#Zen Cho

[smokefalls]

Past a certain point, you stop being able to go home. At this point, when you have got this far from where you were from, the thread snaps. The narrative breaks. And you are forced, pastless, motherless, selfless, to invent yourself anew. At a certain point, this stops being sad—but who knows if any human has ever reached that point?

Zen Cho, "The Four Generations of Chang E" from Spirits Abroad

#Zen Cho #Spirits Abroad #quote #fiction #fantasy #short stories #2024 reads

[keystonepublishing]

The House of Aunts by Zen Cho

Well, it's been a while since I updated, and not for nothing. The fasting month has arrived and much of my weekend energy is preoccupied elsewhere. Also, there are several longfics that are currently WIP, full completion uncertain.

So imagine my feelings as they got slammed against the wall by this: The House of Aunts by the Malaysian-born Zen Cho. An original vampire fiction that is set in Malaysia, uses traditional Malaysian monsters die Dracula, and deals with issues that hit close to home for anyone living in this part of the world, such as overbearing parental figures, unspoken religious and ethnic boundaries, and familial shame.

Since the story is Malaysian at heart, I decided to use Malaysian pictures and themes.

The book cover is actually made from drawing paper, printed with the image of a rubber plantation to evoke the story's setting. The front side has a glued-on image of a frangipani flower - the flower of the undead in Malaysian stories — surrounded by Baba Nyonya tilework — the Baba being Chinese Malaysians who settled and intermarried with locals.

The printed endapapers threw me off. I wanted to have a tilework or frangipani motif, but none of the free internet sources came up with anything distinctive. I did eventually find a peculiar color gradient that reminds me of twilight, considered the time when Malaysian monsters strike the most.

The Malaysian motifs continue at the title page, where I used Baba Nyonya tilework and Malay woodcraft motifs to frame the title. Same thing too with the copyright page — believe it or not, I actually intended that part to be minimalist! But one curious placement of images led to another and soon, I was looking up different websites to find the right Malaysian decorative features to bedight the logos!

The story is divided into three parts, and I also wanted the headers to be minimalist. Something of that won out here more, as I decided to use plumerias to highlight the 'undead' parts of the story and the greyscale tilework/woodwork to highlight the human connections of the main character, whether they were broken or not.

This bind took me less than a week and it was actually refreshing to get my hands busy again. Full rights to the story goes to Zen Cho, who really deserves all the awards for writing a monster tale that hits at so many themes, it's quintessentially Malaysian!

#bookbinding #fanbinding #my bookbinds #Zen Cho #The House of Aunts #Vampires #Vampirism #ghost story #horror story #Asian authors #Malaysian stories #original fiction

[a-ramblinrose]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || April 29 || Freebie:    The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho

#The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water #Zen Cho #justonemorepage #jompbpc #book photo challenge #book photography #books #Not Out of Void But Out of Chaos

[wizardsvslesbians]

A very good crop this time around:

“The Terracotta Bride” by Zen Cho

“Lay My Stomach On Your Scales,” by Wen-yi Lee

 “Margo Lai’s Guide to Dueling Unprepared,” by Alison Tam 

#wizards vs lesbians #zen cho #wen-yi lee #alison tam #gosh the new post editor is sure broken in a lot of fun ways

[queer-book-character-tournament]

#Wei Wuxian #Mo Dao Zu Shi #grand master of demonic cultivation #mdzs #mo xiang tong xiu #Aled Last #heart stopper #alice oseman #Jessamyn Teoh #Black Water Sister #zen cho #Tristan Caine #The Atlas Six #olivie blake #polls #lgbt books

[haveyoureadthisfantasybook]

vote YES if you have finished the entire book.

vote NO if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#fantasy #books #Sorcerer to the Crown #Sorcerer Royal #Zen Cho #poll #result: no #l: English

[shortstorytournament]

Short Story Tournament!

THE WHITE OLD MAID by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1935) (link) - tw: death

"Away!" cried the lofty one. "Thou hadst him living! The dead is mine!"

LIYANA by Zen Cho (2021) (link) - tw: death

"It had been so long I almost didn’t recognize you when I saw you. I came so close to plucking you out from the sheltering leaves— but God must have been watching me. I touched you, and the tips of my fingers felt the vibration of your beating heart."

#short story tournament #zen cho #nathaniel hawthorne #the white old maid #liyana #speculative fiction #polls #round 1

[agardenandlibrary]

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

This is contemporary fiction, which is kind of weird for me. I’m so used to reading secondary world fiction that books using modern parlance throw me for a loop. This was just a problem because I’m not used to it! Which is a flaw of me the reader, not this book.

So much of this book is about the immigrant experience. Our main character Jess is caught between worlds. She sticks out wherever she goes, not quite Malaysian and not quite American. I really liked how she found connection with other immigrants in small moments of solidarity. 

Jess is struggling with the move from America back to Malaysia with her parents, hiding her personal life, being her mother’s emotional support – and then the ghost of Jess’s grandmother starts to haunt her, demanding that Jess help her save a temple from destruction. She begins to explore the spiritual culture of Malaysia, to visit temples and meet mediums: people who gods can speak through. And there are many gods, big and small, everywhere.

Even as she learns about the spirit world, Jess also learns about her own family history, things her mother never told her, secrets kept for decades. Jess finds herself in unexpected danger, not just from a world of shady gangs and business deals, but also from the spirit world, where her grandmother’s god, a vengeful spirit known as the Black Water Sister, tries to take over Jess’s body in order to enact her revenge on the world. 

I really enjoyed this book! It was dark but not constantly; there were moments I laughed out loud. It’s contemporary, which I’m not used to, but it fully committed to “spirits and gods are real and people communicate with them regularly” which I love to see. 

#cara reads black water sister #black water sister #zen cho #my book picture #my book review

[meikuree]

the lightness of a foreign sky by meikuree

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/F, Gen Relationship: Jessamyn Teoh Min/Sharanya, Jessamyn Teoh Min & Her Parents Additional Tags: Post-Canon

Summary: After her business in Penang with the Black Water Sister was settled, Jess set off for the skyscrapers and new vistas of Singapore.

wrote this for bethefirst, a challenge to create the first fanwork for a fandom. this wound up as a chance to write some setting porn. thank you to @bothzangetsus and @pretty-rage-machine for the kind beta!

black water sister is, paraphrasing wikipedia, a diaspora fantasy novel about a malaysian chinese lesbian who gets tied up in supernatural hijinks involving her grandmother.

#title's an inversion of a line in the merlion by alfian sa'at #black water sister #zen cho #my fic #q

[smokefalls]

“It’s already suffering enough to be a woman,” Ah Lee recited. “Don’t need people to eat you some more.”

Zen Cho, "The House of Aunts" from Spirits Abroad

#Zen Cho #Spirits Abroad #quote #fiction #fantasy #short stories #2024 reads

[quote-tournament]

I'm adding

Sacrifice creates obligations. Remember that, Liyana. You have rights.

-Zen Cho, "Liyana"

To the honourable mentions

#Liyana #zen cho #honorable mentions #not a poll

[evenaturtleduck]

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

#currently reading #black water sister #zen cho

[a-ramblinrose]

7 books 7 days day 5

Rules: every day, I will post the cover of a book that I love and nominate someone new to start the challenge

Tagged by @booksandrandomfandoms

Tagging @therefugeofbooks

#The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected In Water #Zen Cho #7 book covers in 7 days #asked and answered #rose answers things #books #book photography #not out of void but out of chaos

[smalltownfae]

Rating: 4.5/5

I am very picky when it comes to contemporary settings. Especially if it's fantasy set in an urban contemporary setting. Due to this, I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It was definitely a lot of fun, but it also had emotional moments and themes of family and emigration.

The book is in third person past and the story follows Jess, a closeted lesbian, as she moves back to Malaysia with her parents and all go to live with her aunt's family. When Jess arrives to her new house she hears the voice of her deceased grandmother and after a while she starts to see her spirit too. This gets the main character involved in the business of gods and spirits and makes her uncover some family secrets.

The writing style is fairly simple, but engaging and occasionally funny. Jess was a great character to follow and her observations about the people around her in Malaysia clearly reflected her background of having grown up in America. As soon as Jess and her parents arrived at her aunt's home, Jess observes the following:

"She'd always seen them as introverts, their investment in work and family leaving no space in their lives for so tenuous a connection as friendship.

She saw now that this was one of the unnatural changes being immigrants had wrought in her parents—one of the ways they had been warped under its pressures. Among their friends and relatives—people who shared their language, accent, values, preoccupations—Mom and Dad were different people: confident, gregarious and witty. It was Jess who was out of her element, navigating unfamiliar waters.”

Soon, Jess gets to know her family better and there is conflict about religion, lifestyles and work. She also gets to meet some new people, including a rich guy that is the son of the man that is causing all the troubles for her uncle at a temple. She also gets to observe an accident with the foreign workers at said temple that is being hushed up and she gets involved in a way. Jess is also in a long distance relationship with a girl, that is getting complicated because of Jess's focus on her current family troubles and the pressure of having to look for a job. There is a lot going on in this book. Not one boring moment, in my opinion.

This book also made me realize that maybe I like urban settings if ghosts are involved. The themes of losing oneself while being possessed or controlled by an outside force interest me a lot. Besides the fantasy aspect, I also liked all the themes addressed in this book that I already mentioned. It was fun seeing the main character making mistakes and learning from them while getting out of her mildly lethargic state of mind.

I will probably reread this one someday and I will check more books by the author.

#black water sister #zen cho #book review #booklr

[triada-literaria]

Novedades fantasía, ciencia ficción y terror. Enero 2023

Como cada mes, os traigo las novedades editoriales de fantasía, ciencia ficción y terror. ¿Alguna que os llame especialmente?

#libros #blog literario #litblr #brandon sanderson #kerri maniscalco #katherine arden #shea ernshaw #raven kennedy #susan dennard #zen cho #litetwitter #literatura fantástica #literatura #fantasia #ciencia ficción #terror

[thegirlwiththelantern]

Insta: @ littlepiscesdreaming

#book #booklr #bookstagram #Spirits Abroad #Zen Cho #asian