Coffeespoons

The ambassador with some of his Czech scifi books. On January 23, I trooped to Uno Morato for a meeting with the Czech ambassador to the Philippines, his Excellency  Jaroslav Olša, Jr. , not to discuss matters of state, but to meet a him as a lover and reader of science fiction, too. I am hardly what you'd call extremely versed in scifi. My SF&F phase reached its bloom in my late teens, so I am merely a dabbler now. But when Paolo Chikiamco --speculative fiction writer, founder of Studio Salimbal , and friend--invited me, I was not going to say no. The Czech ambassador, his Excellency Olša, arrived at Uno Morato in a flurry, carrying plastic and paper bags with books. He was exuberant, interested, and interesting. He stumped us by revealing knowledge of Filipino sci-fi authors whom we had not heard of or barely knew. He wrote about Philippine scifi in Locus Magazine . He brought some old Filipino sci-fi books. He brought Czech sci-fi books, some of them extremely love...

Aren't the covers pretty? There, I've been wanting to put these covers side by side and post them online for the past few weeks. These are the covers for the ebook editions of Philippine Speculative Fiction (PSF), Vols. 1-4. And yes, we published them. The ebook editions, I mean, as the print ones were independently published by Dean Alfar and company since 2005. The covers were made by our production editor, Adam David , and our artist, Lester Banzuelo (better known to others as the drummer of Fuseboxx . Yeah, we cool like that. Or, at least, he is.). I remember passing by Adam and Lester's workstations as I was walking to our office pantry when I had to stop because I saw the covers on their screens. I think they were working on the Vol. 4 cover by then. When I saw the sinister Christmas-y cover, I believe I felt what can only be described as "kilig" (rough English translation: "to be tickled pink"). I would've giggled, but I was trying ha...

I finally read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and finished it in one day. What surprised me about it is how readable it was. I'd heard much praise about the book, but I think I was surprised by its readability because my only exposure, so far, to Kazuo Ishiguro was the movie version of "Remains of the Day." I loved it, but knew it was langurous. Thus, it was pleasant to find out that Never Let Me Go was the kind of book that you wanted to and could finish in a day. So now I can finally watch the movie.:) Never Let Me Go is the story of three friends, Kathy, Tommy, and Ruth, who grew up in Hailsham, a boardinghouse in England. There, they spent an idyllic childhood under firm but kind guardians. They were taught to create art and value each other's creations. Yet, Hailsham students are different from the rest of humanity. As this was mentioned in the movie trailer, hinted at from the very beginning of the book, and revealed in full by the first quarte...

If you liked the book and don't want to read a rant, then don't read this post . If you're curious or are aching to share your rants about Mockingjay , too, then by all means, go ahead. You, however, have been warned. Oh, one other thing--this review has spoilers. Just so you know... I am a fan of Suzanne Collins, based on the strength of Hunger Games and Catching Fire . My review of Hunger Games says as much. And though I liked the first book better, Catching Fire was a pretty decent sequel that actually upped the stakes of the first book. So it's no surprise that I, along with millions of other fans, was counting the days till the third book came out. I did the fan thing--pre-ordered it from our local bookstore, NBS , because if you did, you got a free t-shirt to go along with it. Then, when Blooey invited me to be one of the panelists for the book discussion at the Mockingjay Launch Party, of course I said yes! After all, I owe the good people of Scholasti...

The Chaos Walking trilogy, of which Monsters of Men is the third book, is the best contemporary young adult series I've ever read. Ever. By contemporary YA, I mean anything published in the last 50-odd years, because I still have some loyalty to dear old Aslan and his crew. However, of all the YA I've read published in the last 54 years, the Chaos Walking trilogy is, far and away, the best of the lot. Better than Harry Potter? Yes. Better than The Dark Materials? Yes. Better than the Twilight series? God, yes! Better than Hunger Game s? Yes. Yes. Yes. (And I say this as one who really loves The Hunger Games .) And, Gaiman, I love you, but this beats your YA books, too. What makes this series so great? Three simple things: Relevant themes, fantastic storytelling, and outstanding writing. Monsters of Men is the last book in Chaos Walking . The first book, The Knife of Never Letting Go ,  made it to last year's list of my 10 best reads . The second boo...

Read: 4/21/09 3/5 stars Uglies is the first book in the much talked-about series by Scott Westerfield. It's set in a distant future where society is segregated according to how one looks. Once a child goes through puberty and the awkward physical changes it brings about, he/she is designated as an Ugly and gets to live in Ugly Town. At age 18, everyone goes through an operation that transforms them into a Pretty, after which they live in New Pretty Town, where life is one big party. Then, of course, there are the Middle Pretties and the Old Pretties, usually called the Crumblies. My apologies to those who liked the book, but I could've gagged just because of the names. It seems as if the whole society was ruled by teenage airheads who decided to give places and groups in their society cute-sy nicknames. It was just hard for me to swallow that humanity degenerates into that kind vapidness, especially if it was supposedly ruled by highly intelligent individuals called Specials. G...