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The stories are all solid and set in interesting future Malaysias. "Attack of the Spambots" -- about advertisers taking things too far -- stood out.I liked the main characters and premise of "What the Andromaid Reads at Night" but the ending seemed abrupt."The Wall that Wasn't a Wall" is dark, as is "October 11"
Book Riot RHC 2021 Task 10 - read an SFF anthology edited by a person of colorThere were a few good stories in this collection, but overall, it just wasn't for me.
Disclaimer: I got featured in this collectionSo while cyberpunk isn't really my thing, I did enjoy quite a few stories in the collection-my particular favourite was Foo Sek Han's 'Extracts from DMZine': funny, dystopian, tragic, irreverent while remaining poignant in a strange way. It was a pretty good read overall.
I don't know if it's fair to rate a book that I have a story in, but well, I guess I'm rating all the stories in the book other than mine. =) Anyway, as much as I was hoping that I would fall desperately in love with Cyberpunk: Malaysia, I didn't. I liked it well enough. It's pretty decent. But it's not gripping. But as far as debut Malaysian Sci-Fi goes, it's a good offering. So that's 3.5 stars from me! ---There is a quote (I think) which says something about writers reflecting the state of th...
Most sci-fi short stories seek to highlight society's idiosyncrasies by casting them in a new light, emboldened by technology and leading readers to question if commonly accepted norms, are in fact somewhat peculiar? Cyberpunk: Malaysia is no exception. Employers holding up foreign workers' passports? How about giant towers that shoots lasers to anyone who dares escape the country? Neuro-spambots making everyone an extension of their companies? Corporate culture already took care of that. Enter
Is it cyberpunk? Some of it are close enough. Is it engaging and thrilling? I'd say majority of the featured stories indeed good. I am surprised to see the low rating by some of few readers but based on their review, i get why they gave such rating. It really is the matter of individual's preferences. I picked up this book because i just finished watching Black Mirror Netflix series last month. I don't expect it to be amazing and mind boggling like the TV show but yeah, this book has a few momen...
A neat collection of stories. The cyberpunk theme is fantastic and the Malaysian viewpoint is distinct, looking at cyberpunk through that different lens makes you think some. Some of the stories full flat, but overall I liked it.
Like many other Malaysian Science Fiction fans, I was excited by the very thought of this anthology, which is the first--to my knowledge--Malaysian English Science Fiction anthology.I love the cover: plain foil that doubles as a murky mirror. Perhaps it's a nod to Mirrorshades, a Cyberpunk anthology published in 1986. The digital edition covers are pretty, too.Sadly, that's about the only positive thing I can say about this anthology, other than a few amazing stories that I'll mention in a bit.
To b fair, Cyber is not a particular genre of interest- difficult to digest towards the end. Abstracts of a post modernistic Malaysia and creative- weird futuristic concepts somewhat made my eyelids heavy and mouth a perpetual "O" shape... Of course literary/ writing skills are pretty good... Just not enough to make it a mouth watering page turner. There r other better Fixi short story books one shelf I would happily reread. Not this one.
The stories incorporated Malaysian culture. It don't always work, but generally pretty good
Cyberpunk was quite hard to finish as I'm not a fan of science-fiction/dystopian and there were just so many scientific terms (I know I should take the initiative to google). But I really loved the short stories which still highlighted the human nature, the human stories rather than focusing too much on the science of it all. My favourites were Sharmilla Ganesan's Personal for exaggerating the horror truth of our attachment to our devices and Ted Mahsun's What The Andromaid Reads at Night for sh...
Many of stories require some development (it's not interesting to read some scene setting and a conclusion). The more memorable stories question or satirise the conventions of Malaysian society, such as whether an android who self-identifies as a woman still needs to wear a tudung (head scarf) over her motile nano-tech hair and zombie humans spamming people with advertising.
Brilliant! Some of the stories scared the sh*t out of me! Must read!
Robots and AI's and cyborgs, oh my! Sci-fi stories of all that can go wrong and right with computers set in Malaysia. Not all the stories were my cup of tea - some skewed heavily dystopian - but I loved seeing sci-fi from a different point of view.
$4 ebook here: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/cybe...Or here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...ebook not available from Amazon, 6-20First story, "Underneath Her Tudung" by Angeline Woon is available free on the preview @ kobo. Unfortunately, I gave up on it, and, after trying 3-4 other stories, found the Malaysian-English opaque. So I'm putting it aside. Not for me, I'm afraid. Oh, well. Maybe try more another time?But here's the editor's best story: The First Witch of Damansara. 5 star...
I wondered while reading this whether cyberpunk can ever be hopeful? There was one optimistic story in this collection but otherwise it was all pretty grim. I guess it's the nature of the genre, but maybe it's time for cyberpunk which looks at the ways technology can enhance people's lives rather than plunging everyone into an immediate dystopia. There were some interesting ideas here, but also some stuff that felt dated and repetitive.
I must admit that before picking up this book I hadn't read anything marketed as "cyberpunk." I requested this book because I wanted to read some Malaysian science fiction. From this collection, I got the feeling that "cyberpunk" isn't my favorite sub-genre of SFF. That being said, I did enjoy this collection of short stories set in Malaysia of the future (or alternative present?). A majority made me think, like good speculative fiction should.There were two (related) things that made this colle...
i am not impressed with "hey-we-can-see-the-future" type of stories in this collection but if i am destined live long enough, it would be great to have a grab of DMZINE #13 (JANUARY 2115).
The cover of the book is really pretty and special, I've never seen it before. I'm not sure about some short stories, most of them were strange and I didn't understand them. But 3 or 4 were really good. It's a nice collection of cyberpunk short stories, respect for the work.
The good (fun, humorous and experimental):The Andromaid Reads At NightAttack of the SpambotsExtracts from DMzineThe White Mask I am trying to sound positive but the other stories are not great. Some are like knock offs of recent science fiction films (especially parts of Undercover In Tanah Firdaus which may be better as a movie, because it read like a screenplay written by a teenager in a few hours and then cramped into a short story). Stories like Kakak, Codes and Personal treat maid abuse, id...