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Geek Tragedies
Carljoe Javier's first collection of short stories. It features realist fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. In it you'll find zombies, a kapre, alien-hands, comic book geeks, convention-attending promo girls, an iPod time machine, and a generation starship filled with people hypnotized by and dancing to "Laban o Bawi.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
172 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 20, 2012
Carljoe Javier (born 1981) went to Los Angeles with his family when he was 3 years old. Then when he was 14, his family went back here in Manila because they did not have enough money to survive in the US. So, he studied here, finished his BA in English Studies major in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. He is also now a fellow of the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop and the UP National Writers Workshop. He is now 30 years old.
That's my intro for this review because I'd like to point out that Javier knows what he is doing because he is a smart guy and he definitely knows how to write. I picked this book because he was the guest speaker in the First Filipino Readers' Conference during the recently concluded Manila International Book Fair. I thought it would be nice to know more about him and find out what made the organizers decide to have him as the guest speaker considering that the books he has written so far both belong to YA/fantasy genre and are written in English.
Geek Tragedies is his first compilation of short stories. I think this is his third book but this is my first by him. I did not have any idea about the first two prior to reading this and I only Googled him at the middle of my reading to get an idea why I was not enjoying the first 7 stories included in the book. They were all pointless and written in a way that after reading a couple of paragraphs in each story I lost interest and my mind wandered and I just did not know what was going on in those stories. After reading everything about him in his blog, Facebook, etc., I think I got the answer to my questions. Javier, a smart guy, is trying to write for a A/B-youth market by identifying himself as a "geek" (cool, computer-literate, loves superheroes, fantasy novels, zombies and uses English as he is obviously more comfortable with it). He seems to be doing the classier act compared to what his local counterparts, Bob Ong and Prof. Eros Atalia, are doing: reaching out to the young readers by writing books that they think that their chosen market will like. The only difference is that Javier uses English instead of Tagalog.
Out of the 13 stories in this book, I only liked #2: Master of the Fragfest because of the the touching story about a brother and his little sister that could be semi-autobiographical so it came out to me as heartfelt and also Dino's Awesome Adventure because of Javier's inventiveness, fascinating play of words and clean humor. I am pointing this clean humor because I did not like the dirty humor in the other stories. They were mostly peppered with references to sex: masturbation, penetration, sexual fantasies or even toilet humor. They came to me as insulting to decent young Filipino men. I was once an adolescent myself and I admit that being a healthy male teenager, I thought of sex almost every hour of each day but I never thought about doing those that came into Javier's mind as a writer. They are gross and definitely indecent and putting them on paper just made it worst.
Come on, Carljoe, I know you can write better than this.
That's my intro for this review because I'd like to point out that Javier knows what he is doing because he is a smart guy and he definitely knows how to write. I picked this book because he was the guest speaker in the First Filipino Readers' Conference during the recently concluded Manila International Book Fair. I thought it would be nice to know more about him and find out what made the organizers decide to have him as the guest speaker considering that the books he has written so far both belong to YA/fantasy genre and are written in English.
Geek Tragedies is his first compilation of short stories. I think this is his third book but this is my first by him. I did not have any idea about the first two prior to reading this and I only Googled him at the middle of my reading to get an idea why I was not enjoying the first 7 stories included in the book. They were all pointless and written in a way that after reading a couple of paragraphs in each story I lost interest and my mind wandered and I just did not know what was going on in those stories. After reading everything about him in his blog, Facebook, etc., I think I got the answer to my questions. Javier, a smart guy, is trying to write for a A/B-youth market by identifying himself as a "geek" (cool, computer-literate, loves superheroes, fantasy novels, zombies and uses English as he is obviously more comfortable with it). He seems to be doing the classier act compared to what his local counterparts, Bob Ong and Prof. Eros Atalia, are doing: reaching out to the young readers by writing books that they think that their chosen market will like. The only difference is that Javier uses English instead of Tagalog.
Out of the 13 stories in this book, I only liked #2: Master of the Fragfest because of the the touching story about a brother and his little sister that could be semi-autobiographical so it came out to me as heartfelt and also Dino's Awesome Adventure because of Javier's inventiveness, fascinating play of words and clean humor. I am pointing this clean humor because I did not like the dirty humor in the other stories. They were mostly peppered with references to sex: masturbation, penetration, sexual fantasies or even toilet humor. They came to me as insulting to decent young Filipino men. I was once an adolescent myself and I admit that being a healthy male teenager, I thought of sex almost every hour of each day but I never thought about doing those that came into Javier's mind as a writer. They are gross and definitely indecent and putting them on paper just made it worst.
Come on, Carljoe, I know you can write better than this.
December 26, 2015
While the front and back covers, and the layout was a significant selling point for this book, some of the stories were a bit forgettable, but there were a few that merited decent mentioning. Come to think of it, it is the "geek"/underdog/weirdo persona that was the threading element in the ones worth remembering which involved--a delayed interaction in a crowded public transportation, a strained sibling relationship that practically revolved around cellphones, computers, and TVs, and the two that I enjoyed most were the time-traveling student to get his girl and the generation starship on its way to find a hospitable planet but was nearly derailed by a zombie-like infestation in the form of archival videos and songs from the Sexbomb dancers. Although it had a formulaic thrust, the latter had me laughing. Hahaha!
April 17, 2013
Some good science fiction and video game revolved around essays from Sir Carljoe with a Filipino substance :)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews