Tunku Halim's Blog, page 2

Podcast with Shazmin Shamsuddin

I bumped into Shazmin at the Georgetown Literary Festival some weeks back and she asked me if I’d like to do a podcast with her at the new outfit she’d recently joined. So I went over to The Vibes office to do it. She did her job very well and I was put at ease and enjoyed the session.

Anyway, here’s the news item she put out:

https://www.thevibes.com/articles/podio/83764/beyond-breakfast-with-shazmin-shamsuddin-tunku-halim-malaysias-most-prolific-horror-fiction-writer

And here’s the podcast:

Hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I enjoyed doing it!

Book talk at Lit Books 14/1/2023

I’ll be chatting about My Lovely Skull & Otheer Skeletons, Horror and writing generally together with film maker, publisher and writer, Amir Muhammad. You’ll need to register before hand. The cost is RM10 which I think is a good deal (they do reimburse you the money if you buy a book from them on the day, I believe)

You can register here: https://litbooks.com.my/product/horror-they-wrote-with-tunku-halim-amir-muhammad/

Also a birdie mentioned something to be about a FREE baseball cap!

The Star 13/12/22 Interview

Although it was summer, Melbourne was in the middle of winter-like chills and I, wearing a jumper in the Airbnb kitchen, received a WhatsApp message from a friend attaching this:

It was an email interview I did with Terence Toh.

Here’s the link: https://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/culture/2022/12/18/how-the-pandemic-and-penang-inspired-tunku-halim039s-new-horror-collection

Now back in Penang, I’ve got to get back to work on that novel.

I don’t do Social Media …

But a friend recently sent me this from Instagram:

Which I thought was a nice touch from Penguin.

So why don’t I do social media? It’s a long story so I’ll chat about it some other time!

New Straits Times Review 18/12/22

I just flew in to Penang today from Australia, where I attended my son’s graduation, to find my book reviewed by Elena Koshy of the New Straits Times. And, I must say it’s a rather good one!

WHAT scares you? 

It’s a question worth pondering on. In a world where truth is often stranger and a lot scarier than fiction, there could be many things that truly keep us awake at nights. Let’s face it: rising inflation, political mayhem and natural disasters can be downright frightening. 

But wait just a second.

Let the dark descend. In that creeping quietness where even the cicadas fail to sing their nightly song, your daytime nightmares can take a chilling turn. 

Dark things come alive and that pin-prick of terror quickly turns into a shrieking howl of unspeakable horror. These are the stuff horror stories are usually made of. And telling a dark tale is what Tunku Halim does best. 

Fifteen stories from our very own Malaysian “prince of darkness” speak of unspeakable things, monsters, vampires and even vengeful canines (we’ll get to that part, later). 

My Lovely Skull & Other Skeletons is Tunku Halim’s latest dark offering of nasty tales for horror fans everywhere. “What skeletons hide in your cupboard?” he asks in his introduction. “I have a few,” he goes on to declare. “I turn them into stories”.

And by George, does he churn out some pretty decent (but macabre) stuff.

Great horror writing is so much more than cheap scares, howling monsters and bloody fingerprints. When it’s really good, horror can push you up against the hard questions of existence. 

Nothing clarifies your relationship to other people and the world around you, to your future and your past, quite like a dystopian tale where climate change comes packaged with a nefarious monster lurking beneath flood waters. 

And yet, physical pain isn’t the point. We’re spectators, after all, experiencing fear without actual danger. What we get from horror is an appreciation for human resilience, and the gobsmacked realisation that it’s a miracle anyone survives in this cruel world at all. If there’s a writer out there worth surviving for, it’s probably Tunku Halim.

For over two decades, he has written a series of horror novels and short stories that have earned him the title — one that alternately annoys and flatters him — of the Stephen King of Asia. 

His novel, Dark Demon Rising was nominated for the 1999 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, while his second novel, Vermillion Eye, is used as a study text in the National University of Singapore’s Language & Literature course. His short story has also won first prize in a 1998 Fellowship of Australian Writers competition. 

There are no heroes in My Lovely Skull & Other Skeletons, and certainly no happy endings. Instead, you’ll stumble upon quite a number of hapless people fighting against a dark tide of darkness, idiosyncratic characters, echoes of genre fiction standards and memorably creepy creatures. 

Tiny geckos scuttling through the ear, inducing insanity and unspeakable pain; a wing chair that drives a man to madness; a vampiric “baby” who’d sooner kill than cuddle you; a dark demon who can teach you to sing like an angel — if you’d pay the right price; these are the monsters that you’ll soon be acquainted with as you turn the pages.

If you — like me — have a pet dog, The Festival would get you wondering what really goes on in your pooch’s head. Is your pet poodle really happy being your pet? Truly happy? 

When animal lovers and pet owners rush to protest at a “dog-eating” festival, they find out (much too late) that things aren’t exactly what they seem. I won’t give away any spoilers here, but I’m going to be looking a little closer at my dog Abby after this!

The titular story, My Lovely Skull, is a love story with a twist. Boy meets skull, falls in love and gets drawn into its grinning madness resulting in mayhem and murder. Not your typical love story by any means, but in Tunku Halim’s dark world, nothing is as it seems.

Not even little old ladies are spared. You ought to think twice before meeting an aged aunty in her solitary, ramshackle house. Chances are, she might be very hungry and you might just feature on her menu. 

Forget ghosts, vampires and other typical hantus. In The Garden, there’s a new wave of evildoers waiting to step in: cannibals.

What lurks behind the banana tree? A woman caught up in her own marital woes would soon find out. “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned” is a familiar quote taken from William Congreve’s The Mourning Bride. In The Elevator Game, a jilted lover can be worse and even more horrific than a haunting, as an ambitious YouTuber would discover a little too late.

Be careful when you go for a walk up a familiar trail. Hiking becomes a perilous undertaking when you encounter a ghost. In every hotel worldwide, there are some rooms that are never let out to guests. 

These are problem rooms where strange things occur with no natural explanation. In Room 511, a man soon discovers why certain rooms remain unoccupied even during peak season.

While grotesque creatures and plentiful gore — complete with some rather unsettling descriptions — feature in the stories here, the real horror often lies in what’s left unsaid. 

It’s ultimately a book about how many things in life are inexplicable and how sometimes there’s no resolution. Feels particularly appropriate now.

So, what keeps you awake at nights these days? What really scares you?

My books finally arrived …

War and Peace … please!

After a year and a half, I’ve finally finished Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Published in 1869, this is a huge book of 1,400 pages and almost 600,000 words, and is no small undertaking.

Not being sure when these COVID lockdowns would end, I started reading it. Happily, it was the ebook version as carting the actual book around would have been most impractical!

Then, on becoming fascinated by the Napoleonic Wars, I bought The Napoleonic Wars – A Global History by Alexander Mikaberidze which is, itself, a long book but which I finished well before I completed Tolstoy’s.

Yes, it’s a thick book!

I was rather promiscuous and read other books too during those 18 months but I kept dipping into War and Peace and then we soon found ourselves in an exclusive relationship!

I must confess though that I didn’t read every word. (Do you listen to every word your partner in life says?) I found myself skipping bits where there the dialogue was overly long with the characters arguing or discussing uninteresting philsophical or political matters.

War and Peace cannot be described as a standard novel for Tolstoy intersperses it with what can only be described as essays about the war, philosophy and even science. But I was only interested in the story and so skimmed over much of this.

But still, I feel like I’ve read the entire book because I’ve spent all that time with the characters from the beginning to the very end.

And it was a satisfying read.

So go get yourself a copy!

(And you’re most welcome, Mr Tolstoy!)

Judge a book by it’s cover?

I’m delighted to say that I’ve a new book coming out very soon!

The good folk at Penguin gave me several cover alternatives. Choosing one was not easy, as, no matter the many, many hours I’ve put in writing the 15 stories, the cover is probably the most important part of the book.

It’s a sad reality but, as humans, we respond visually. We see an interesting cover and pick the book up or click the buy or sample button if on our ebooks.

Yes, we do judge a book by its cover!

So, for me, it came down to these two:

This one?? Or this one??

Both of them are really nice and eye-catching.

Which one do you like?

JUDGE A BOOK BY IT’S COVER

I’m delighted to say that I’ve a new book coming out very soon!

The good folk at Penguin gave me several cover alternatives. Choosing one was not easy, as, no matter the many, many hours I’ve put in writing the 15 stories, the cover is probably the most important part of the book.

It’s a sad reality but, as humans, we respond visually. We see an interesting cover and pick the book up or click the buy or sample button if on our ebooks.

Yes, we do judge a book by its cover!

So, for me, it came down to these two:

This one?? Or this one??

Both of them are really nice and eye-catching.

Which one do you like?

“I Contain Multitudes” – where Stephen King meets Bob Dylan

I won’t call them my heroes because they haven’t done anything heroic. But they are two people whom, through their immense creativity, have added so much to life. Not just mine but to millions.

They, however, stand on different mountains.

Stephen King, my favourite author, is perched on the Himalayas of Horror while Bob Dylan, my favourite singer/songwriter, eyes us from the tops of the Matterhorn.

What brings them together is the Walt Whitman’s 1,300 lines poem “Song of Myself” where in part 51 he writes:

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

In April 2020 Stephen King publishes his short story collection If It Bleeds where in part 3 of his story “The Life of Chuck” is entitled “I Contain Multitudes”.

Two months later, Bob Dylan releases his Rough and Rowdy Ways album and the first track is called, wait for it, “I Contain Multitudes”.

Wow!

A strange coincidence?

Most certainly for, although King is big fan of Dylan, I doubt the two are friends and tell each other what they’re working on. But, for me, this is an intersection of two minds meeting through their creativity, using the words of Walt Whitman written 165 years ago.

So now I must leave you and read “Song of Myself’ to see what other mysteries it might contain.

P.S Dylan’s album also includes the song “Murder Most Foul” about the JFK assassination which King’s novel 11.22.63 is mostly about. The assassination and the mysteries surrounding it remain unresolved and, while the unanswered questions remain, the country will never find closure over that tragic event.