I’ve got a new website! It’s got all my stories lined up like ducks in a row and a fancy contact form and everything. \o/ Do let me know if there’s anything you think I ought to change.

There’s no better way to inaugurate a new website than with free stories, so here is one. It’s not really super new — I wrote it a couple of years ago and it’s been rejected by a couple of romance e-publishers since then. I’m going to post a section every other day, but you can also or alternatively download an ebook for US$0.99 at Smashwords: The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. (If you can’t use Smashwords for whatever reason but want to buy an ebook, let me know.)

I wrote a couple of absurd romance novel-y synopses for the ebook distributors, but if you want to know what it’s about: it’s a novella written in diary entries about books and smooches. It has an Adult Content rating for a single explicit sex scene, but if that’s the sort of thing you’re looking for, I’m gonna be straight with you — you’d have better luck flipping through the Bible.

Thanks to those of you who helped me choose a title! If you previously knew the story as Bloomsbury Girl, you should tune out, but come back in a few days because I added a couple of new entries. One of them has smooching! \o/

Photograph by Panorama Media/PanoramaStock/Getty Images

The ebook at Smashwords

Saturday, 7th August 1920

I had tea with the intolerable aunt today. Aunt Iris, the one who is so rich she has a new fur every year, and so mean she has installed a tip box by the door of every WC in her house, so you have to pay a charge every time you need to go. And so sinfully vainglorious I remember she came to visit us at home once and wore a wonderful glossy black mink fur. She sat on the sofa with a fixed grin on her face, sweating gallons in the heat. Ma had to send Koko out to get the doctor. It was just before New Year and Ma was terrified Aunt Iris would go into an apoplexy in our drawing room–which would have been such bad luck.

I had my angle of attack all planned out today, though. On Wednesday I’d found out how much a piece of chocolate cake cost at the restaurant, and I went in with the exact change in my purse. When the waiter asked me what I wanted, I said: “Chocolate cake, please”, and I counted out my coins and paid him right then and there.

“I haven’t got any more money than that,” I explained.

Aunt Iris was furious: she looked like an aunt and she was wearing her furs, of course. Even the English must have thought it peculiar. [...]

Hi! I’m a Malaysian living in London. Sometimes I write stories!

You can find out more about me at About, or read, download and purchase my stories via Stories. Feel free to comment or otherwise contact me if you’ve got any questions.

A sequel to Prudence and the Dragon, published in Crossed Genres Quarterly #1 in February 2011 and reprinted by The World SF Blog in March 2012. You can download an epub of this story here: click here to download ebook.

The Perseverance of Angela’s Past Life

by Zen Cho

Angela was stalking herself.

She was packing for Japan and she had better things to worry about than doppelgangers, so she was trying to pretend her self wasn’t there.

She thought she would probably need one pair of formal shoes, but she couldn’t decide whether she should pack the new fancy shoes—which were beautiful and appropriate, but untried—or the old stalwart black peeptoes. They were a little manky, but they had seen her through May Balls and medsoc dinners alike.

“Bring both,” said her old self.

Her old self could not enter the room without Angela’s permission. She hovered at the window, peering in.

Angela was not going to invite her in. It was a cold night, but the dead don’t feel the cold.

“I’m travelling light,” said Angela. She set the new shoes down and picked up the old pair. What did it matter if they were scuffed? They had never let her down before. “I’m not bringing you also. All the more I shouldn’t be bringing extra shoes.”

“What lah, not bringing me,” said her old self. “I’m part of you what.”

The thaumaturge had confirmed this.

The problem was that Angela’s best friend was dating a dragon. Initially Angela hadn’t noticed any side-effects. Just the usual sort of thing. Outrage that her best friend was no longer as available as she used to be, that Angela was no longer the first person she called when she wanted to watch a musical or go to the park.

But these were ordinary incidents of the readjustment of a best friendship. Angela had got over it in time.

She was having difficulty getting over being split into two people, though.

[...]

A prequel to 起狮，行礼 (Rising Lion–The Lion Bows), published in Strange Horizons in March 2011. You can download an epub of this story here: click to download ebook.

七星鼓 (Seven Star Drum)

by Zen Cho

“When Boris was a kid,” said Coco, “he was scared of everything.”

#

Boris had been born with an extra membrane around his brain that filtered in things other people didn’t see.

This was not unheard of. Everybody knows somebody who can see ghosts. But Boris’s peculiar tragedy was that his parents were skeptics. Marvellously, incredibly, they did not believe in spirits.

It was not just that they did not pray. Boris’s parents used to go jungle-trekking during their holidays. They were the kind of people who kicked tree stumps and shouted at the wind without fear of retaliation. They spoke openly of death as something that happened to everyone–something that would, one day, happen to them and people they knew.

This is all right, unless you are a child who sees ghosts. And Boris saw all kinds of ghosts. His eyes did not discriminate. He saw red-eyed, white-faced, long-tongued vampires, hopping horribly, reaching out for him with sharp-nailed hands. He saw pontianak and langsuir and toyol and penanggalan, orang minyak, hantu tetek, hantu kum-kum, evil genies, plain old dead people.

Even the quiet ones were terrifying, with their sad eyes and transparent bodies. They were so hungry.

Every ghost wanted something from Boris. Usually they wanted his entrails.

[...]

Reprinted with the permission of Selangor Times editor KL Chan. A JPEG version displaying the original layout is available at Amir Muhammad’s blog: Short story by Zen Cho in the 14th issue of Selangor Times.

Chicken Chicken Bang Bang

by Zen Cho

Eileen knew she shouldn’t have listened to her brother.

Confucius should have included a get-out clause in the Analects, she thought. Respect your elders–except when they are idiots.

“Come, I drive you to work,” Ko had said in the morning. “I fixed the Proton last weekend. Want to see whether it works or not.”

Eileen had demurred: “No, it’s OK. I’ll take the LRT.”

“Come lah,” said Ko. “No point you drive to the LRT station and then have to wait for the train. Might as well I drive you all the way.”

“But you know I hate the jam,” said Eileen.

“Don’t worry. We’ll go by highway,” said Ko. “I know a special way to get there. Very fast one! I tell you, you won’t even notice the jam.”

Now here they were, stuck in an unmoving car, in a sea of unmoving cars. They hadn’t even got to the toll. The toll booths wavered in the distance like a mirage.

[...]