“Exit Quiapo Station” my Robert Altman inspired story set on a Filipino-run space elevator will be in Maximum Volume 2. Thank you so much to editors Dean Francis Alfar and Sarge Lacuesta!
Like “I m d 1 in 10” (at The Future Fire), this work is also quite experimental in structure, playing with the placement of dialogue and mixing up tenses. “Exit Quiapo Station” explores several themes that could affect us in the near future such as commercial space travel, the rise of the ultra-super rich, the decoupling of sex from reproduction, the acceptance of non-traditional families, and the socio-biological future of call center agents.
In line with my recent stories, there is a Pinoy mythical element in this “mundane” Sci-Fi piece. This time it’s a witch — a mangkukulam who hails from the “magic market” outside the old Quiapo church, and a bottle of her gayuma love potion.
Space Elevator image c/o of io9.
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Published by Victor Fernando R. Ocampo
Victor Fernando R. Ocampo is the author of the International Rubery Book Award shortlisted The Infinite Library and Other Stories (Math Paper Press, 2017 ; US edition: Gaudy Boy, 2021) and Here be Dragons (Canvas Press, 2015), which won the Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Award in 2012. His play-by-email interactive fiction piece “The Book of Red Shadows” debuted at the Singapore Writers Festival in 2020.
His writing has appeared in many publications including Apex Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Likhaan Journal, Strange Horizons, Philippines Graphic, Science Fiction World and The Quarterly Literature Review of Singapore, as well as anthologies like The Best New Singapore Short Stories, Fish Eats Lion: New Singaporean Speculative Fiction, LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction, the Philippine Speculative Fiction series and Mapping New Stars: A Sourcebook on Philippine Speculative Fiction.
He is a fellow at the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference (UK) and the Cinemalaya Ricky Lee Film Scriptwriting Workshop, as well as a Jalan Besar writer-in-residence at Sing Lit Station (2020/2021).
Visit his blog at vrocampo.com
View all posts by Victor Fernando R. Ocampo
The Infinite Library and Other Stories 