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Okay, let’s start with Fantasy Fiesta 2010!  Ares, my character from Drama Terhebat yang Pernah Ada, was chosen ‘The Best Reason for A Girl to Kick A Guy’s Ass’.  Ahahaha, I’m honoured!  Congratulations to all winners, and thank you tou all participants and readers!

And now… the winners for The Death to Come Quiz!  Wait… winners?  Yes!  I’m touched by all the entries, and it’s hard for me to pick only one!  But this time I can afford another, so we have two winners now.

Winner #1, who will get Kartun Riwayat Peradaban Modern Jilid II by Gonick, is Syifani Meiriyanti.  She chose Gaspar Deuxcroix as her favourite character, because she thought Gaspar was a tragic character that would make a good fanfic material.

Winner #2, who will get Sains Gaul Fisika: Materi-materi Keren by Basher & Green, is Luz Balthasaar, for chosing Gustaf Gustaffson over his remark, “Belajar yang betul, Ivar“.  Gustaf will feature quite prominently in the second book, so I hope you’ll wait for it, Luz!

Congratulations, Syifani and Luz.  Could you two please send me your address via e-mail?  I’ll try to send the packages next week.

Thank you for all participants, I hope we’ll see again in the next quiz!

Yay! Guys! It’s time for Fantasy Fiesta again! Now you can already read the entries here. If you can’t wait and want to read my entry, it’s called Drama Terhebat yang Pernah Ada (The Greatest Drama Ever).

And here’s another treat for you: a fragment of an abandoned project featuring William Gray, titled The Grey Eyes. It was planned as a sequel for The Death to Come but I abandoned it. This fragment mentions a connection between William Gray and Oscar Wilde. Well, I was playing with the idea…

Okay, I hope you enjoy what I have for you this week. And don’t forget: the quiz is still on. Enter and win a copy of Kartun Riwayat Peradaban Modern Jilid II!

If you master Bahasa Indonesia and you have read my novel, The Death to Come, while waiting for the sequel, why don’t you send an entry to a DTC-related quiz?  You can win a copy of Kartun Riwayat Peradaban Modern Jilid II by Larry Gonick (that I translated, by the way).

Head here for the full explanation about the quiz!  Make your entry as interesting as possible, and good luck!

Hello folks, sorry I haven’t updated for a long time!  I’ve had such a full life!

I’ve finished writing the second book of The Search for Merlin trilogy.  The publisher has had the draft, and it’s going to be published in a couple of months.  Please wait for a while!

I went to Vietnam with my friends and we are writing a book about it.  In the mean time, you can read our Tim Lompat-lompat WP blog.  It’s still pretty brand new and we haven’t blogged much, but we’ll try to bring you more!

I have also translated a couple of books these last few months, and is in the process of translating another one.  I am honoured to have given the chance to translate Larry Gonick’s The History of the Modern World Part 2.  Can’t wait for the translated version to be published.

Right now I am busy helping my students facing their IGCSE and As/A Level May/June 2010 exams.  Wish us luck, people!

I went to Gramedia Pondok Indah Mall yesterday and saw them: yes, the first copies of my debut novel were arriving.

My first reaction was a smile. Then I held one up, looked at it from back to front, and then put it again, walking away in a daze. It was a great feeling, watching it finally available on bookstores, about 3 years after it was written, and after problems with the previous publisher showing interest in it. So actually I didn’t know how to react, really.

Thank you to my publisher for their hard work and for helping me realizing my dream.

The Death to Come cover

The Death to Come in Goodreads.

I hope you enjoy the book.

Yes. If all goes well, my debut, the first book of The Search for Merlin trilogy will be published in December 2009. Its title is The Death to Come - a pun on EM Forster, that. Right now it’s being set, the cover’s being worked on, and such and such. So yes, I’m still nervous.

Wish me luck - and make sure you’ll get hold of a copy of it (more, if possible? Haha). Feedback is always welcome.

Now I have to finish a translation, an editing, and I hope I will be able to finish writing the second and the third books soon.

So not only we Jakartians are going to be entertained by Frenchmen Phoenix on August 1 - we will also have CUT/COPY on August 7 and… Java Rocking Land! The event will be held in Carnaval Beach, Ancol, from August 7 to August 9. The line-up boasts of the likes of Mew, Mr Big, Vertical Horizon, and also local/national kings and queens like Holy City Rollers, The Upstairs, Sore, Zeke and the Popo, Efek Rumah Kaca, Sajama Cut, Superman Is Dead, and many others. It’s going to kick ass!

I was astonished by how quick and easy their online ticketing is. First, you go to their official site. Click Tickets >> Ticket Order. Fill in your data, state how many tickets you want (the price keeps on rising as the D-Day gets near, so hurry and get your ticket now!).

Choose whether to pay by transferring money to the bank account of Java Festival Production (the name behind Java Jazz) or by credit card. I chose to transfer money (because I’ve spent too much with my credit card this month, haha). Then I faxed the receipt to them, and voila! Only a couple of minutes later, in my inbox I already got the validation code to download my tickets (which I should print on my own). Amazing!

So, I’ll see you there then guys. Somehow the names of Peter Gontha and Java Festival Pro (and Gudang Garam) make me sure that the festival won’t end up horrible like last year’s Jakarta Rock Parade.

I decided to open up a Smack Jeeves account as a home to my webcomics (and it surely saves up my webspace here, yes/yes?).  My profile is here.

Currently there are four webcomics hosted there:
The Daimon Mythology
Breathing the Driven Snow.
Funeral Pyre: a part of the Noble Book of Arthur
Uroki

And Cocona has been so kind to put two Sasuraiger fanarts that I made in the J9 fansite. It’s a great site for fellow J9 fans, so go visit it! :)

I decided to release a novel I wrote several years ago in Goodreads.  For a start, I’ll post six of the twenty-five chapters of the novel.

Read the novel here. Your comment and critics will be very much appreciated.

It’s scary to think that one of the places you think you might return to someday - the one that resides strongly in your memories - is now gone.

A neighbouring family once lived, like us, in Tangkahan Lagan/Pangkalan Brandan in North Sumatra.  When we were there, the area was a thriving one, supported by the oil industry.  But my neighbours, who just visited TL/PB again, said that there was nothing there now anymore.  Pertamina has packed up their things and left.  The housing complexes are now guarded by marines, and my neighbours had to ask for permission to enter the area.  ”My children were born here!”

So they let them in, only to find a saddening, devastated, lonely place. Where there used to be thousand of people living now are ruins of buildings that 15 years ago were still in a very good condition — many of them were new when we were there.  It’s practically a dead town.

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