2152 – Strange Horizons special issue focused on SF&F in Southeast Asia (29 Aug 2022)

Southeast Asia is an immense region with diverse cultures, traditions, and mythologies. It has witnessed trade, migration, wars, and occupation. Right from the very beginning, Southeast Asia was known as a destination for trade in ancient Greek sources, right up to the detailed texts by Chinese writers. With trade came the exchange and cross-fertilisation of ideas and belief systems. There is so much beauty and joy as well as stark horror. The glorious architecture of Angkor Wat, the outpouring of religious stories and texts like the Ramayana, the intermarriages of ethnicity and culture. The horrors of the Japanese Occupation in World War II and the Khmer Rouge, the terror of the Vietnam War have left an indelible imprint in the collective psyche and memory of Southeast Asian people.

Indeed, Southeast Asia is a diverse region with diverse cultures, traditions, mythologies, and stories. Hantu, preta, wandering wild spirits, monsters, nagas, Barong—all the stories that keep generations of children and adults awake at night.

And with its diversity comes the amazing (and delicious range of) food. Most of Southeast Asian cuisine—no doubt, deeply influenced by trade—are spicy or packed full of spice. In fact, the Portuguese, Dutch, and English fought bitterly over spice and their actions irrevocably changed Southeast Asian history forever. (A Song to the Sea: An Editorial by Joyce Chng, Jayme Goh, May Chong)

There are so many goodies in this issue, it makes it so hard to gobble down. Anyway keep it bookmarked for later. I recommend starting with:

A Spicepunk Manifesto: Towards a Critical Movement of Southeast Asian Heritage-Based SFF by Ng Yi-Sheng

Nevertheless here’s the whole gamut:

Lay My Stomach On Your Scales 

By: Wen-yi Lee

Clockwork Bayani 

By: EK Gonzales
Art by: Gianne Encarnacion

Obsolesce 

By: Nadine Aurora Tabing

Wok Hei St 

By: Guan Un

Her Merciful Components 

By: JV Choong

Declaration 

By: Cheng Him

Aswang Paces Outside of Kaiser Permanente Hospital 

By: Rachelle Cruz

Call out my name 

By: Jeff William Acosta

Song 

By: Yee Heng Yeh

field notes from an investigation into the self 

By: Max Pasakorn

The Human Frontier 

By: Stephani Soejono

when a kingdom falls/shakti’s kisses 

By: Votey Cheav

red 

By: Natalie Wang

Monday: Princess Murders the Hero by Makapatag 

By: Kyle Tam

Lion City on Goodreads

1871 – Edge of the World (2021)

spacetime coordinates: Borneo in 1839

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Edge of the World is an adventure drama film directed by Michael Haussman and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the British soldier and adventurer James Brooke (1803-1868). Edge of the World is a co-production between the US, the UK, Malaysia, and China. (wiki)

imdb

1672 – Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World by Jörg Matthias Determann (2020 book)

The Muslim world is not commonly associated with science fiction. Religion and repression have often been blamed for a perceived lack of creativity, imagination and future-oriented thought. However, even the most authoritarian Muslim-majority countries have produced highly imaginative accounts on one of the frontiers of knowledge: astrobiology, or the study of life in the universe.

This book argues that the Islamic tradition has been generally supportive of conceptions of extra-terrestrial life, and in this engaging account, Jörg Matthias Determann provides a survey of Arabic, Bengali, Malay, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu texts and films, to show how scientists and artists in and from Muslim-majority countries have been at the forefront of the exciting search. Determann takes us to little-known dimensions of Muslim culture and religion, such as wildly popular adaptations of Star Wars and mysterious movements centred on UFOs. Repression is shown to have helped science fiction more than hurt it, with censorship encouraging authors to disguise criticism of contemporary politics by setting plots in future times and on distant planets. The book will be insightful for anyone looking to explore the science, culture and politics of the Muslim world and asks what the discovery of extra-terrestrial life would mean for one of the greatest faiths.

goodreads

Jörg Matthias Determann TW / academia.edu

623 – Contagion (2011)

Contagion is a 2011 U.S. medical thriller-disaster film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and Jennifer Ehle. The plot of Contagion documents the spread of a virus transmitted by fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and finally the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. To follow several interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative “hyperlink cinema” style, popularized in several of Soderbergh’s films.

H1N1

Steven Soderbergh was motivated to make an “ultra-realistic” film about the public health and scientific response to a pandemic. The movie touches on a variety of themes, including the factors which drive mass panic and collapse of social order, the scientific process for characterizing and containing a novel pathogen, balancing personal motives against professional responsibilities and rules in the face of an existential threat, the limitations and consequences of public health responses, and the pervasiveness of interpersonal connections which can serve as vectors to spread disease. Soderbergh acknowledged the salience of these post-apocalyptic themes is heightened by reactions to the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. The movie was intended to realistically convey the “intense” and “unnerving” social and scientific reactions to a pandemic. The recent real-life epidemics such as the 2003 SARS epidemic and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1) have been inspirations and influences in the film. The chain of contagion involving bats and pigs is reminiscent of the trail of the Nipah virus (which infects cells in the respiratory and nervous systems, the same cells as the virus in the movie) that originated in Malaysia in 1997, which similarly involved the disturbance of a bat colony by deforestation. (read more – themes – wiki)

imdb

Macau

0585 – Uncharted

Sic Parvis Magna

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Uncharted is an action-adventure third-person shooter platform video game series developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation consoles. The series follows protagonist Nathan “Nate” Drake(portrayed by Nolan North through voice and motion capture) a charismatic yet obsessive treasure hunter who journeys across the world to uncover various historical mysteries. The main series began with Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune released on the PlayStation 3 in 2007, followed by its sequels Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (2009), Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception (2011), with the final installment Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End released on the PlayStation 4 in 2016. A prequel, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, was released for Sony’s PlayStation Vita handheld system in 2011, followed by the card game spin-off Uncharted: Fight for Fortune in 2012. A standalone expansion to the series, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, was released in 2017, with Chloe Frazer as the game’s playable protagonist.

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Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune Full Gameplay Walkthrough

Uncharted 2 Among Thieves Full Gameplay Walkthrough

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception Full Gameplay Walkthrough

Uncharted 4 A Thief’s End Walkthrough

UNCHARTED: The Lost Legacy Full GAME Walkthrough

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Film adaptation

http://uncharted.wikia.com/wiki/Uncharted_Wiki