A review by joyfilledwander
LONTAR #1 by Jason Erik Lundberg, Bryan Thao Worra, Paolo Chikiamco, Kate Osias, Chris Mooney-Singh, Elka Ray, Zen Cho, Ang Si Min, Paolo Bacigalupi, Kristine Ong Muslim

4.0

The LONTAR collection of short stories was something I just stumbled upon. And I’m so glad I did. It’s a collection of Southeast Asian speculative fiction from Southeast Asian authors. Too often when I read something for this challenge, it’s written by an American or Brit with an American or British main character that travels to somewhere exotic. It’s almost always an "outsider looking in” perspective. Sometimes I really enjoy that kind of writing. But sometimes, I want to read something local and authentic from the culture. That’s why I loved finding the LONTAR journals. I live in Southeast Asia and I love dystopian, kinda weird fiction. And I really enjoyed this collection! From short narratives to poetic verse and even a creative course catalog description for a major in Philippine magic, these stories were full of creativity. In addition to the well written course catalog, I also enjoyed the dystopian love story from Malaysia and the combat story from Vietnam. Each of these were so unique, and I’m really looking forward to reading more of these collections. I found the first two volumes on Amazon in a Kindle edition, but when I was in Singapore, I found them in print at the Books Actually shop, which is the publisher. If you are looking for something out of the ordinary, check out this collection immediately!