Windrose in Scarlet, by Isabel Yap

[Lightspeed]

★★★☆☆

(Fairy Tale) Red Riding Hood escapes the wolf after years of living together and finds asylum with Beauty while the Beast is overseas on business. (7,910 words; Time: 26m)

How to Swallow the Moon, by Isabel Yap

[Uncanny]

★★★☆☆ Average

(High Fantasy) When the princess marries, Amira’s duty to her will end and she’ll be free. But she doesn’t want freedom on those terms. (11,208 words; Time: 37m)

Asphalt, River, Mother, Child, by Isabel Yap

[Strange Horizons]

★★★★☆ A Host of Great Characters

(Afterlife) Mebuyen doesn’t get many lost souls anymore—modern Filipinos have moved on—so when a bunch of young people start showing up whom she can’t send along, it’s time to visit the Earth and learn what’s going on. (7,016 words; Time: 23m)

Serenade, by Isabel Yap

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(Cyber SF) Anj and EJ's fledgling hacking business gets a contract to decrypt an old AI-encrypted USB drive. (2,967 words; Time: 09m)

Rating: ★★★★☆ Good plot, interesting tech, moving story

An Ocean the Color of Bruises, by Isabel Yap

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(Horror) Five twenty-something kids from Manila take a beach vacation to reminisce about their college days. It's the off season, but it's odd that no one else is there. (5,199 words)

Rating: 3, Unremarkable

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Milagroso, by Isabel Yap

Tor.com, August 12, 2015; 4,270 words
Rating: 3, Good, ordinary, story

In a near-future Philippines, Marty takes his family to his hometown to see a miracle that transforms artificial food into real food.

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Pro: The narration and dialogue work smoothly to paint a Philippines that feels very real. The steady transformation of Marty's family from indifferent to fanatic comes across very well. The tension as we wonder where the miracle will be (and if there will be one at all) is strong. And the ending, where Marty really can't accept the miracle, suits the story well.

Con: We're given no reason to believe that the "real food" is actually very good. Worse, we're given no reason why real food isn't readily available alongside artificial food.

Find Me, by Isabel Yap

Apex Magazine, September 2015; 4,317 words
Rating: Not Rated

A Philippine-American girl in California is unsettled by the reappearance of a long-lost "friend."

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

The story is well-written, but it is not speculative fiction (otherwise it would be a 3 or a 4). It's the rather sad story of how a girl in remission from schizophrenia begins seeing hallucinations again and eventually stops fighting them, but there's no SF angle here at all.