Monday, July 18, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Anthology: Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap

 




Never Have I Ever is an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories from Filipino Author Isabel Yap, who per her bio was born and grew up in the Philippines before moving to the U.S.  The culture of being Filipino, and of being Filipino in the U.S. is thus infused into her short fiction, which is captured here - with the collection featuring 13 short stories (some reaching novelette length), of which 10 were originally published elsewhere and three were published for the first time in this anthology.  

The result is a truly really interesting anthology of science fiction and fantasy from a largely non-Western viewpoint, even as it features stories that sometimes take place in the U.S.  The stories are frequently queer and range from love stories, to tragedies of the real world, to introspective, to speculative, to more, and it's a really interesting range to cover, and one well worth reading.  

Some more specifics after the Jump:


Never Have I Ever features 13 stories of lengths ranging from 10-20 pages to sometimes closer to 30-40.  The stories never outstay their welcome, with the shorter stories ending just as their point is made, and the longer ones being just long enough to really hit home - and they generally work very well.  

Some of these stories deal with supernatural creatures from Philippine Mythology - such as Good Girls which features a Manananggal and a young woman/teen in a remedial center for girls who have dark thoughts or A Cup of Salt Tears which deals with an older woman whose husband is dying as she is visited repeatedly by a Kappa.

Other stories deal with more of a future look at our society, such as Milagroso which features a world where food can be manufactured artificially (and contrasts that with food miraculously grown from the ground) or Syringe which deals with a world where Automaton has taken over everything, leaving unfeeling (or are they?) robot doctors the only ones who can care for an older woman.  

And then a few stories are romantic and charming, like A Spell for Foolish Hearts or How to Swallow the Moon, neither of which I want to spoil by describing here really, but both of which are really great, with How to Swallow the Moon taking an old mythological type tale (I swear I've read something similar, so I'm guessing it has some basis in that) and A Spell for Foolish Hearts taking an urban fantasy type tale to really great romantic lengths.  

And then there are a bunch of stories that defy classification so easily. So you have a story that contrasts the modern world with the traditional one like Only Unclench Your Hand, you have a story showing the horrors of the drug war - which became downright murderous in the Philippines - in Asphalt, River, Mother, Child; you have a dark Magical Girls take in Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing), etc.  

I'm not really gonna mention every story here, but it's wide and varied and largely great, and it ends off in a really tremendous note with A Canticle for Lost Girls, a brand new story to this collection which features a mother seeing her daughter growing up and reflecting on her own teenage years, how she grew apart from and close again with her childhood friends....as they encountered a preying priest-teacher at their Christian School and invoked powers from beyond to try and survive and take care of him.  It's really really good in how it shows the fears of motherhood, how teenage years can often be horrible just from teenagers treating each other poorly, and how adults can prey on them...and how they all hope things will be better even if not everyone gets over it all.  

In short, Never Have I Ever is a really strong collection with some really interesting stories, and I very much recommend it, especially for those who don't have experience with non-Western and Filipino-inspired stories.  These are really great, and you owe it to yourselves to give them a try.


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