Product Description
The eight short stories in this collection are: "Dragon's Fin Soup", "Lottery Night", "The Steel American", "Chui Chai", "The Bird Catcher", "Diamonds Aren't Forever", "Fiddling for Water Buffaloes", and "The Last Time I Died in Venice". ... Read more

Product Description
Featuring the World Fantasy Award Winning story "The Bird Catcher," OTHER EDENS is a collection of five genre-defying novellas by Thai author-composer S.P. Somtow, author of the acclaimed "Jasmine Nights" and "Dragon's Fin Soup."From 1st Century Palestine to the baroque perplexities of the American South and postwar Siam, with characters from the Virgin Mary to a Chinese serial killer, the stories explore the idea of alternate paradises and provide astonishing, sometimes shocking, perspectives about humanity's yearning for a better place. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Five shockers!
Each of these stories breaks some kind of taboo ... sexual, religious, social ... or all three. They will not leave you indifferent ... recommended particularly for the author's uncanny ability to mimic different voices.Should not be read by the overly religious, prudish, or squeamish, or may lead to irritation.The World Fantasy Award is well deserved and long overdue.

Contains World Fantasy Award-winning "The Bird Catcher".
A brilliant collection of five of SP Somtow's most "out-there" novellas.Erotic and disturbing. ... Read more

Product Description

The Eternal One

At our human limits, when we've gone as far as flesh and imagination can take us, meet the Eternal One. The Crow.

His alabaster delicate features tell of his ivory goddess ancestry. Immemorially old, and inconsolable, he is there only for those who seek both revenge and love, and are willing to go all the way--and beyond.

Temple Of Night

Turn-of-the-century Bangkok is a glittering modern city where high-tech industry and ancient mystery meet. It is a powerhouse of international finance by day...and a playground of depravity by night. The Klong Toey shantytowns are home to shadowy erotic emporiums, where millionaire celebrities act out their darkest sexual fantasies, protected by money, influence, and American diplomacy.

Enter a young American journalist, assigned to expose the latest cover-up. Stephen is about to break the two cardinal rules of journalism: Don't fall in love. And don't get killed.... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Sparked an interest in reading again
Being a die hard "Crow" fan I may be biased . However, after reading this book I intend to find and read all of "The Crow " books I can find . This book in particular reaches out and sucks you in . It goes back to that angst avenged that the original had so masterfully put out . It does have certain points ( super powers? ) that may turn off fans of the first movie . But if you can separate the first Crow story from the rest I assure you you will love this book and others in the Crow series.

It Was Alright
I am a big fan of The Crow, so naturally I had to check it out. All in all, it was a good book. Some parts a little grotesque and the ending a little to short, but all in all a good book. It had me intrested in to try out another Crow series book.

What Was I Thinking?
What was I on with my last review for this book?Anyways, being the 4th book so far in the series, it did manage to add some different elements, like past lives and supernatural forces.I liked the fact that Stephen Lelliot could call upon crows to help him in his journey.What I didn't like though was that the action didn't start until 3/4 of the story. That and the end battle was very confusing and what I could understand, there wasn't enough happening. Also, the villian,"Dirk Temple" seemed like a cousin to the bad guy,"Joseph Lethe" in Lazarus Heart.Too many times for that type of character in my honest opinion.Out of all these books so far, Clash By Night is the best one(in my honest opinion).

an alright book
this to me did not seem like a crow book. it was to magical and the crow is only in the book himself for about 15 pages its a alright book but dont read it expecting to see the crow.

Very disappointed
Overall I've enjoyed the storytelling very visual until the end.It just seemed the end was rushed,and was saved for the very last few pages of the book. It left me puzzled I was like "Get out of here, You must be joking all this great storytelling,andit ends in such a tame lame fashion". Did the author have a plane to catch?Too bad all the energy and excitement 3/4 of the book is drained away by the 1/4 ending what a shame. ... Read more

Product Description
The world of speculative fiction is expansive; it covers more than one country, one continent, one culture. Collected here are sixteen stories penned by authors from Thailand, the Philippines, China, Israel, Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, Malaysia, and other countries across the globe. Each one tells a tale breathtakingly vast and varied, whether caught in the ghosts of the past or entangled in a postmodern age.

Among the spirits, technology, and deep recesses of the human mind, stories abound. Kites sail to the stars, technology transcends physics, and wheels cry out in the night. Memories come and go like fading echoes and a train carries its passengers through more than simple space and time. Dark and bright, beautiful and haunting, the stories herein represent speculative fiction from a sampling of the finest authors from around the world.

(Note: Digital edition does not contain the Zoran Zivkovic story) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A fine collection for short fiction fans who need a science fiction fix
Science fiction is about infinite possibilities. "The Apex of World SF" is a collection of stories from Apex Publications featuring some of the best new Science fiction writers to appear on the scene in recent years. Authors from around the world present very different pictures for a wide ranging picture of what has been called "The Apex of World SF" is a fine collection for short fiction fans who need a science fiction fix.

A great collection of out-of-the-ordinary stories
This is an extremely attractive book ... I really liked the cover art on this one. Apex puts out some really good-looking books.

But don't judge a book by its cover of course! If you look inside this one you'll find stories by science fiction writers from places around the world that most fans don't associate with scifi: Thailand, the Netherlands, Israel, China, Fiji, Malaysia, just to name a few.One of my favorites in this book wasAnil Menon's "Into the Night" but all the stories are really good IMO.

These aren't your usual stories and they take you places most SF books don't.So if you're looking for something different definately check this one out!

Stories from all over
The stories are flavorful, some literally - I came away with a strong craving for Thai food from the first.The collection is not strictly SF, some are fantasy, but not science fiction.

My only gripe is the editor's use, or allowance, of the word "whilst".I believe "while" is the modern usage. The old word is just distracting, a bump in the road. ... Read more

Product Description

Every five thousand years, so the people of the planet Thanet believe, the world ends in fire and a new cycle of creation begins. Now the Last Days are once again upon them, and a fiery star draws near. This is the Death-Bringer, the Eater of the World, whose coming heralds the end of all things....

But to Captain Picard and the crew of the Starship Enterprise™; the Death-Bringer appears to be nothing but a rogue comet, easily destroyed. Picard faces a difficult dilemma: how can he save the Thanetians' rich and intricate civilization without destroying the very beliefs upon which their culture is based?

This quandary is challenge enough, yet the captain's position becomes even more complicated when Deanna Troi discovers that, incredibly, the comet is alive! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (28)

Not very good.
This book has a very weak plot, for all that a synopsis of it sounds promising enough. The idea (sister planets engaged in a millennia-old interstellar war, headed towards mutual destruction) isn't very original, the handling of it is pretty shallow and silly, the characterizations are rather two-dimensional and cardboard, the dialogue is bland and stilted, and the ending is contrived. Other than that, it was great!

Sadly, even with all of that, it's far from the WORST Star Trek novel I've ever read, which is why I rounded my 1.5 rating up to two, but seriously, unless you REALLY need a Star Trek fix and there just isn't anything else handy, I wouldn't bother with it.

Oh Boy, A Stinker For Sure
I really do hate writing bad reviews of Trek novels because I love Trek novels so much, but this has to be the worst novel based on Trek that I have ever read. Talk about forced reading, it was a complete struggle just to get through all that I did. Don't expect this to be an astounding story, it definitely isn't.

Boring and uninspired, there are plenty of other Trek novels out there that are A Lot better

By no means an average ST Book
I certainly agree with those who think that this diverges from and doesn't fit in to the ST universe properly ... perhaps largely because a lot of it appears to view ST's preoccupations ironically, and ST fanatics don't seem to share the book's gentle satirical fun at some of ST's stuffier side.But I have to say it has been one of the most enjoyable ST books at all, probably thanks to its distinctive flavor ... somewhat diluted from Somtow's classic sci fi trilogy of the 1980s.

Not THAT bad
This book was a slight disappointment to me because, based on the title and the back-of-the-book synopsis I expected a far more philosophical view at the problem of the day.It turned out however to be quite clear as to what was going to happen as well as what needed to happen.There were no dire consequences to the success of the story.What I mean by this is I was expecting this book to be a "if we don't find a solution there'll be HUGE trouble, if we find a solution there'll still be some trouble."There was also a part near the end where they went trough the holosuite history of a planet that I think lasted entirely too long.I still gave this 3 stars however, because once I was over the fact that it wasn't a philosophical story, I was able to enjoy it for what it was.

Split down the middle.
I've noticed that most of the reviews for this album are either 5 stars or 1...it seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing for most.As for me, I may have a rather unique perspective because I was very much of two minds about it.Since ultimately I chose to purchase and keep it for future re-reading, I rounded my 2.5 rating up to 3 stars (2 and 1 are for items I do not keep).In order to prepare for this review, I found myself keeping a pros-and-cons list so that I could try to accurately report both.I found, though, that on some of the very same points, I would feel one way about it one second and the opposite a moment later!

Perhaps the best thing that Do Comets Dream? had going for it was the rich descriptive prose.I do not always get vivid sensory impressions as I read, but in this case I could certainly envision myself in this colorful world.Similarly, the richness of the culture he devised was quite enticing, and I vastly preferred the scenes that delved into the history of Thanet to those involving the Enterprise crew.The reason for the existence of the thanopstru was certainly an engaging tale, as well as a look into the political machinations of Thanet.

However, I had mixed feelings about the heavy allusions to Earth culture and languages.On one hand, it was rather fascinating to try to pick them all out, but on the other, I also started to see it as a cheap substitute for inventiveness on the author's part.I would have been even more impressed by his inventing his own mythology rather than a retelling (even such a vivid one) of our own histories.Certain parallels were simply TOO close to be believable.For instance, what are the odds of another world developing root words such as "mnemo-" for memory and "thanop-" for death, which are close to words in ancient Greek holding the *same* meaning?This is where it becomes hard to suspend disbelief.

As I alluded to before, the scenes with the Enterprise crew were nowhere near as convincing as the ones involving characters of Somtow's own creation (with the exception of Simon Tarses, whom Somtow was pretty much on his own to describe, anyway).Another problem that I had with this book was the extremely shoddy editing job.I find myself wondering if Somtow was uncertain of what he wanted to name the young Icelandic student who won a tour on the Enterprise for winning an essay contest (Speaking of unrealistic--after the failure of the Enterprise-D, did Starfleet not decide that it was too dangerous to have children on board ship?).This is because I found the following three spellings: "Engvig", "Envig", and even "Envgvig".The fact that neither Somtow nor the editors rectified this glaring inconsistency is truly pathetic.

Overall, this book merits only a 2.5, but because it can offer an engaging read at times, I kept it and gave it the 3-star rating. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Adolescence in the kingdom of Dreambreak
Morry Draus lives in a room with his brother, fellow son of kings, in a skyscraper on a hot, ruined sea-world where all the starships have left.Skart, his brother, is the only one who can speak to him by law.On a day when Morry runs down to the third level to play with the fishers' children, Skart says to him that when Morry reaches adulthood he, Skart, will die.On the same day the fisher girl Jonellys is taken to Anskowl's dungeon for touching a prince.Morry wants to save them as he begins to figure out how his world works and how he can become an adult, but all the weight of tradition says they will die or be mutilated.

This is a 95-page novella by SP Somtow, who is also Somtow Sucharitkul.It is well written, as is most of his work.It's a quick read, but good.As might be expected of a culture that kills its children, some of the details of Dreambreak's culture are not what we would accept in ours, but it's a realistic and unidealized portrayal. ... Read more

Product Description
“…the J.D. Salinger of Siam”
—George Axelrod, Oscar-winning screenwriter of Breakfast at Tiffany’s

In an exotic re-telling of the fairytale of Bluebeard, a New Age thirty-something is swept off her feet by an enigmatic Thai millionaire and soon finds herself in Bangkok’s brave new world of shamans, shopping malls, and high society serial killers.

Originally written as a cliff-hanging serial for Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper, Bluebeard’s Castle is a roller-coaster novel that leapfrogs from genre to genre and culture to culture, turning the western preconception of Bangkok as a “city of temples and prostitutes” on its ear. A darkly comic odyssey populated with wild characters, with intimate glimpses into a culture rarely written about.

Customer Reviews (1)

a wild an exotic dark comedy
more happens in the first few chapters of this book than in most novels, beginning with an elvis-impersonating thai shaman in encino, california, and ending up in a baroque mansion in bangkok.the pages flip by really fast in this romp (a bit over-intellectual at times, but a perfect book for the snobbish). ... Read more