I can't remember why I picked the Philippines as a country to search for science fiction authors, especially as my plan was to tick off the 4 home countries of the UK, and then move onto the rest of Europe. But anyway after a few searches I did find a few selections of short stories from the Philippines, that looked OK, but I much prefer a full novel over a short story.
Korean, sci series and films have been on my playlist for ages now. With such greats as Squid games, Train to Busan, Parasite and snowpiercer I though there would be a glut of South Korean sci fi books translated into English. But it was quite a struggle to find sci fi books. Maybe they focus on writing film and TV scripts, rather than novels. Who knows, but Bae Myung-Hoon's name kept popping up, and to be honest, the cover artwork for Tower pushed me in to buying the book.
I'm usually heavily put off when a book is listed as 'a collection of stories'. I want to read a 200+ page book, where I get invested in the characters and the story. Short stories, usually have nice ideas, but always leave me want to know much more detail and depth. However, this book had a central character, and this was the 647 story building that was commonplace in the 6 (slightly connected) stories that happen inside the building. The stories are great 30-50 pages in length each, so just enough for some detail and time to get invested in liking (or disliking) the main characters. Some odd concepts for a future living in a building large enough to be considered its own country, but really enjoyable and a very easy read. I guess I don't know enought about Korean history or politics to know how satirical the book is, but there were some clear digs at incompetent leadership in government and the military. So this did tick some huge boxes for this project, and reminded me of other South Korean TV and film, in the way it deals with class culture and elitist powerful groups. 
Sri Lanka was just a random country I picked after I heard that a mate had been there on holiday. The Salvage Crew popped up straight away, and got ordered within minutes. The story and characters had nothing to do with Sri Lanka but I don't mind. I've found a really cool book with loads of stuff I love about sci fi. A grumpy, weather worn AI ship, who leads the rest of the crew on a tough thankless mission.
The book had some really really cool ideas, and I was really drawn to ideas of language and poetry leading the way in civilisation and advancement.
I only discovered this book because of reading The Dark Forest as this book was refenced in the translators foot notes. It also was the next step in expanding my library of Sci-fi from around the world. I was given this book and Ambition (the second book in the series) These are nice short books and a welcome releif from the rather large and heavy books in The Three-Body Problem series.
When I got the first two books, i had a quick look to see how many other books there are in the series. There are TEN! I now have two books in a series of ten sitting on my bookshelf. I can't cope with that. I need to buy the other eight! I'm going to use this series of books as a breather between some of the more heavy and 'chewy' books that I have lined up in my ever growing list of Sci-fi from around the world
After the fast paced finale of The Three-Body Problem it was a little frustrating for the second book in the series to slow things back down, and retell parts of the first book from different view points. But the story really started to pick up pace in the second half, introducing some amazing concepts once again.
The translators footnotes were not as frequent in the book either, which I (wrongly) assumed was due to a different translator. However one of the translators footnotes pointed out that 2 of the characters were talking about a fictional character. The translator pointed out the fictional characters were referencing a commander in a Japanese series of books called Legend of the Galactic Heroes which I put on my wish list for the family Secret Santa (gratefully my Secret Santa purchased me the first 2 books in the series).
As soon as the book finished it was straight onto Death's End for the final instalment of this epic saga.
This book was a gift from my son who had heard about in one podcast / YouTube channels he watches. I was excited to read a Sci-fi book from China, as China's history and politics is so different from my home country of England. And when a book comes with praise from former President Barack Obama, you're probably in for a treat.
The book really picks up the pace in the final third of the book, introducing some incredible concepts and ideas. Earths ensuing crises and defense ideas are equally incredible as the alien ones. It's hard to talk about the book without crossing over on to the second and third books as they have started to merge in my memory.
Either way, I can't recommend this book highly enough. Really enjoy the concepts. I can't really comment on the merits of the writting, but I found easy to read and very compelling. One slight distraction was the amount of translator's note, in places these broke up the flow of the story, as I was looking up the foot notes. Don't get me wrong, there were interesting and informative, but didn't always add anything to the story.
