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Tagging the Moon: Fairy Tales from L.A.
S.P. Somtow's L.A. Fairy Tales, collected together for the first time in this new edition. Somtow puts a new spin on some classic themes in this volume of 10 short stories set in the back alleys of downtown L.A. A must-have for the modern horror reader and collector.
277 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2000
About the author
S.P. Somtow
256 books160 followersCalled 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
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February 10, 2025I had liked Somtow’s novel, but these stories didn’t really do it for me. There were some highlights, and some of the conceits are fairly OK, but the character voices were weak. Everyone sounded like a Bangkok/UK poshboi trying to sound like a streetwise working class Angeleno, and as you can imagine, the results aren’t great. They reminded me, at best, of the obnoxious hardboiled voiceovers from Dexter, and at worst of the tryhard Bangkok/UK poshbois I encounter from time to time (see last Saturday’s dude who told me “let’s smoke some weed, n……….” not gonna finish that word). I wish I could be nicer. But despite, say, the better efforts of Angela Carter or Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, I have yet to appreciate the update fairytale format. We all have a little too much Wicked in our lives, thank you very much.
December 6, 2022
A collection of short stories all set in 1990's Los Angeles, retelling various myths and fairy tales.
Some are sci-fi, some are fantasy, and some are just straight up weird, with lots of horror running throughout, both of the magical kind as vampires seek their prey, and the very real kind as many characters deal with living and dying with AIDS.
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April 5, 2026Somtow is a truly unique voice in speculative fiction. Not all of his stories work for me, but they are so unusual, culturally rich, and detailed that I found myself binge-reading them as time allowed for about two months.
Like his earlier collection *Dragon's Fin Soup*, these are loosely overlapping fantasy and science fiction pieces connected by their location - here, it's Los Angeles instead of Somtow's native Thailand. As usual, he doesn't avoid the dark and graphic even when he's not writing full-on horror, and I suspect both anthologies would either be watered down or published with trigger warnings today.
"Gingerbread" is an extremely dark modern version of the Hansel and Gretel myth in which I struggled to see any real point. "The Ugliest Duckling" (a vampire tale) is better, albeit without quite landing the emotional punch found in the best of the genre.
Similarly, I found "The Hero's Celluloid Journey" intriguing until it finally collapsed under its own complicated, highly meta nature (just too much going on). "Dr. Rumpole" is more straightforward and enjoyable, but there's a disturbing revelation at the end which I found unnecessary.
The final and titular story is probably Somtow at his best: harrowing, poignant, bizarre yet coherent. I also enjoyed the candid photographs shown in the afterword, which were a nicely personal note to end on.
Like his earlier collection *Dragon's Fin Soup*, these are loosely overlapping fantasy and science fiction pieces connected by their location - here, it's Los Angeles instead of Somtow's native Thailand. As usual, he doesn't avoid the dark and graphic even when he's not writing full-on horror, and I suspect both anthologies would either be watered down or published with trigger warnings today.
"Gingerbread" is an extremely dark modern version of the Hansel and Gretel myth in which I struggled to see any real point. "The Ugliest Duckling" (a vampire tale) is better, albeit without quite landing the emotional punch found in the best of the genre.
Similarly, I found "The Hero's Celluloid Journey" intriguing until it finally collapsed under its own complicated, highly meta nature (just too much going on). "Dr. Rumpole" is more straightforward and enjoyable, but there's a disturbing revelation at the end which I found unnecessary.
The final and titular story is probably Somtow at his best: harrowing, poignant, bizarre yet coherent. I also enjoyed the candid photographs shown in the afterword, which were a nicely personal note to end on.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews