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Spirits Abroad Paperback – July 15, 2014

by Zen Cho (Author)

8 customer reviews

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'If you live near the jungle, you will realize that what is real and what is not real is not always clear. In the forest there is not a big gap between the two.'
A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people. An earth spirit gets entangled in protracted negotiations with an annoying landlord, and Chang E spins off into outer space, the ultimate metaphor for the Chinese diaspora.
Straddling the worlds of the mundane and the magical, SPIRITS ABROAD collects 10 science fiction and fantasy stories with a distinctively Malaysian sensibility.

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Product Details

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Buku Fixi (Fixi Novo) (July 15, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9670374987
ISBN-13: 978-9670374987
Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.7 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,228,211 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5 stars

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

Witty and deliciously smart fantasy stories

By Stephanie Samphire on October 11, 2014

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

*4.5 stars*

Witty, delicious and enormously fun, this was my favorite short story collection in years. Zen Cho's voice is entirely her own, but the closest comparison I can come up with is Connie Willis for the wonderful combination of humor and intelligent fantasy.

Usually when I read a single-author short story collection, I need to take breaks between reading each story. This time, though, I just devoured the whole book and had a wonderful time doing it. There are stories that are incredibly funny and also surprisingly romantic, like "The Earth Spirit's Favorite Anecdote"; there are stories that are dark, truly scary AND funny and sweet, like "The House of Aunts"; there are a few stories that are just heartbreaking. Most of them made me laugh, but a couple made me nearly cry. Out of the 15 short stories in the collection, the very last 3 were the only ones I didn't thoroughly enjoy, but even those had a lot of good points and might work better for other people.

I will definitely be re-reading this collection many times in the future - it was just so smart AND so much fun - a wonderful combination!

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Fantastic story collection with humor and heart

By Sunil Patel on June 24, 2015

Format: Kindle Edition

Zen Cho utterly charmed me on a Loncon panel about South and Southeast Asian SFF, so of course I bought her book of short stories, which do indeed reflect her boisterous, whimsical personality. As a Chinese Malaysian living in London, she draws from several cultures in her storytelling, and the book is divided into three sections: "Here" (stories set in Malaysia), "There" (stories set in England), and "Elsewhere" (stories set, well, elsewhere). For the non-Malaysian reader, it's a great way to be introduced to various aspects of the culture, including food, language, and folklore, and for the Malaysian reader, it's SFF for YOU.

Every story is good, and one of my very favorites, "One-Day Travelcard for Fairyland," is only available in this collection, which contains seven reprints and three new stories. I love Cho's dry sense of humor. "The House of Aunts" describes eating people in such mundane terms that I regularly burst out laughing, and "Prudence and the Dragon" has such an offbeat wit that I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe. But the stories aren't comedic romps; they're character-based with heart. The collection ends on a strong note with "The Four Generations of Chang E," which the blurb helpfully informs the reader is a metaphor for the Chinese diaspora, even though it is fairly clear from the story itself, which packs quite a punch.

I devoured this book in a single day. Zen Cho's voice needs to be heard: it's fun, fresh, and important.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

Discover a Fantastic New Talent

By Shannon Phillips on October 17, 2014

Format: Paperback

I think Zen Cho is phenomenal; I would frankly go so far as to call her the most exciting new SF/F writer of this generation. And I would point to this collection to justify my claim.

These marvelous, fresh, transporting, inventive stories generally include elements drawn from Malaysian folktales and culture, rendered with a global, modern, magical-realist sensibility and a tremendous amount of literary talent. Some of the stories are funny--some are spooky--some are devastating--some are thoughtful. I cannot recommend this book too highly. Ten stars. Book of the Year. Seriously, so good.

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The best short story collection of any kind that I've read in years!

By bonnybedlam on August 8, 2015

Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase

I bought this collection for the story The House of Aunts, which was part of my book group reading. But since I didn't know the author at all, I started at the beginning and spent a few weeks slowly reading the entire collection. It could have gone faster, the stories themselves are brisk and fascinating, but I wanted to savor the language and really think about everything I read. Also, there's a fair sprinkling of Hokkien and Malay words throughout all of the stories, and while it can be understood fairly easily from the context, I took the time to check most of them on Wiktionary to be sure.

The House of Aunts went beyond my admittedly unformed expectations in its depiction of undead Chinese Aunties doing their best to raise a nice girl. There's not much I can say about it without spoiling the plot, but Cho's grasp of the fantastic is amazing and I didn't see any of it coming.

Prudence and the Dragon was another favorite. It is, as it sounds, the story of a love affair between a young woman and a dragon, but again, nothing about it is quite what you'd expect.

I read and reread The Four Generations of Chang E, I don't know how many times. Only that it's not enough. Chang E's tale of Luner immigration and finding a place in her family, in any world, is both inspiring and pathetic, a heartbreaking mystery of travel and race and rabbits. Just really a lot of rabbits.

Balik Kampung also takes a couple of close reads to fully appreciate the humor and truths of a being a hungry ghost, of spending eternity attached to a personal demon.

Nearly all of the stories are funny in some way. I laughed even more than I cried, and I did cry some. The writing is tight and controlled, every word serves a purpose and no space is wasted. Cho is purely brilliant with inspiration, talent, and technique equally at her command, and there isn't a dud story in the collection.

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