Malaysia Oasis review and Blogger's Breakfast Club correction

Sorry everyone, I made a mistake. The MPH Bloggers Breakfast Club's first meeting will be held on Jan 27th from 11am-12.30pm at the new MPH outlet at Bangsar Village Phase II, 11am-12.30pm, and will feature Yang-May Ooi and Sharanya Manivaran, two successful bloggers-cum-writers.

I cut and pasted the message straight from the email I got from MPH without checking the website. Thanks everyone - Lydia and Anon - who pointed it out.

Anyway, after the WORST REVIEW I EVER GOT (see Star review below), I received a really nice one - yet to be put up - on www.malaysiaoasis.com . This is an extension of the Thai Oasis website I blogged about earlier, only they haven't put up their Malaysian fiction section yet.

This will be what they will put up:


Dark City: Psychotic and other Twisted Malaysian Tales (2006, ISBN 983-3526-25-X) is an apt description of the exceptional fiction of Xeus, the pen name of an MD who has been writing in Malaysia for over ten years. While unmistakably Malaysian in setting, the author draws on tortured minds common to all cultures. “The Scarlet Woman” is a funny, bittersweet, and ultimately Oedipal coming-of age story. Even more disturbing is “The Maid”, only superficially about low-paid immigrant workers. “Monster” involves a spoiled, badly behaved child who receives comeuppance that can only have been described by someone who’s spent some time dwelling on such children. The author, who chooses to remain anonymous for professional reasons, is a master storyteller, with a fine insight into the human condition. This is one of the best fiction books to come out of Asia in 2006. To discover more, visit Xeus’ blog at: www.darkcity-xeus.blogspot.com

Geoff Alexander, CEO
Oasis Media, LLC


And Eric Forbes was really adamant about liking my writing. I kept prodding him, studying his facial features and asking "Are you sure, Eric? I'm pretty low-brow for what you usually read and like. " But he remained stolidly gracious (what a sweetie) and gave me this blurb to put into my 3rd printing edition.

"Who says the short story is dead? Xeus has concocted a rich broth of a collection in Dark City. These stories are the stuff of everyday life, all written in her inimitable style and with a clarity that is both visual and visceral at the same time. She exposes the murkiness that lurks beneath life's apparent ordinariness."

Eric Forbes, Editor, MPH Publishing