Dragon's Fin Soup: Eight Modern Siamese Fables

In this collection, S.P. Somtow writes of his native Thailand caught between tradition and change, the ancient and the modern. It is a land where the fantastic is accepted as part of everyday life - and a chance meeting with a dragon, ghosts, aliens, or time travellers can happen to anyone.

From the Back Cover

8 Modern Siamese Fables in the tradition of Lafcadio Hearn, Cordwainer Smith, and the Marx Brothers. 8 Rowdy Tales where East and West don't meet - they collide. 8 Frightening Ruminations where nothing is as it seems and even the unreal is an illusion. 8 Delectable Servings that could only have sprung from the fevered mind of S.P. Somtow - the most unique writer of this, or any other, millenium.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"We set sail down the gullet of the dying dragon.The waters were sluggish at first. But they started to deepen. Soon we were having the flume ride of our lives, careening down the bronze-lined walls that boomed with the echo of our laughter ... the bronze was dark for a long time till it started to shine with a light that rose from the heat of our bodies, the first warmth to invade the dragon's innards in a thousand years ... and then, in the mirror surface of the walls we began to see visions. Yes! There was the dragon himself, youthful, pissing the monsoon as he soared above the South China Sea." - from "Dragon's Fin Soup"

About the Author

Called by the Bangkok Post "the Thai person known by name to most people in the world," S.P. Somtow is an author, composer, filmmaker, and international media personality whose dazzling talents and acerbic wit have entertained and enlightened fans the world over. He was Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul in Bangkok. His grandfather's sister was a Queen of Siam, his father is a well known international lawyer and vice-president of the International Academy of Human Rights. Somtow was educated at Eton and Cambridge, and his first career was in music. In the 1970s (while he was still in college) his works were being performed on four continents and he was named representative of Thailand to the Asian Composer's League and to the International Music Commission of UNESCO. His avant-garde compositions caused controversy and scandal in his native country, and a severe case of musical burnout in the late 1970s precipitated his entry into a second career - that of author. He began writing science fiction, but soon started to invade other fields of writing, with some 40 books out now, including the clasic horror novel Vampire Junction, which defined the "rock and roll vampire" concept for the 80s, the Riverrun Trilogy ("the finest new series of the 90's" - Locus) and the semi-autobiographical memoir Jasmine Nights. He has won or been nominated for dozens of major awards including the Bram Stoker Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the Hugo Award, and the World Fantasy Award. Somtow has also made some incursions into filmmaking, directing the cult classic The Laughing Dead and the award winning art film Ill Met by Moonlight.

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