Michael Barnes
I haven't read any of Bora Chung's work before, a deficiency I expect to address after finishing this extraordinary collection of short stories.
Each of these eight tales are very original and difficult to categorise other than science fiction 'with a twist' none more so than the first story where we meet people working at the Center for Immortality Research, with most of the senior staff displaying very mortal pettiness. The End of the Voyage a zombie tale where seemingly rational people get suddenly and startlingly infected with cannibalism. We root (pardon that unwitting pun) for a species of plant-human hybrids as they try to save their patch of land from what else, but humans. We are moved when an AI-enabled elevator develops a fondness for a woman suffering from the onset of Parkinson`s. We recoil in horror as a suspicious husband gets more than he bargained for, when he tries to keep track of his wife`s movements, this is another one where a classic science fiction trope gets hit with a twilight zonesque twist but it was her story 'To know her' the last in this collection which affected me most deeply giving a more deserving end to Korea's late Byun Hee-soo tragic story.
Reading up on Bora Chung in a piece titled ' Bora Chung shows us what sci-fi with its fists raised looks like' and revealing "In fact, one way the writer describes her own brand of science fiction is “demonstration sci-fi” — a term shaped by her 12 years as a political activist, attending rallies for victims of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster and LGBTQ rights, as well as campaigns for a comprehensive anti-discrimination law and workplace safety reform", has only made me want to read her more.
I haven't read any of Bora Chung's work before, a deficiency I expect to address after finishing this extraordinary collection of short stories.
Each of these eight tales are very original and difficult to categorise other than science fiction 'with a twist' none more so than the first story where we meet people working at the Center for Immortality Research, with most of the senior staff displaying very mortal pettiness. The End of the Voyage a zombie tale where seemingly rational people get suddenly and startlingly infected with cannibalism. We root (pardon that unwitting pun) for a species of plant-human hybrids as they try to save their patch of land from what else, but humans. We are moved when an AI-enabled elevator develops a fondness for a woman suffering from the onset of Parkinson`s. We recoil in horror as a suspicious husband gets more than he bargained for, when he tries to keep track of his wife`s movements, this is another one where a classic science fiction trope gets hit with a twilight zonesque twist but it was her story 'To know her' the last in this collection which affected me most deeply giving a more deserving end to Korea's late Byun Hee-soo tragic story.
Reading up on Bora Chung in a piece titled ' Bora Chung shows us what sci-fi with its fists raised looks like' and revealing "In fact, one way the writer describes her own brand of science fiction is “demonstration sci-fi” — a term shaped by her 12 years as a political activist, attending rallies for victims of the 2014 Sewol ferry disaster and LGBTQ rights, as well as campaigns for a comprehensive anti-discrimination law and workplace safety reform", has only made me want to read her more.