Spirits Abroad

Written by Zen Cho

Narrated by Emily Woo Zeller

A new expanded edition of Zen Cho’s award-winning debut collection.

Nineteen sparkling stories that weave between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Spirits Abroad is an expanded edition of Zen Cho’s Crawford Award–winning debut collection with nine added stories including Hugo Award
winner “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again.” A Datin recalls her romance with an orang bunian. A teenage pontianak struggles to balance homework, bossy aunties, first love, and eating people. An earth spirit gets entangled in protracted
negotiations with an annoying landlord, and Chang E spins off into outer space, the ultimate metaphor for the Chinese diaspora.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781705030004

Zen Cho

Zen Cho was born and raised in Malaysia and now lives in Birmingham. She was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer for her short fiction and won the Crawford Award. Her debut novel, Sorcerer to the Crown, won the 2016 British Fantasy Society Award for Best Newcomer. She is also the author of The True Queen and Black Water Sister.

Reviews for Spirits Abroad

[renbedell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fantastic collection of short stories revolving around family, spirits, and death. The stories are similar in tone and ideas, which is nice as you know where the stories are going to go. They are all of high quality and I enjoyed all of them. Some of the short stories are outstanding. They are not connected, except for a few. They all are based on a Chinese-Malaysian culture, therefore there may be some terms used that some people may not be familiar with. If anyone is interested in short stories, I highly recommend this book.

[phoenixterran · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The original edition of Zen Cho's award-winning short story collection Spirits Abroad has long been on my wishlist, but it is somewhat difficult to come by in the United States. And so I was absolutely thrilled to discover that Small Beer Press would be releasing an expanded edition of Spirits Abroad and even more delighted to receive a review copy of the volume through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. Spirits Abroad is a treasure trove of fantastical and queer stories, a diverse array of tales drawing inspiration from Malaysian folklore, British magic, and more. After reading the collection I immediately sought out everything else written by Zen Cho, the stories were consistently that good. I absolutely loved Spirits Abroad; the volume is easily one of the best releases that I read in 2021.

[Lerato · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved the stories, although I prefer long novels! Perfect for Halloween

[euryale-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy of this collection through the LT Early Reviewers program. I had read Zen Cho's novelette "The House of Aunts" back in 2015 and greatly enjoyed it, so I had high expectations for the rest of the stories here. And I think the collection mostly met my expectations.Overall these are solid short stories and novelettes, mostly set in Malaysia or Malaysian immigrant communities in the UK. All of the stories draw from Malaysian or Chinese folklore and traditions, which made for a refreshing break from the sometimes overused Western fantasy tropes. (Although Western fairies show up, too, in "One-Day Travelcard for Fairyland" and the delightful "Monkey King, Faerie Queen.") That said, all of the cultural references are integrated organically into the story, rather than being explicitly detailed for those unfamiliar with the concepts or language. I appreciated this approach (no clumsy infodumps!), but don't go into the book expecting to be spoon-fed information about pontianaks or the Ghost Festival.All of the stories are well-written, even if I didn't love all of them. My favorites were "Monkey King, Faerie Queen," "The Terra-Cotta Bride," "The Mystery of the Suet Swain," and "The House of Aunts."