Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
TRS disambig
Deleted line(s) 19 (click to see context) :
* AlienLunch: In ''Mallworld'', an alien ambassador brings a live animal (considered a delicacy on his planet) to a diplomatic dinner with the humans. The animal looks like a vaguely humanoid rhinoceros beetle and is about the size of a howler monkey. The humans are appalled... APPALLED, I tell you... to find out that the "animal" is actually a child-stage member of the ambassador's own species. (Turns out the aliens aren't sentient until adulthood, breed '''very''' quickly and in copious numbers, and generally consider their own children vermin; any that manage to survive to adulthood are taught how to be civilized beings, but until they they are hunted and eaten by their own parents.
Added DiffLines:
* WeirdWorldWeirdFood: In ''Mallworld'', an alien ambassador brings a live animal (considered a delicacy on his planet) to a diplomatic dinner with the humans. The animal looks like a vaguely humanoid rhinoceros beetle and is about the size of a howler monkey. The humans are appalled... APPALLED, I tell you... to find out that the "animal" is actually a child-stage member of the ambassador's own species. (Turns out the aliens aren't sentient until adulthood, breed '''very''' quickly and in copious numbers, and generally consider their own children vermin; any that manage to survive to adulthood are taught how to be civilized beings, but until they they are hunted and eaten by their own parents.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Changed line(s) 29 (click to see context) from:
* MistakenForServant: Reversed in ''The Shattered Horse'' in which the playmate and servant of the child Astyanax is mistaken for the young heir to the throne of Troy and tossed over the wall to his death; in the novel Astyanax himself survives to adulthood.
to:
* MistakenForServant: Reversed in ''The Shattered Horse'' in which the playmate and servant of the Horse.'' The child Astyanax innocently exchanges clothes with his playmate/servant on the night the city falls. As a result the playmate is mistaken for the young heir to the throne of Troy and tossed over the wall to his death; in Astyanax's protests to the novel contrary are taken for a loyal servant's [[BadLiar desperate lies]], while he notices that the other boy [[HeroicSacrifice isn't disputing the assumption at all]]. Astyanax himself survives to adulthood.adulthood.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/somtownat.jpg]]
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
* AmericaIsStillAColony: In ''The Aquiliad'', the Roman Empire didn't fall, discovered steam power, and eventually came across the Atlantic to conquer the Americas. The protagonist (Aquila, which is Latin for "Eagle") is a member of the Lakotii tribe (what we would call the Lakota Sioux), and a member of the Senate.
Is there an issue? Send a MessageReason:
None
Added DiffLines:
S. P. Somtow, sometimes known as Somtow Sucharitkul, is a Thai/American author of English-language science fiction, fantasy, and horror, as well as a composer and musician.
Somtow is a minor member of the Thai royal family, but he was raised in England, and his first language is English. He moved back to Thailand while still fairly young, and is fluent in both languages. He currently has dual US/Thai citizenship.
His early fiction was published under the name Somtow Sucharitkul, but he quickly switched to using S. P. Somtow--possibly because it's easier for westerners to spell. The P comes from his actual middle name, Papinian. Much of his older work has been republished under the new byline.
As an author, his best known work is probably ''Jasmine Nights'', a semi-autobiographical work set in Thailand with added elements of MagicalRealism. He also has several SF series, including the ''Inquestor'' series, the ''Mallworld'' series, and the alternate history series, ''The Aquiliad''. His horror novels include ''Vampire Junction'' and its sequels, the cowboy/werewolf novel ''Moon Dance'', and the YA novel ''The Vampire's Beautiful Daughter''. He wrote and directed the horror film ''Film/TheLaughingDead'', and co-wrote the Creator/RogerCorman film, ''Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats''.
He has also written novels set in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' universe, the ''Series/{{V 1983}}'' universe, and ''Franchise/TheCrow'' universe.
As a musician, he has composed a number of operas, several symphonies, and one ballet, ''Kaki''. His opera ''Madana'' (based on a play by King Rama VI of then-Siam) was the first western-style opera ever written by a Thai national. He also wrote a musical, ''Raya the Musical'', based on a novel by his mother which had already been adapted as a soap opera on Thai TV. In addition to his work as a composer, he is the artistic director of the Bangkok Opera.
----
!! Tropes in his works:
* AndIMustScream:
** The short story "Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile" features aliens who offer the human race the gift of immortality. There's just one catch; to earn this gift, everyone has to repeat what they did on the day before the aliens came (for the benefit of study groups)--for a million years... and if you died the day before, too bad for you; you get to die again 365,250,000 times. Without the immortality reward at the end.
** The Inquestor-verse stories have the "delphinoid shipminds". These are essentially the brains of blind, mute alien creatures that have been removed from their bodies and placed in starships to navigate through hyperspace (working in tandem with human telepaths who can communicate with the shipminds--their story isn't pretty, either). They're sentient, aware of their situation, and in perpetual agony. At one point some characters are able to essentially hijack a starship by promising the shipmind that once it takes them where they want to go, they'll allow it to die.
* AlienLunch: In ''Mallworld'', an alien ambassador brings a live animal (considered a delicacy on his planet) to a diplomatic dinner with the humans. The animal looks like a vaguely humanoid rhinoceros beetle and is about the size of a howler monkey. The humans are appalled... APPALLED, I tell you... to find out that the "animal" is actually a child-stage member of the ambassador's own species. (Turns out the aliens aren't sentient until adulthood, breed '''very''' quickly and in copious numbers, and generally consider their own children vermin; any that manage to survive to adulthood are taught how to be civilized beings, but until they they are hunted and eaten by their own parents.
* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: In ''The Aquiliad'', the narrator finds the Sasquatii, or, as the scholars put it in proper Greek, the Megapodes--who greet the Romans with, "Shalom." Yes, the Sasquatii are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, kidnapped and mutated by a {{Time Travel}}ing MadScientist... and it goes on to get even weirder.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: In one of the ''Mallworld'' stories, an alien race hosts a banquet for their human hosts, featuring one of the race's prized delicacies. The primary ingredient for this delicacy was roasted alien baby (the children of this alien race were considered vermin until they reached a certain age). The aliens couldn't quite understand why the humans were so horrified.
* ChildEater: The alien overlords in the ''Mallworld'' series not only eat their own children, they've been known to serve them up as the main course at diplomatic dinners. Their children are non-sentient and considered vermin until they reach a certain age.
* ComplexityAddiction: In the ''Inquestor'' stories, Inquestors play a very complicated "game" called ''makrugh'' in which the object is mainly to maneuver your opponents--basically, every other Inquestor--into losing face. Since this is pretty subjective, it tends to result in "You lost."/"Oh, but did I?" type conversations.
* CryonicsFailure: In one of the ''Inquestor'' novels, there's mention of some human colonists who were travelling in time stasis. Unfortunately the device malfunctioned, causing some of them to become [[TakenForGranite irreversibly frozen]], so they're now used as ornaments.
* FalseUtopia: In the Inquestor series, the main characters serve as Utopia Hunters, elite and near immortal maintainers of galaxy order who investigate all so-called utopias and then, having found the hidden flaw, bring the entire edifice down.
* GroundhogDayLoop: The short story "Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile" has aliens grant humanity the gift of immortality--at a price; everyone must relive the day before the aliens came--for a million years.
* TheMall: In ''Mallworld'' stories, the barJulian family is insanely rich because they're descended from the man who held title to the region of space where Mallworld (a giant space station -cum- mall) was built. Most of the workers live in nearby space habitats and commute in, though there are semi-feral tribes of young people who live in the maintenance spaces of the mall itself. If it's not obvious already, most of the stories were written in the 1980s.
* MistakenForServant: Reversed in ''The Shattered Horse'' in which the playmate and servant of the child Astyanax is mistaken for the young heir to the throne of Troy and tossed over the wall to his death; in the novel Astyanax himself survives to adulthood.
* NotInKansasAnyMore: Parodied in one of the ''Aquiliad'' stories about a world where the Roman Empire survives to the 20th century and interacts with Native Americans. At some point one of the Romans says something like "All things considered ''in toto'', I don't think we're in ---- anymore."
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: In the ''Mallworld'' stories, the inner Solar System has been quarantined by enclosing it in a giant sphere about 20 AU in radius (until such time as we become mature enough to join the Galactic civilisation). Not only does this prevent our travelling much beyond Saturn, it also blocks starlight.
* VampiresAreSexGods:
** The protagonist of ''Vampire Junction'' often feeds himself by picking up horny men in the red-light districts... and he looks ten years old. (Guess if you gotta kill ''[[AssholeVictim somebody]]''...)
** All the vampires we see in the short story "Venus and Mars" (besides one {{mook|s}}) are beautiful young girls, all mostly ex-child prostitutes. They have a fairly successful racket going on.
----
Somtow is a minor member of the Thai royal family, but he was raised in England, and his first language is English. He moved back to Thailand while still fairly young, and is fluent in both languages. He currently has dual US/Thai citizenship.
His early fiction was published under the name Somtow Sucharitkul, but he quickly switched to using S. P. Somtow--possibly because it's easier for westerners to spell. The P comes from his actual middle name, Papinian. Much of his older work has been republished under the new byline.
As an author, his best known work is probably ''Jasmine Nights'', a semi-autobiographical work set in Thailand with added elements of MagicalRealism. He also has several SF series, including the ''Inquestor'' series, the ''Mallworld'' series, and the alternate history series, ''The Aquiliad''. His horror novels include ''Vampire Junction'' and its sequels, the cowboy/werewolf novel ''Moon Dance'', and the YA novel ''The Vampire's Beautiful Daughter''. He wrote and directed the horror film ''Film/TheLaughingDead'', and co-wrote the Creator/RogerCorman film, ''Bram Stoker's Burial of the Rats''.
He has also written novels set in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' universe, the ''Series/{{V 1983}}'' universe, and ''Franchise/TheCrow'' universe.
As a musician, he has composed a number of operas, several symphonies, and one ballet, ''Kaki''. His opera ''Madana'' (based on a play by King Rama VI of then-Siam) was the first western-style opera ever written by a Thai national. He also wrote a musical, ''Raya the Musical'', based on a novel by his mother which had already been adapted as a soap opera on Thai TV. In addition to his work as a composer, he is the artistic director of the Bangkok Opera.
----
!! Tropes in his works:
* AndIMustScream:
** The short story "Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile" features aliens who offer the human race the gift of immortality. There's just one catch; to earn this gift, everyone has to repeat what they did on the day before the aliens came (for the benefit of study groups)--for a million years... and if you died the day before, too bad for you; you get to die again 365,250,000 times. Without the immortality reward at the end.
** The Inquestor-verse stories have the "delphinoid shipminds". These are essentially the brains of blind, mute alien creatures that have been removed from their bodies and placed in starships to navigate through hyperspace (working in tandem with human telepaths who can communicate with the shipminds--their story isn't pretty, either). They're sentient, aware of their situation, and in perpetual agony. At one point some characters are able to essentially hijack a starship by promising the shipmind that once it takes them where they want to go, they'll allow it to die.
* AlienLunch: In ''Mallworld'', an alien ambassador brings a live animal (considered a delicacy on his planet) to a diplomatic dinner with the humans. The animal looks like a vaguely humanoid rhinoceros beetle and is about the size of a howler monkey. The humans are appalled... APPALLED, I tell you... to find out that the "animal" is actually a child-stage member of the ambassador's own species. (Turns out the aliens aren't sentient until adulthood, breed '''very''' quickly and in copious numbers, and generally consider their own children vermin; any that manage to survive to adulthood are taught how to be civilized beings, but until they they are hunted and eaten by their own parents.
* BigfootSasquatchAndYeti: In ''The Aquiliad'', the narrator finds the Sasquatii, or, as the scholars put it in proper Greek, the Megapodes--who greet the Romans with, "Shalom." Yes, the Sasquatii are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, kidnapped and mutated by a {{Time Travel}}ing MadScientist... and it goes on to get even weirder.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: In one of the ''Mallworld'' stories, an alien race hosts a banquet for their human hosts, featuring one of the race's prized delicacies. The primary ingredient for this delicacy was roasted alien baby (the children of this alien race were considered vermin until they reached a certain age). The aliens couldn't quite understand why the humans were so horrified.
* ChildEater: The alien overlords in the ''Mallworld'' series not only eat their own children, they've been known to serve them up as the main course at diplomatic dinners. Their children are non-sentient and considered vermin until they reach a certain age.
* ComplexityAddiction: In the ''Inquestor'' stories, Inquestors play a very complicated "game" called ''makrugh'' in which the object is mainly to maneuver your opponents--basically, every other Inquestor--into losing face. Since this is pretty subjective, it tends to result in "You lost."/"Oh, but did I?" type conversations.
* CryonicsFailure: In one of the ''Inquestor'' novels, there's mention of some human colonists who were travelling in time stasis. Unfortunately the device malfunctioned, causing some of them to become [[TakenForGranite irreversibly frozen]], so they're now used as ornaments.
* FalseUtopia: In the Inquestor series, the main characters serve as Utopia Hunters, elite and near immortal maintainers of galaxy order who investigate all so-called utopias and then, having found the hidden flaw, bring the entire edifice down.
* GroundhogDayLoop: The short story "Absent Thee From Felicity Awhile" has aliens grant humanity the gift of immortality--at a price; everyone must relive the day before the aliens came--for a million years.
* TheMall: In ''Mallworld'' stories, the barJulian family is insanely rich because they're descended from the man who held title to the region of space where Mallworld (a giant space station -cum- mall) was built. Most of the workers live in nearby space habitats and commute in, though there are semi-feral tribes of young people who live in the maintenance spaces of the mall itself. If it's not obvious already, most of the stories were written in the 1980s.
* MistakenForServant: Reversed in ''The Shattered Horse'' in which the playmate and servant of the child Astyanax is mistaken for the young heir to the throne of Troy and tossed over the wall to his death; in the novel Astyanax himself survives to adulthood.
* NotInKansasAnyMore: Parodied in one of the ''Aquiliad'' stories about a world where the Roman Empire survives to the 20th century and interacts with Native Americans. At some point one of the Romans says something like "All things considered ''in toto'', I don't think we're in ---- anymore."
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: In the ''Mallworld'' stories, the inner Solar System has been quarantined by enclosing it in a giant sphere about 20 AU in radius (until such time as we become mature enough to join the Galactic civilisation). Not only does this prevent our travelling much beyond Saturn, it also blocks starlight.
* VampiresAreSexGods:
** The protagonist of ''Vampire Junction'' often feeds himself by picking up horny men in the red-light districts... and he looks ten years old. (Guess if you gotta kill ''[[AssholeVictim somebody]]''...)
** All the vampires we see in the short story "Venus and Mars" (besides one {{mook|s}}) are beautiful young girls, all mostly ex-child prostitutes. They have a fairly successful racket going on.
----
