Other Edens

by S.P. Somtow, William Hjortsberg

Featuring the World Fantasy Award Winning story "The Bird Catcher," OTHER EDENS is a collection of five genre-defying novellas by Thai author-composer S.P. Somtow, author of the acclaimed "Jasmine Nights" and "Dragon's Fin Soup." From 1st Century Palestine to the baroque perplexities of the American South and postwar Siam, with characters from the Virgin Mary to a Chinese serial killer, the stories explore the idea of alternate paradises and provide astonishing, sometimes shocking, perspectives about humanity's yearning for a better place.

Hardcover

First published August 1, 2005

About the author

Called by the Bangkok Post "the Thai person known by name to most people in the world," S.P. Somtow is an author, composer, filmmaker, and international media personality whose dazzling talents and acerbic wit have entertained and enlightened fans the world over.

He was Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul in Bangkok. His grandfather's sister was a Queen of Siam, his father is a well known international lawyer and vice-president of the International Academy of Human Rights. Somtow was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and his first career was in music. In the 1970s (while he was still in college) his works were being performed on four continents and he was named representative of Thailand to the Asian Composer's League and to the International Music Commission of UNESCO. His avant-garde compositions caused controversy and scandal in his native country, and a severe case of musical burnout in the late 1970s precipitated his entry into a second career - that of author.

He began writing science fiction, but soon started to invade other fields of writing, with some 40 books out now, including the clasic horror novel Vampire Junction, which defined the "rock and roll vampire" concept for the 80s, the Riverrun Trilogy ("the finest new series of the 90's" - Locus) and the semi-autobiographical memoir Jasmine Nights. He has won or been nominated for dozens of major awards including the Bram Stoker Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award.

Somtow has also made some incursions into filmmaking, directing the cult classic The Laughing Dead and the award winning art film Ill Met by Moonlight.

Reviews

[Dalibor Dado Ivanovic · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm, na zalost, nije ono sto sam ocekivao. Procitao sam njegovu pricu Grafiti Malvorda i bila mi je super (davno prije),stoga sam ocekivao da ce i ovo bit tako. No, prva prica mi je dobra, onako doslovno o Djevici Mariji..., druga mi je super pocela i ocekivao sam da ce ostati tako, no pred kraj odlazi u bizarnost pa mi je pala. Treca je navodno kultna al me nije nesto dojmila, a za ostale da ne pricam. Sve u svemu, dobro pise i price jesu kvalitetne ali nekako meni osobno ne leze tematski, trenutno, mozda bi me prije vise dojmilo.