Spirits Abroad

Starred review from March 15, 2021
This new collection brings together a large selection of Cho's short story work, divided into three sections. The first, ""Here,"" presents stories set in Cho's birthplace of Malaysia, such as the excellent ""The House of Aunts,"" a story about the common theme of a teenager dealing with her loving but intrusive family, except in this case the family is made up of entrails-eating vampires. The stories in the second section, ""There,"" are all set in the UK, Cho's current home, and include stories such as ""The Mystery of the Suet Swain,"" where a young Malaysian woman tries to help her best friend escape the attentions of a new fellow ""student"" who didn't seem to exist a few weeks ago. The final section, ""Elsewhere,"" collects stories set in completely imaginary worlds, as in ""The Four Generations of Chang E,"" which updates the traditional story of the goddess who lives in the moon to a generational story of mothers and daughters on an alien-inhabited moon. Cho's work blends together the wide array of her various cultural influences with a frequent interest in queer and lesbian characters to great effect. Highly recommended for those interested in well-written fantasy fiction outside of the post-Tolkien mold.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

July 15, 2021
A collection of speculative stories that play on Malaysian folklore and fantasy tropes with humor and compassion. Split into three sections--Here, There, and Elsewhere--this expanded edition of Cho's 2014 collection takes readers from present-day Malaysia to a boarding school in Britain to Earth thousands of years in the future, showcasing the author's broad storytelling range. Stories in the first section, Here, are set primarily in Malaysia and explore themes as mundane as teenage love, intergenerational family tensions, and school pressures through the prism of the fantastical. The collection opens with "The First Witch of Damansara," in which Vivian--a young Malaysian woman who has immigrated to a "modern Western country"--returns to Malaysia after the death of her grandmother, a witch whose powers Vivian has not inherited. When Vivian begins to receive visits from her grandmother in her dreams, she experiences a change of heart about the cultural traditions she had formerly disavowed. Other stories in this section similarly combine folklore with the mundane: A schoolgirl allows an enchanted koi fish to brutalize her in exchange for good grades in "The Fish Bowl," while in "The House of Aunts," a young vampire falls in love with a Muslim boy at school, much against the advice of the aunts who have raised her. While stories in the There section are set primarily in the U.K. and those in Elsewhere, in more otherworldly settings, both sections explore more fantastical terrains than the first: teenagers at an English boarding school battle fairies, women are wooed unexpectedly by dragons, and the Chinese lunar goddess, Chang E, is reenvisioned as an extraterrestrial college student. The stories are told with the precise and almost sparse voice of fairy tales, but they can sometimes veer toward the excessively fanciful. Some, like "One-Day Travelcard for Fairyland" and "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again," rely too much on humor and speculative elements without quite landing. Nevertheless, the collection's most moving stories harness seamless worldbuilding, intriguing character development, and thematic complexity. A swath of delightful and intricate stories from a wildly inventive storyteller.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.