giveaway: filipino horror — the winners

it’s time to announce the winners for the filipino horror giveaway!

first, apologies because i wasn’t able to finish all the recommended books. i missed one, NINE SUPERNATURAL STORIES, because it wasn’t readily available at bookstores–and i didn’t have time to go to up press for a copy. also, the competition has gone for far too long, i was supposed to be finished with it last november 15. it’s already november 27.

but explanations aside, here are the winners!

the first winner, the one i picked, gets the WAKING THE DEAD / ILUSTRADO package. and from my reviews, you’ve probably seen which of the recommendations i really liked: TRESE.

though the first and third volume didn’t have the elements of horror i was looking for, the second volume more than made up for it. also, TRESE was a really enjoyable read, and didn’t take me ages to finish. i actually breezed through reading the graphic novels because i couldn’t stop reading.

the only reason the reviews came out a day at a time, was because i was pacing myself. and sure enough, by the time i hit the middle mark, i had slowed down considerably.

so congratulations to fantaghiro23 for suggesting the TRESE series.

and for the second part, where i asked you guys to pick which recommendation you think is scariest, i only got three votes: one each for TALES OF ENCHANTMENT AND FANTASY, TRESE and TRAGIC THEATER.

but i’m calling TRAGIC THEATER the winner. not because i liked it, but because it got an “and-a-half” vote. the votes went like this:

kwesifriends: “I vote for TRESE series and TRAGIC THEATER!” but then added, “Naa, I forgot were voting for the scariest pala. So change it, I’ll vote for TRAGIC THEATER na lang.”

me likes art!: “I vote for TALES OF ENCHANTMENT AND FANTASY, owing to the fact that one of the stories in that collection scared me.”

and,

artseblis: “TRESE! though I also really like TRAGIC THEATER.”

i counted artseblis’s vote for TRAGIC THEATER, since she didn’t take it back. so congratulations to ivanbookworm for suggesting TRAGIC THEATER. you’ve won the WAKING THE DEAD / A TIME FOR DRAGONS package.

winners, please tell me whether you would like for me to handover your prizes during the december 18 meet-up at libreria, the january meet-up of the filipino book bloggers, or if you want me to have your prizes sent through courier services. if you pick the last option, please e-mail me your address through blurredlights (at) gmail (dot) com.

thank you everyone for joining!

book: trese, unreported murders

the second volume of TRESE is, in my opinion, leagues better than the first volume.

TRESE: UNREPORTED MURDERS is the third book of my filipino horror pile, as recommended by fantaghiro23 and kwesifriends. and while i’m not going to rave about the book, i have to admit that it is, so far, the best of the three i’ve already read.

with UNREPORTED MURDERS, we continue to follow lead character alexandra trese as she navigates the underworld of metro manila to solve police cases that involve the supernatural. we still don’t get answers as to who she really is, why the police really depends on her, and why many supernatural beings bow to her “rules.” but, unlike in the first volume wherein these questions nagged at me, i was able to let them go for this volume.

mainly because second volumes rarely do set-up, and this one does. and because unlike the first volume, we get a real taste of horror in the issues contained in this second volume.

in here, we get two stories without a clear-cut ending, and one that is obviously a lead-in to a story about to come. in case #5, the first story of the second volume, we end where we begin: with a nuno (a dwarf-like creature) falling in love; and in case #7, we end with the knowledge that alexandra trese cannot clean up all the supernatural messes of the city. sure, the first volume also had a case that sought a balance between perceived reality and the underworld. but unlike the stories of volume 2, the stories of volume 1 had a more lesson-to-take-home approach to the endings of the story.

volume 2 also had lessons (after all, moral lessons are almost always the point of filipino folklore), but not as black-and-white as the ones found in the first volume. and unlike the stories from the first volume, the ones included in UNREPORTED MURDERS have a more frightening approach to horror. it actually reminds me of the old horror comics i used to read when i was a kid.

now, onto the third (and last, as of now) volume of TRESE.