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Shoto Press announces release of Malay Mysteries book 3: Island of Glass and Ashes
Newest installment of critically-acclaimed series delves into Indonesian reanimation mythology

NEW YORK, December 1, 2006 -- Shoto Press, a small press imprint specializing in speculative fiction and graphic novels, announced today the upcoming release of The Malay Mysteries book 3: Island of Glass and Ashes, the third installment of the popular ten-book limited series that debuted with the Eisner-nominated and Xeric award-winning graphic novel Garlands of Moonlight.

"Island of Glass and Ashes evokes the visceral horror that so many readers responded to in Garlands of Moonlight," commented Jai Sen, the series' lead author. "Malay spiritual thought explores the interdependence between light and dark forces in nature, with neither side having an advantage. We've done our best to explore this philosophy in The Malay Mysteries, alternating mystery tales like The Ghost of Silver Cliff with more profoundly unsettling ones, like the one in Island of Glass and Ashes, which deals with loss, loneliness, and bringing the dead back to unnatural life."

Sen collected Malay ghost stories and supernatural lore during his seven years in Indonesia, forming them into his well-received graphic novels, which feature a stalwart medicine woman named Marsiti and a rational schoolteacher named Hidayat as the protagonists. The tales are set against a backdrop of social and political upheaval during the early 20th century, when Indonesia was still a Dutch colony. As Sen noted during a talk at U.C. Berkeley's Department of Southeast Asian Studies after the release of The Ghost of Silver Cliff, "Malay supernatural folklore reveals what that culture's feelings are towards a foreign presence in their homeland. It's this intersection, the point at which cultures collide, that I find fascinating and that form the core ideas I want to write about in The Malay Mysteries."

The series will continue to mix anthropology with horror, philosophy with mystery, and Eastern art with Western storytelling to create ten engaging graphic novels. The latest book in the series also marks the entry of a new artist: M. Reza Aribuwana, a talented Indonesian comics artist and illustrator. Aribuwana was trained as an architect and lives in Bandung, Indonesia. The series' first illustrator, Indonesian artist Rizky Wasisto Edi, was nominated for a 2002 Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, the first such recognition of an Indonesian comics artist.

Shoto Press books are available through Baker & Taylor and include Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication (P-CIP) data to facilitate integration of Shoto Press titles into library collections and bookstores.

The Malay Mysteries and all Shoto Press books can be ordered through the Shoto Press web site (URL: www.shotopress.com), Diamond Previews, Cold Cut Comics Distribution, local bookstores, and at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble Online. Select titles, including The Malay Mysteries book 3: Island of Glass and Ashes, are also being made available for reading online through the BitPass program.

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