Exceptional Encounters

Can an army of orangutan guerrillas save the Indonesian rainforest? Why is China creating a retirement haven in the South China Sea for rich despots? What happened when the British descendant of the oversexed first White Rajah of Borneo returned to claim his throne? Did Filipino “love sorcerers” help swing a US election? Can an American pilgrim find enlightenment through carnal escapades? How can Asia’s first “shaman university” repel an attack by rogue black-magic wizards? And why is Indonesia’s Mermaid Queen really angry and not going to take it anymore? 

Exceptional Encounters takes the seeds of true stories and applies the classic fiction writer’s aerobic exercise by asking: What if? These enhanced-reality fabulations draw the reader into tales of just-over-the-rainbow Asian kindness, greed, ambition, passion, and dreams.

“This is travel writing evolved to a new dimension, full of wit, insight, and take-no-prisoner fabulations.”

—William Shakespeare, author of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Titus Andronicus

“Exceptional Encounters rolls along like a runaway truck full of magic potions, scattering whimsy, acumen, and oft-hidden Asian truths along the way.”

 —Somerset Maugham, author of The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage