[Jagercon] Legend of Sudsakorn

If you're in Minneapolis this week, be sure to catch Jagercon at Club Jager on Tuesday, January 28th. They'll be presenting The Legend of Sudsakorn. And trivia. I very much approve! I can't make it this time because of finalizing things with DEMONSTRA, but you should definitely go.

A 2006 Thai fantasy film, it's based on Sunthorn Phu's epic poem Phra Aphai Mani, a 30,000 line piece of work. This particular film is based upon a boy who is the son of a mermaid who is sent on a magical quest to find his father, a prince with a magic pipe. Throughout the journey, he traditionally becomes an elephant, shark, and dragon horse, and encounters kings, hermits, yogis, magic wands and spirits.

I haven't seen it myself, but for those trying to familiarize themselves with the main story, it may be helpful to understand the traditional epic. Please resist the urge to give it the subtitle: "Hooking Up."

Prince Aphai Mani and his brother, Prince Sisuwan are princes who are studying the principles of leadership thanks to their father. But when they return, Prince Aphai has instead mastered the art of playing the pipe, while Prince Sisuwan mastered swordsmanship. Both choices angered their father who drove them off.

The king did not realize Prince Aphai Mani had learned to play a magic pipe capable of putting people to sleep, or the more deadly technique of luring the soul out of the body.

Traditionally, a giant Nyakinee, Nang Phisua Samut finds Prince Aphai and takes the hottie away to her cave where she transforms into a beautiful girl who has his son, Sinsamut. When he discovers his wife's true nature, Prince Aphai Mani flees with his son. Because giant flesh-eating shapeshifter.

The jilted Nang Phisua Samut gives chase, of course. The prince and his son take refuge with a family of mermaids (Which seems odd. I think the translation may more properly be Nak, or Nagas) but the father and mother mermaids are caught and devoured by the Nyakinee in a horrible fashion. (Well, I suppose it's always horrible. This is a Nyakinee we're talking about.)

The daughter takes Prince Aphai and Sinsamut to Kokaew Phitsadan, the Isle of Wonders, and get help from a hermit.

Of course, Prince Aphai decides to have a son with the mermaid, and names the boy Sudsakorn. Because, mermaid, right?

Years go by and a passing ship with King Silarat of Phleuk arrives. Also aboard the ship is Princess Suwannamali, who is engaged to Prince Usaren of Lanka. Prince Aphai and Sinsamut ask to go on the ship, and that's the end for human-mermaid shacking up in this story. But like any epic, they're attacked by a giant Nyak who kills the King. Prince Aphai escapes to shore and plays his magic pipe, slaying the Nyak.

Young Sinsamut on the other hand, swims with the princess to another island. As they travel, they eventually run into Prince Aphai's brother Prince Sisuwan and his daughter, Arun Rasami. They all go in search of Prince Aphai.

Prince Aphai meets Prince Usaren who came out looking for his fiancee, Princess Suwannamali. But when they all reunite, Princess Suwannamali refuses to go with Prince Usaren, ending in a fight that ends in Prince Usaren's defeat, slinking back to Lanka. It was pretty easy to see this coming in the original epic.

Prince Aphai came to Phleuk. There, the widowed queen asks him to rule the country and to marry Princess Suwannamali. Princess Suwannamali was still angry at Prince Aphai for trying to give her to Prince Usaren, so she flees and becomes a nun. But the maid Nang Wali tricks Princess Suwannamali into leaving the nunhood to marry Prince Aphai.

Princess Suwannamali gives birth to twin daughters named Soisuwan and Chantasuda. Prince Usaren and his father came back to attack Phleuk. The father gets killed and Prince Usaren dies heart-broken, so the throne of Lanka falls to his sister, the beauty Nang Laweng, who naturally swears revenge. She declares that as a reward, any prince who kills King Aphai and his family can marry her and gain the Kingdom of Lanka. Sweet deal.

At least nine armies are rallied to take her up on her offer. But through a series of twists and turns, King Aphai finds Nang Laweng, and woos her, but none of the armies will call off their attack until the arrival of a mystic hermit.

In theory, you'll see something connecting to all of this in the Legend of Sudsakorn, the mermaid's son who apparently doesn't get much mention in the traditional epic. If nothing else, expect a lot of swords to get thrown, and at least one or two WTF moments.

Enjoy!

[Thai Speculative Literature] Bible Stories for Secular Humanists

S.P. Somtow came to my attention a little over a decade ago when I was first in Bangkok in 2002 looking for my long lost family. His opera Mae Naak was about to debut, although I did not get a chance to catch it. In many ways, that story left an indelible impression on me. 

S.P. Somtow came to my attention again when he came to Minnesota for the fantasy convention Diversicon, which has alway been one of the biggest conventions to support my work as a writer and introduced me to many who are a part of my newest book DEMONSTRA. But I do have to admit I seem to have a habit of just missing him, including a recent trip to California. 

In any event, last year we saw the release of his book Bible Stories for Secular Humanists which was described as:

"Here are eight of World Fantasy Award winner S.P. Somtow's most controversial stories, including three previously uncollected ones. Each deals with a "sacred cow" of the Judaeo-Christian tradition and subjects it to the pitiless scrutiny of historian, mythographer, and fantasist. Violent, sometimes kinky, these stories nevertheless reach surprising epiphanies about faith and redemption. A curiously sympathetic Antichrist hunts down the next messiah with the aid of a unicorn. St Paul ponders about whether, in order to make his miraculous new religion work, he needs to get rid of an inconvenient Jesus. An entertainment mogul in ancient Rome figures out how to cut costs by staging resurrections in the arena. Lot's daughter has managed to survive as a vampire and pours out her heart in an incest survivors' support group.... These aren't the Bible stories you learned in Sunday school - yet they raise many of the questions you may not have dared ask there.Between them the eight stories in this book were nominated for ten awards, including Bram Stokers, International Horror Guild Awards,and an Asimov's Magazine Reader Poll."

His current biography reads as:

"Once referred to by the International Herald Tribune as “the most well-known expatriate Thai in the world,” Somtow Sucharitkul is no longer an expatriate, since he has returned to Thailand after five decades of wandering the world. He is best known as an award-winning novelist and a composer of operas.  

Born in Bangkok, Somtow grew up in Europe and was educated at Eton and Cambridge. His first career was in music. His earliest novels were in the science fiction field but he soon began to cross into other genres. In his 1984 novel Vampire Junction, he injected a new literary inventiveness into the horror genre, in the words of Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, “skillfully combining the styles of Stephen King, William Burroughs, and the author of the Revelation to John.” 

Vampire Junction was voted one of the forty all-time greatest horror books by the Horror Writers’ Association, joining established classics like Frankenstein and Dracula. In the 1990s Somtow became increasingly identified as a uniquely Asian writer with novels such as the semi-autobiographical Jasmine Nights. He won the World Fantasy Award, the highest accolade given in the world of fantastic literature, for his novella The Bird Catcher. 

After becoming a Buddhist monk for a period in 2001, Somtow decided to refocus his attention on the country of his birth, founding Bangkok’s first international opera company and returning to music,. According to London’s Opera magazine, “in just five years, Somtow has made Bangkok into the operatic hub of Southeast Asia.” His operas on Thai themes, Madana, Mae Naak, and Ayodhya,have been well received by international critics. His most recent opera, The Silent Prince, was premiered in 2010 in Houston, and a fifth opera, Dan no Ura, will premiere in Thailand in the 2013 season. His sixth opera, Midsummer, will premiere in the UK in 2014. 

He is increasingly in demand as a conductor specializing in opera and in the late-romantic composers like Mahler. His work has been especially lauded for its stylistic authenticity and its lyricism. The orchestra he founded in Bangkok, the Siam Philharmonic, is mounting the first complete Mahler cycle in the region. He is the first recipient of Thailand’s “Distinguished Silpathorn” award, given for an artist who has made and continues to make a major impact on the region’s culture, from Thailand’s Ministry of Culture."

 I think he's using an interesting approach with his latest book. He's taken on a wide range of topics from vampires to werewolves, Thai ghosts, and more that I think it's hard for us to talk about modern Thai speculative literature without discussing him. You can visit his music website at: http://somtowmusic.com