The Infinite Library and Other Stories - by Victor Fernando R Ocampo (Paperback)

About the Book

This commanding force for Southeast Asian speculative fiction reimagines the pasts, presents, and futures of Filipinos and the world around them.

Book Synopsis

A commanding force for Southeast Asian speculative fiction, THE INFINITE LIBRARY AND OTHER STORIES reimagines the pasts, presents, and futures of Filipinos and the world around them.

This first North American edition features a never-before-anthologized story.

"Fantastic and lyrical, like glimpses into the infinite potential of the universe."--Ken Liu, author of THE PAPER MENAGERIE AND OTHER STORIES

Shortlisted for the 2018 International Rubery Book Award.

Making his North American debut, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo in The Infinite Library and Other Stories shows why Southeast Asian speculative fiction is a force to be reckoned with.

From a mysteriously timeless interior of a map shop to a space elevator thousands of miles away from the metropole, these 18 stories masterfully straddle manifold layers of Filipino history, identity, and mythology, reconstructing the past and conjuring new futures for the nation and region at large. Ocampo's transnational consciousness brilliantly navigates class, colonialism, and gender in formal experimentations of winning ingenuity. Threaded by the motif of libraries and books, this deliciously enigmatic and labyrinthine collection showcases the infinite power of imagination to mend and make anew.

Review Quotes

"Fantastic and lyrical, like glimpses into the infinite potential of the universe."

-Ken Liu, author of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Grace of Kings

"By turns funny, heartbreaking and creepy, those arresting linked stories will long linger in memory."

-Aliette de Bodard, author of Fireheart Tiger and The Tea Master and the Detective

"A visionary escape into a kind of afterlife where polyglotism and complex transnational backgrounds are inevitable facts. . . . A powerful manifesto laying out the possibilities of Southeast Asian literature."

-Elise J. Choi, Necessary Fiction

"Nuanced treatments of race, religion, colonialism, and aspects of the Filipino experience, especially as projected into the future . . . readers looking for lyrical, literary speculative fiction will find many of these stories worthwhile."

-Publishers Weekly

"Ocampo weaves together elements of the speculative, the metaphysical and the real in his elegant short stories to explore the past, present and potential futures of Southeast Asia. The Infinite Library and Other Stories is a fine contribution to Asian speculative fiction."

-Zen Cho, author of Sorcerer to the Crown and The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water

"The strength and subtlety of his voice is apparent in all of the stories which range from hard SF through steampunk to a Murakami-like surrealist bent. All are intriguing and fresh. . . . You won't be disappointed."

-Tade Thompson, author of Rosewater and The Murders of Molly Southbourne

"In his first collection of short fiction, Ocampo's strengths are beautifully evident: an eye for the smallest of details that contribute to a powerful sense of place, an ear for dialogue that emanates from the hearts of his characters, and a passion-fueled imagination that recreates the past and constructs the future in bold and satisfying ways."

-Dean Francis Alfar, author of A Field Guide to the Roads of Manila and Other Stories, and founding editor of Philippine Speculative Fiction

"Victor Ocampo's Library is a repository of painful national history distilled in personal struggles, of wonder expressed through myth and magic. This collection shows what the Filipino imagination and experience can contribute to the literature of the fantastic."

-Eliza Victoria, author of Dwellers and Wounded Little Gods

"Victor Ocampo's The Infinite Library is an invitation to explore an array of possibilities. These stories do not shirk away from provoking the reader and Ocampo pushes too against the boundaries as he seeks to tell his stories on his own terms. Crafted with sharp intelligence, with humor, and with love for language and for the genre, this collection is an ode not only to the author's homeland (its history and literature), but also to the genre which he loves."

-Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, author of The Song of the Body Cartographer

"Lovingly spun and told with a keen eye on familial relationships, as well as the inexorable desires of humankind, these stories signal that Ocampo may well be becoming the gold standard in Southeast Asian speculative fiction."

-Clara Chow, The Straits Times