:

Witch Week 2017: Dreams of Arthur
Witch Week 2016: Made in America
Witch Week 2015: New Tales from Old
Witch Week 2014: Diana Wynne Jones

But she was brave enough to let Lizzie and myself take over, which we’ve now done for *checks records* the last four years. Here are links to our previous posts:

Witch Week 2020: Gothick
Witch Week 2019: Villains
Witch Week 2018: Fantasy & Feminism

Thanks again to all of you for sharing this event with us, and we hope you’ll rejoin us here next year, when our theme will be … Polychromancy.

We can imagine the look of puzzlement on your faces! What’s Polychromancy?! To get an inkling of the basic premise of this theme do have a look at this review of Maria Sachiko Cecire’s Re-Enchanted which investigates the disproportionate dominance of white writers in fantasy; as for what to expect next year, watch this space!

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Did you manage to read anything related to our theme during this Witch Week? Feel free to share in the comments below if you did! 🙂

#WitchWeek2021 Day 6: Unhinged Fun

Cover illustration by John Verney

Jean, our final guest for this year’s Witch Week, draws our attention to a neglected children’s novel where treason and plot are the main drivers of the narrative, a great instalment for Bonfire Night

John Verney’s Friday’s Tunnel
by Jean Ping

John Verney’s stories are more like Tintin adventures than anything else I have ever read, short of actual Tintin adventures. I have read four, all centered on the Callendar family of Sussex, and they are all stuffed with fantastical schemes, suspicious characters, and strange coincidences. Friday’s Tunnel is the first, published in 1959.

February Callendar, aged 13, is the second of the many Callendar children, and she is the narrator. Summer holidays have only barely begun — Friday, the oldest, can’t wait to continue his ongoing project of digging a tunnel in the hill at the back of the garden, and February cares only for riding her Shetland pony — but their father spoils the fun by announcing that he has to go off to the Mediterranean right away.

He’s a newspaper journalist and an authority on the tiny island of Capria, and the news says that there’s a coup underway; but he’s sure that there isn’t, and that he’s needed to save the situation before the Americans and the Russians each swoop in to grab the newly-discovered, and very valuable and mysterious, mineral — caprium. There is quite a lot of treason and plot going on, but on the part of whom?

#WitchWeek2021 Day 5: Power and revenge

Wenceslas Hollar: The sword of Damocles

Witch Week co-host Lizzie considers two fantasies in which treason and plot figure as a main trigger for the action.

Heavy Lies the Crown
Lizzie Ross

I’m convinced that plotting is a common, often unconscious, human behavior against those in charge. Events akin to Antonio’s coup and Prospero’s later revenge happen to or are witnessed by anyone who has ever worked within a group – business, school, hospital, co-op board – although perhaps with fewer magical aides. Gossip during the office coffee break is but a form of plotting against the powerful, whether it be the CEO or the person with the key to the copy machine. After-work grumbles at the bar with a few colleagues slides easily into treasonous murmurs that could result in someone being deposed. Perhaps this is why we so enjoy tales of mutiny, rebellion, betrayal, treason.

Add royalty, and you’ve got yourself a story that could fly. Rulers live under the constant threat of their own violent death. Surrounded by secrets and lies, a ruler can’t help but wonder what a courtier, advisor, ambassador, minor aristocrat, bored guard, or miffed servant might be planning. Prospero, busy with his books, was spared this concern, but he’s a rarity, and he was lucky to have survived his own downfall.

Which brings me to today’s set of fantasy books, two novels about seditious plots to murder rulers and gain ultimate power. 

#WitchWeek2021 Day 4: Subtle architecture

‘The Lady of Shalott’ by William Holman Hunt (completed 1905) ‘”I am half sick of Shadows,” said The Lady of Shalott.’

Bloggers Ola and Piotrek have a conversation about a major fantasy series they deem to be worth a second look

Roger Zelazny’s Chronicles of Amber: the Subtle Architecture of Treason
Piotrek and Ola

Piotrek: We chose Roger Zelazny’s The Chronicles of Amber as our topic for this years Witch Week for two reasons: first, Zelazny’s untimely death in 1996 caused a curious silence around his works, so that he’s no longer a well-known author and his novels have been slowly sliding into oblivion in recent years. He remains an author’s author, mentioned here and there by the new generations as a source of inspiration, but in our opinion he deserves wider recognition. Secondly, The Chronicles of Amber, a series of ten books that can safely be classified as fantasy, though discussions can be had whether it’s epic or urban, or something else altogether, is a wondrously complex latticework of betrayal, double dealing, plots within plots, lethal mysteries and hard-bitten protagonists somewhere between noir detectives and medieval knights.

Ola: Well, there’s a third reason. Both Piotrek and I love Amber, and needed little excuse to return to this fantastic world 😉. Zelazny’s a great author in general, though uneven at times. But his best works are among the best the genre has to offer, and even his mediocre ones boast of unique imagination, propensity for audacious literary experimentation, and sensitivity to language that’s at once precious and highly uncommon. Incidentally, a novel perfect for a Halloween reading, and also containing a lot of treason, backstabbing, and plots to conquer the world, is his A Night in the Lonesome October.

Piotrek: Amber has always been in my top4 of genre literature, with LotR, Dune and Foundation. Among these, Zelazny’s masterpiece is sadly neglected. No pretty hardcover editions, no adaptations … even Foundation is getting one, and it is something rather difficult to adapt — we’ll see how they managed, there are some early voices it’s not a very faithful one. Amber would be just as hard, but what wouldn’t be hard is getting someone to illustrate it and then publishing a new two-volume edition…

So, I think we’ll start with a few spoiler-free paragraphs to introduce the series, and then proceed to all the treachery and stuff. Avoiding spoilers isn’t easy here, as the first novel starts with the main protagonist waking up with amnesia, and the readers learn everything together with him. From the title (Nine Princes in Amber) you know there’s an Amber, and there are princes, but you find yourself reading about a guy on Earth, in a hospital after some accident.