Philippines - Tablay - Katrina F. Olan

I can't remember why I picked the Philippines as a country to search for science fiction authors, especially as my plan was to tick off the 4 home countries of the UK, and then move onto the rest of Europe. But anyway after a few searches I did find a few selections of short stories from the Philippines, that looked OK, but I much prefer a full novel over a short story.

Tablay appeared in one of my searches and looked exciting, and the write ups and promotional bits and bobs reminded me of the Pacific Rim movie, which I thought was a great movie.

I found the book's Facebook page and contacted them to see if they had stockists in the UK, but they didn't. I did have some really nice chats with the author who was super enthusiastic about her book. So I thought this avenue was closed and started looking to other countries to find another book.

 

After a couple of weeks I noticed a post on Facebook that Tablay was now being stocked in an independent book store in Baguio, in the Philippines call Mt Cloud. I contacted them about international delivery. They couldn't have been more helpful, and even suggested a second book of short sci-fi stories from another Filipino author. So I ordered a couple of books and paid for delivery to the UK. The books arrived in less than week.

Tablay is a great book, felt like it was probably more aimed at younger readers in its style and its content. But it is a super easy read, and a real page turner. It's exciting and builds and builds, with some neat twists and turns. 

The book ticks off some of the reasons I started this project, it deals with Filipino folk law and has a fair few lines of conversation in Filipino too, but you can understand roughly the meaning in the context of the conversation. So I'm super glad I picked this book, and look forward to the other Filipino book I ordered!