Muros: Within Magical Walls (9780804855563)

An intrepid detective tracks a girl lost amidst Manila's many temptations. Can he crack the case and find the girl before the city erupts into violence?

Muros is an urban fantasy set in an alternate Manila which has been sealed off from the rest of the world for decades. In this fast-paced graphic novel the walled city of Manila, recently freed from a dictator's iron-fisted rule, is a magical metropolis where monsters flit and feed along neon-lit streets. The city, now governed by mysterious Societies, faces rising tensions between the human and nonhuman inhabitants that are nearing a breaking point.

The story's hero, Carlos "Caloy" Loyzaga, a "Taga-Sagot" (literally translated to Person Who Answers), is tasked with finding the runaway daughter of a small town Mayor. Caloy knows that there's more to the story — but in a world where magic and modernity make for uneasy bedfellows, there are some secrets you simply can't prepare for. Especially secrets that involve a cast of nonhuman characters, such as one-eyed Yomaws (hybrid human-canines), Asu-Gamis (half Aswang, half Inugami) and slinky Silat immortals—the hated weapons of the tyrant God.

Readers looking for a different take on magic, or those interested in seeing an alternative history set in the Philippines, will find plenty to sink their teeth into here. Fans of Tan & Baldisimo's Trese or Jim Butcher's Dresden Files will also find a heady mix of the familiar and the strange.


About the Author:
Paolo Chikiamco is a Filipino writer of prose, comics, and interactive fiction. He is the editor of Alternative Alamat: Myths and Legends from the Philippines and his work has been published in anthologies such as The Sea Is Ours and The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction. In the field of comics, he's the co-creator of Mythspace: Ignition (Ablaze Publishing), and A Sparrow's Roar (BOOM! Studios). He has also served as a judge for the Graphic Literature category of the National Book Awards, and is the creator of the #RP612fic Twitter hashtag.

Borg Sinaban is a freelance comic artist and illustrator based in Manila. He's a sci-fantasy enjoyer and a lover of both soft and hard magic systems. He currently does character designs and book covers when not making graphic novels of his own.