A tribe of nomads journeys through a post-apocalyptic Singapore devastated by environmental collapse, for the promised land of the Kallang Basin. While searching for shelter, they rescue a starving young boy and his musically-inclined android, who upend the tribe’s dynamic. When machines become symbols of our aspiration and extensions of our will, what role do they serve when we fight to survive? A testament to the strength and endurance of the human spirit.
Today is National Day. It is also Cheryl Dada’s birthday. As Elderflower Home prepares for the celebration, Cheryl Dada too gets ready for her party. Between the hours of noon and seven p.m., she encounters the cantankerous residents and caregivers, her mother and people of yesteryears. What unfolds is a story about a woman coming to terms with age, loss and love.
Beng Hock and his brother, Beng Huat (who prefers to go by Archibald), find themselves navigating a tumultuous Singapore in the near future that has run out of oil and gas. Running afoul of the growing gangs could mean slavery or death, jobs are scarce and food scarcer, and home is a crumbling shanty-town behind the City Hall Steam-Engine Station. And as if these changes aren’t drastic enough, a great power awakens inside Beng Hock, and he must learn how to control it before it destroys everyone and everything in his way.
This action-packed thriller follows a squad of 18-year-olds who must fight an army of Savages in a war they did not choose. Ren is an elite fighter who feels no emotions. That makes him the perfect soldier to battle the Savages, a feral army of half-animal, half-human species prowling outside the 18 walls protecting the city...at least that’s what the propaganda machine will have him believe. He and his motley squad are armed with genetic enhancements before venturing beyond the walls. They come to learn more about themselves and their enemies than they could have ever imagined.
In the Nation, citizenship is competitively earned, and the sting of failure strikes swift. The smallest professional blemish may spell demotion or even deportation to offshore labour communities called Depositories, while the affluent are insured against all misfortune and can do no wrong. Santhosh is a Transient student hoping to ace the Civil Primaries and make Citizen the following year, when his father is suddenly deported and State agents murder his guardian’s entire family. Adopted by a motley band of fugitives who hold wealthy Citizens ransom for a shot at freedom, Santhosh searches for his father and struggles to keep his integrity in a world where the only true choices are luxuries.
Deepavali has never been the same since the terrible mistake Shreya made three years ago. She now dreads the annual celebration, choosing instead to be as uninvolved as possible, until she is visited by three celestial beings who decide to help her right the wrongs. In Singapore’s answer to A Christmas Carol, Shreya revisits key events in her family’s history and catches a glimpse of their future as well. Seeing things in a new light, she comes to terms with her emotional wounds and learns the importance of keeping herself and her family whole.
When young medusa Ria inadvertently turns an entire village to stone, she and her older sister flee to Nelroote, an underground settlement populated by other non-humans also marginalised by society. There she becomes their gatekeeper, hoping to seek redemption and love…until her friendship with a man from above threatens to dismantle the city she swore to protect.
A commanding force for Southeast Asian speculative fiction, THE INFINITE LIBRARY AND OTHER STORIES reimagines the pasts, presents, and futures of Filipinos and the world around them. This first North American edition features a never-before-anthologized story. "Fantastic and lyrical, like glimpses into the infinite potential of the universe."-Ken Liu, author of THE PAPER MENAGERIE AND OTHER STORIES Shortlisted for the 2018 International Rubery Book Award. Making his North American debut, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo in The Infinite Library and Other Stories shows why Southeast Asian speculative fiction is a force to be reckoned with. From a mysteriously timeless interior of a map shop to a space elevator thousands of miles away from the metropole, these 18 stories masterfully straddle manifold layers of Filipino history, identity, and mythology, reconstructing the past and conjuring new futures for the nation and region at large. Ocampo's transnational consciousness brilliantly navigates class, colonialism, and gender in formal experimentations of winning ingenuity. Threaded by the motif of libraries and books, this deliciously enigmatic and labyrinthine collection showcases the infinite power of imagination to mend and make anew.
In post-independence Singapore, tradition clashes with modernity in this compelling tale of the importance of defining one's own story. When their father Sujakon comes home late one night, raving about bad people coming to take them away, siblings Zuzu and Hakeem are forced to leave everything behind and live in a tent at Changi Beach, with a secret community called Anak Bumi—the Children of the Earth. Here, they learn to live off the land and fend for themselves, and partake in a communal storytelling ritual under the stars called the Wayang Singa. But just as they’ve acclimatised to their new lives, their father disappears without a word and a strange man washes ashore warning of mortal danger from just offshore.
