Singapore shelf

FICTION

ALTERED STRAITS

By Kevin Martens Wong

Epigram Books/ Paperback/300 pages/ $26.64/Major bookstores and localbooks.sg

Altered Straits

Pacific Rim meets Ender's Game in Marina Bay in Wong's bold vision of alternate Singapores, the final novel to be published from the 2015 Epigram Fiction Prize.

A boy soldier in 1947 is bonded telepathically to a weaponised Merlion, while in post-apocalyptic 2047, a Singapore Armed Forces officer must retrieve a Merlion to battle the Concordance, a hive intelligence that threatens to consume all humanity.


PAYOH

By Jim Tan

Ethos Books/Paperback/ 236 pages/$16.05/ Books Kinokuniya, MPH, Booktique and localbooks.sg

Payoh

A frustrating brush with income- tax bureaucracy inspired Tan, a retired contractor who was unemployed and in debt at the time, to pen this political allegory, in which a retired professor reads a story by a Changi Prison inmate.

In it, a sulphur-crested cockatoo named Lucky moves into a protected bird sanctuary, which swiftly turns political.


CHILDREN'S

THE HOUSE ON PALMER ROAD

By Si-Hoe S. S. and Sim Ee Waun

Pepper Dog Press/ Paperback/128 pages/ $12/Books Ahoy!, Books Kinokuniya, Woods In The Books, Tango Mango and localbooks.sg

In 1930s Singapore, eight-year-old Sing leads a carefree life with her nine brothers and sisters in their wooden house in Palmer Road, frog-hunting and running from guard geese.

The House On Palmer Road

The book, meant for children aged seven to 12, is based on 83-year-old Si-Hoe's experiences of life before World War II.


THE GHOST WITH DIRTY FEET

By Sharon Ismail

Write.Speak.Play/ Paperback/ 36 pages/$15/ My Imagination Kingdom and www.closetfulofbooks.com

Ali, an adopted child, is afraid that his family will give him away due to hard times in the kampung. He plots to convince them otherwise by winning three months' supply of rice for the family.

The Ghost With Dirty Feet

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 28, 2017, with the headline Singapore shelf. Subscribe