#S.P. Somtow

[spookyreader23]

My books for the month of April. This month I read "The Whispering Dead" by Darcy Coates and "The Crow: Temple of the Night" by S.P. Somtow. "The Whispering Dead" is the first book of the Gravekeeper series and now I need to get the rest of the series 'cause I need to know what happens next. Haven't read a good paranormal series in a long time so this filled that spot. "The Crow: Temple of the Night" is a spin off story of The Crow by James O'Barr. There's a only few spin off novels of The Crow and I was able to find this copy on Ebay. I need to track down the other books 'cause I want to read more stories related to The Crow lore.

[dasenergi-diary]

I don't know about other 50+ year olds, but there are parts of my life that I have completely forgotten about until something reminds me.

For over a decade there has been absolutely no one in my life to talk about books with. And now I have this brand new friend named @teenakp who has reawakened that part of me. It feels SO GOOD to talk books with someone. That part of me has been neglected for so long.

I was a librarian for 11 years! I loved reading since childhood. When I got my drivers license at 16, the first place I drove to by myself was the library. And my first job after high school was putting book away in the library.

As a Librarian, I was in charge of the teen (YA) services. I quickly became kind of a big deal. I spoke to the California State Assembly about teen library services. I gave workshops at Library conferences (ALA and CLA). I was interviewed by the School Library Journal about Teen Advisory Boards and our teen activities (a literary magazine, library sleepovers, and more). And many other activities.

I was also in charge of getting authors to speak at our library.

One author who came to speak at our library was S.P. Somtow. We became friendly and about a year later the author S.P. Somtow presided over the marriage of me and my wife (who was also a librarian) in the library surrounded by books. An author marrying two librarians in a library. As a wedding gift, S.P. Somtow used our names as characters in one of his books!

Two other authors I became friendly with are Will Shetterly and Emma Bull. They also came out to the library for a reading. One of my favorite memories - the wife and I went to a reading by Will Shetterly when his book "Dogland" was released. (I believe it was at Dark Delicacies in Burbank.) And S.P. Somtow happened to be there too! So after the reading, Will Shetterly, Emma Bull, S.P. Somtow, and my wife and I all went out to dinner together at a Thai food restaurant. Somtow did all of the ordering (he's from Thailand). It was a feast!

I tried to get Tim Powers to speak at the library. It didn't happen. But I did build a friendship with him. We were all part of a small group of fans in Southern California, and we hung-out several times with him and his wife Serena. (I also got to meet James Blaylock at one the gatherings.) Tim and Serena are great conversationalists with so many stories to tell. (Tim and Philip K. DIck were great friends, so I heard a lot about PKD.) And Tim would always work the room to make sure everyone got some personal time with him.

Another author I got to know and spend time with is Karen E. Taylor. We were actually LiveJournal friends back in the day. She invited me to her house and that was the first time I ever had German Potato Salad. It was amazing!!! I've tried it a few times since then, and none have tasted as good.

I also met the author Lisa Morton at Karen E. Taylor's house and we hit it off and became LiveJournal friends too. Check out Lisa's Wikipedia for all that she has done. She is amazing and I'm always happy to see her success. Anyhow, Lisa worked at a bookstore in North Hollywood. One day a turtle (not a tortoise) wandered into the bookstore from the street. It lived in her bathtub for a short while until I could get over there and take it off her hands. That was 2007. And we still have the turtle!

Of course I've met other authors like Ray Bradbury and Neil Gaiman. But the ones I mentioned here are the only ones I've had brief friendships with as a librarian.

[xstardustgirlx]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Strange Attraction Lisa Snellings 1st Edition Signed by all, 85 of 500.

[nana-clodo]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: 🔴 15/$25. ~The Riverrun Trilogy by S.P. Somtow.

[linneatanner]

S.P. Somtow IMPERATRIX #HistoricalFiction #AncientRome #LGBTQ+ #BlogTour #TheCoffeePotBookClub @somtow @cathiedunn     

FEATURED AUTHOR: S. P. SOMTOW I’m delighted to welcome S.P. Somtow as the featured author in The Coffee Pot Book Club Blog Tour held January 31st - February 2nd, 2024. S.P. Somtow is the author of the Historical Fiction / Ancient World / LGBTQ+ Interest, "IMPERATRIX: The Empress who was once a Slave (Nero and Sporus Series, Book 2), released by Diplodocus Press on 24th December 2023 (276 pages). Below are highlights of IMPERATRIX, S.P. Somtow's author bio, and a snippet from his book. Tour Schedule Page: https://thecoffeepotbookclub.blogspot.com/2024/01/blog-tour-imperatrix-by-sp-somtow.html HIGHLIGHTS: IMPERATRIX   IMPERATRIX: The Empress who was once a Slave (Nero and Sporus Series, Book 2) By S.P. Somtow Blurb: Captured by pirates and sold to a Roman aristocrat as a sex slave, Sporus attracted the attention of no less a personage than the Emperor Nero, ruler of the known world. Would-be poet, patron of the arts, aesthete, and brutal autocrat, the Divine Nero saw in the boy a startling resemblance to the Empress Poppaea - and made him an empress as well. Suetonius, Tacitus, and other Roman historians have given tantalizing glimpses into the incredible life story of the boy who became twice an empress to two emperors, and was condemned to die in the arena by a third. In this meticulously researched trilogy World Fantasy, award-winning author S.P. Somtow lays bare the darkest secrets of Imperial Rome - its triumphs and its nadirs, its beauty, and its cruelty. Through this chaos, a contorted mirror of our contemporary world, this figure of Sporus moves, all too knowing yet all too innocent, providing a worm's eye view of one of the wildest periods in ancient history. Imperatrix, the second volume of the tale, takes us into the heart of the Imperial palace with all its intrigue, depravity, and splendor. Buy Links: This title is available to read on #KindleUnlimited. Universal Buy Link: https://books2read.com/u/mV2EaJ AUTHOR BIO: S. P. SOMTOW   Once referred to by the International Herald Tribune as 'the most well-known expatriate Thai in the world,' Somtow Sucharitkul is no longer an expatriate, since he has returned to Thailand after five decades of wandering the world. He is best known as an award-winning novelist and a composer of operas. Born in Bangkok, Somtow grew up in Europe and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. His first career was in music, and in the 1970s, upon his first return to Asia, he acquired a reputation as a revolutionary composer, the first to combine Thai and Western instruments in radical new sonorities. Conditions in the arts in the region at the time proved so traumatic for the young composer that he suffered a major burnout, emigrated to the United States, and reinvented himself as a novelist. His earliest novels were in the science fiction field, and he soon won the John W. Campbell for Best New Writer as well as being nominated for and winning numerous other awards in the field. But science fiction was not able to contain him and he began to cross into other genres. In his 1984 novel Vampire Junction, he injected a new literary inventiveness into the horror genre, in the words of Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, 'skillfully combining the styles of Stephen King, William Burroughs, and the author of the Revelation to John.' Vampire Junction was voted one of the forty all-time greatest horror books by the Horror Writers' Association. In the 1990s Somtow became increasingly identified as a uniquely Asian writer with novels such as the semi-autobiographical Jasmine Nights and a series of stories noted for a peculiarly Asian brand of magic realism, such as Dragon's Fin Soup, which is currently being made into a film directed by Takashi Miike. He recently won the World Fantasy Award, the highest accolade given in the world of fantastic literature, for his novella The Bird Catcher. Returning to Thailand in 2001, he became artistic director of Opera Siam and has had more than a dozen operas produced around the world including The Snow Dragon and The Silent Prince, premiered in the United States, Helena Citronova, an opera set during the Holocaust, and the ten-part DasJati: Ten Lives of the Buddha. In the last few years he has made a return to writing novels with the Nero and Sporus trilogy and the young adult series, Club X. In 2021, the film he produced and wrote, The Maestro: Symphony of Terror, received over forty awards at international festivals, and in 2023, the Thai government officially elevated him to the status of National Artist. Read S.P. Somtow’s interview on Literary Titan about Imperatrix at https://literarytitan.com/2024/01/21/the-core-of-innocence/. Author Links: Website: www.somtow.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/somtow Facebook: www.facebook.com/somtow Instagram: www.instagram.com/somtow Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/s-p-somtow Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APBJXC Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/81037.S_P_Somtow SNIPPET: IMPERATRIX   I had got up from my dining couch and was circulating among other triclinia laid out in the garden, and I heard those exact sentiments from an old drunk man; I recognized him as Pontius Pilatus, and I recognized the stories, too — the orgiastic love-feast cults, the baby-eating and what not — from the last banquet I’d seen the old general at.  But the way he told the stories was more … I would say, more mechanical, like a schoolboy reciting Homer, trying to get through the lines while avoiding the tutor’s quirt. “Ah,” he said, greeting me, “Poppaea.  Or are you Poppaea’s evil twin?  You’ve lost your baby belly.” “Still telling the same tall tales, General,” I said. “But the telling isn’t the same; this time, your tales are literally lighting up the banquet.” “It’s a good thing they’re using the display crosses,” said Pilatus, “so we can get the light without the smell.” A woman sitting next to him said, “And without the guilt, Pontius.” “I daresay if they were marinated in garlic and garum instead of being coated with pitch, the smell would be quite pleasant,” another guest piped up. “The guilt,” the woman said again, grimly lifting a honeyed mouse by the tail and popping it her mouth, then spitting out the tiny bones. “My wife, the Lady Procula,” said Pilatus.  “She used to have nightmares about it.  Now, I have the nightmares.” “Because, my dear,” said the Lady Procula, “you know they don’t actually have baby-eating orgies.” “Blood rites, dear.  They do have blood rites.” “Metaphorical, husband!  They are a completely harmless cult. The Jews don’t worship the Emperor either, and they’re not lighting up his dinner parties.” “They will be soon,” said another voice. Tigellinus, also making the rounds.  “I hear they are revolting again.”   Instagram Handle: @thecoffeepotbookclub       Read the full article

[thecolourofamirror]

[the25centpaperback]

The Darkling Wind by Somtow Sucharitkul, cover by "Graphic Associates" (1985)

In 1985 and 1986 the Bantam Spectra imprint published paperback editions of major SF and fantasy novels (mainly Samuel R. Delaney's) with covers copyrighted to "Graphic Associates." I'm going to hazard a guess that "Graphic Associates" is the Random House art department, because what distinguishes these covers is their utter lack of individual details.

Remarkable Thai-American SF novelist, memoirist, composer and conductor Somtow Sucharitkul writes more recently under the name of S.P. Somtow, although he hasn't written much since the early 2000s as he is currently artistic director of the Bangkok Opera.

[trashmenace]

The Crow: Temple of Night by S.P. Somtow

The Crow: Temple of Night by S.P. Somtow  1999 Harper

Thai-American journalist Stephen Lelliott works on a story about the Thai sex industry, focusing on a young prostitute Dao and her two brothers. Dao is killed by budding serial killer, Embassy nebbish Dirk Temple, followed soon afterwards by Stephen, who rises with the power of the Crow to flip around and get vengeance.

The first half is very slow and hampered by a glaring plot point. Dao's virginity is up for auction, and Stephen gets some cash from his producers to win the auction, with the view of following her from Thailand to her new life in America. But he's not buying out her contract, a fact which everyone seems to be aware. If the plan was to sneak her away from her pimp, he didn't need to pay for her virginity. As it is, he pays the money for nothing while they both act as if the act would free her. Things like this wouldn't bother me when we're dealing with crows bringing people back to life, but this was the only thing going on for the first half of the novel.

Also distracting was Stephen's death, dished out by a child gang shooting him with super soakers loaded with acid so strong it melted him down to the bone and burned a hole through the floor. Things finally start becoming horrific, in the 90s serial killer style of little actual violence, just the aftermath of it in the way of gruesomely displayed bodies. Eyeballs scooped out with spoons, children shoved back in the womb, crucifixions, intestines lining the walls like plumbing, the works.

Stephen comes back as a Crow and takes vengeance on Dirk while protecting his grandmother and Dao's surviving brother from limo chamfered AK-47 wielding goons. This leads to underground sex shows of the social and political elite, who are ripped to shreds by giant murders of crows. Goes so over the top it ends with kaiju size manifestations of cosmic figures fighting over the city.

I'm finally getting into the headspace for the Crow once I figured out how to balance the self-seriousness and the silliness. This one had too little Crow and too much milling around, but it pulled it off by the end. I was expecting Somtow to be more poetic and/or pretentious, but this came out like fairly standard 90s fair.

Paperback from Amazon

[rowellcruzart]

COMMISSION: TIMMY VALENTINE

Timmy Valentine from Vampire Junction by S.P. Somtow. A 12-year-old rock star in the 80's who's secretly a two-thousand-year-old vampire.

Commissions are still open!

[isabelsbookpromotions]

#amreading #FREE: Nirvana Express: Journal of a Very Brief Monkhood by S.P. Somtow

Grab YOUR Copy Here: https://amzn.to/2AxqW6n via @amazon

#BookBoost #mustread #indiepub #booklover #kindle #KindleUnlimited #KindleBooks #KindleFire #kindlebook #KindleBargain #kindlelove #books

[weirdletter]

eTropic: Electronic Journal of Studies in the Tropics, Vol. 18, No. 1: Tropical Gothic. Special issue edited by Anita Lundberg, Katarzyna Ancuta and Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska,  James Cook University Australia & Singapore, 2019. Info and free access: journals.jcu.edu.au.

eTropic publishes new research from Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences and allied fields on the variety and interrelatedness of nature, culture, and society in the tropics. Gothic is resurging in academic and popular cultures. In the tropics, the gothic addresses fraught geographies and histories of colonialism and violence; threats to biodiversity and environments; and the stresses of globalisation and neoliberalism (‘vampire’ capitalism) which impinge upon the livelihoods, traditions and the very survival of peoples of the tropics. Papers engage with Tropical Gothic in West Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Southeast Asia, northern Australia, and the American Deep South.

Contents: Editorial. Tropical Gothic: arts, humanities and social sciences – Anita Lundberg, Katarzyna Ancuta, Agnieszka Stasiewicz-Bieńkowska Gothic "Voodoo" in Africa and Haiti – Eric James Montgomery Gothic Resistances: Flesh, Bones, Ghosts and Time in Vietnamese Postwar Fiction – John Armstrong The Tropical Gothic and Beyond: El Grupo de Cali’s Legacies for Contemporary Latin American Literature, Cinema, and Culture –  Felipe Gómez G. Love, death and laughter in the city of different angels: S.P. Somtow’s Bangkok Gothic – Katarzyna Ancuta Subtropical Gothic: New Orleans and Posthuman Supernaturals in The Originals – Verena Bernardi Hidden Voices and Gothic Undertones: Slavery and Folklore of the American South – Jennifer Dos Reis Dos Santos “The ugliness of my surroundings”: Tip Marugg’s Ecogothic Poetics of Isolation – Daniel Arbino Ruins of Empire: Decolonial Queer Ecologies in Cliff’s No Telephone to Heaven – Gregory Luke Chwala The Haunting Letter: Presence, Absence, and Writing in Sab – Emmy Herland Hinterland Gothic: Subtropical Excess in the Literature of South East Queensland – Emma Doolan In search of a Tropical Gothic in Australian visual arts – Mark Wolff Author Bios

[otherdeb]

Book Review: The Stone Buddha's Tears, by S.P. Somtow

Book Review: The Stone Buddha’s Tears, by S.P. Somtow

I loved this book. Okay, Somtow needs a better proofreader, but when that is the only criticism you can make about a story, that’s a Very Good Thing. From the moment you meet Boy, Nen Lek, Ake, and Sombun you are drawn into a fascinating tale, not only about the people themselves, but about what the intersection of two seemingly unimportant lives can achieve. In his notes at the end of the…

[pezski]

Book Review - Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond, edited by Bill Campbell

In recent years I've been making an effort to read more broadly, and my encounters with Octavia E. Butler, Nnedi Okorafor and N.K. Jemisin have brought me into the sphere of Afrofuturism. I'd been yearning to delve deeper so this seemed the perfect find

I'm aware there is much debate about what exactly Afrofuturism is, and the "and Beyond" of this title should have suggested to me that editor Bill Campbell trawls his net widely; there are the kind of thing that I might have expected (although somehow I expected nothing in particular, and thought myself wide open, clearly I carry the cultural baggage of of a certain age and ethnicity and gender and geography and class and experience, so the stories that showed a standard SF future but with a Afrocentric slant, or some variant from a past less dominated by European colonialism - or simply from a point of view not rooted in that history.

That would have been plenty to both sate and whet my appetite, but there is more here. It is almost misleading to call this anthology Afrofuturism (if that is the use of a fashionable term for attention, it is forgivable); this is a collection of fictions of inclusion, of voices of groups marginalised in art and culture, their voices and viewpoints. This collection is a shining example of the joy of exploration beyond one's usual boundaries. The standard of the stories is superb (not every single one to my taste, for instance the few ultra-shorts, but I am not really a fan of flash-fiction) and there are a handful of tales that took my breath away - those by Victor LaValle, N.K. Jemisin, Ernest Hogan, S.P. Somtow, Junot Díaz - and I'm sure others I'm leaving off- were the highlights.

One of the joys of anthologies is finding writers I may not have otherwise come across, and this has certainly opened my horizons. It is a perfect illustration of two of my favourite quotes:

"Reading is an exercise in empathy; an exercise in walking in someone else's shoes for a while." Malorie Blackman

“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” Neil Gaiman

So read widely. Read people who are not like you. Read people who have different experiences, different histories, different outlooks. Read colour, read gender, read sexuality.

Read difference.

( originally posted at https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2396430194 )

[nana-clodo]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: 🔴15/$25. ~The Riverrun Trilogy by S.P. Somtow.

[samtrapani]

underrated books : moon dance by s.p. somtow

“They’re werewolves, Miss Speranza.” Teddy signaled Victor to shut the back door. He was loading his gun- Speranza caught the glint of silver, shining for a brief moment in the lamplight.

“Ain’t nothing to do but destroy them once and for all. For my Pa- and for Johnny.”

[lesyablackbird]

The Vampire’s Beautiful Daughter by S.P. Somtow

To all my lovely book readers, I wanted to try something. Vampire books have, of course, over saturated YA and other books by now. Most people credit Twilight as their first vampire book. Well, this one was one of mine. What was your introduction?

Reblog with the name of your first vamp book.