Abstract
Edgar Calabia Samar’s Janus Silang book series is a significant body of contemporary young adult fantasy novels in the Philippines. Samar’s ambitious series that successfully melds alternate online tech-worlds, everyday Filipino life, and ancient supernatural, god-inhabited worlds, is worthy of study. In creating this fantasy world, the Janus Silang series underscores the richness of Filipino mythology and lore by cohesively layering these lived worlds by way of spatial and temporal play. This paper wishes to study the value of this “world(s)-building”, entering this by way of the study of onomastics, the study of proper names of all kinds and the origins of names. Using both toponomastics and anthroponomastics, or the study of place names and human naming, respectively, this inventive, powerful focus on naming solidifies the Janus Silang series’ development of unique Filipino characters and narratives and its reintroduction of the cultures of its imaginary worlds for young, contemporary Filipino and global readers
Highlights
Edgar Calabia Samar’s Janus Silang book series is a significant body of contemporaryyoungadult fantasy novels in the Philippines
Samar’s ambitious series that successfully melds alternate online tech -worlds, everyday Filipino life, and ancient supernatural, god-inhabited worlds, is worthy of study, because of its awardwinning stature as a contemporary Filipino fantasy series (2015 National Book Award winner as Best Novel in a Philippine Language, 2016 National Children’s Book Award, Best Read for Kids, and 2018 National Children’s Book Awards), but more importantly, in creating this fantasy world, the Janus Silang series has underscored the richness of Filipino mythology and lore by cohesively layering these lived worlds by way of spatial and temporal play
Despite the many recognitions given by prestigious award-giving bodies and the critical impact the books have made in the Young Adult (YA) literature genre in the Philippines, there has not been a lot of study done on the Janus Silang series, except for the odd book reviews and features on the series author
Summary
Kara Kennedy echoes Algeo’s point, stating that characters, places, and events that create a “three -dimensional, immersive world” is constitutive of the worldbuilding process in the fantasy and science fiction genres, and the significance of naming needs to be thoroughly studied in the engendering of fantastical and distinct secondary worlds with which readers can be enthralled but which they can totally accept (99).
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