Korea (South) - Red Sword - Bora Chung 

How I found the book:

I subscribe to Honford press' email newsletter, and they are such a cool publishing house, specialising in translated works. I had already read Tower from South Korea, but when I saw Red Sword and red the preview, it sounded a lot more 'Science Fictiony' than Tower, so thought I would add this to my collection. 

The physical Book: 

First of all, I love this book! The physical book is absolutely beautiful and a wonderful thing to hold. The cover is super simplistic and Uber cool, with a giant red metallic sword cutting through what looks like clouds of fog. The cover was designed by Jieun Hahm. It's not often I'm delighted by the physical book, but the whole layout is perfect for reading, easy fonts, subtle and stylish page numbering. Even the paper is slightly thicker and more luxurious than other books. Before I totally bore you with the weight of the pages, there is another really cool feature with the books main body being sanwiched between two sheets of super thick heavy tracing paper. Giving the page behind an eirey feel when lifted away. This effect is mirrored in the story with the planet they land on being covered in a deep white fog. So huge kudos to Doosung, South Korea who provided the tracing paper, Paju, South Korea who printed and bound the book, and Honford Star who published the translated work in the UK.

The story:

Ok that's enough swooning over the physical book, well for now, until I remember something else to to book geek over. It's a great intriging story, that builds and i loved reading the story. As the story develops you learn more about the characters and their stories, but there is still so much unknown and mysterious. The action scenes are alway fun and the weapons are pretty cool too. you're never quite sure which side to pick, who are the bad guys and who are good, or is everyone bad. It's great read and I got through it pretty quickly.

How Korean?

The story is inspired by China's invasions where they took Korean slaves to fill the ranks in their armies. So if reflects parts of Koreanean history.

Would I recommend?

I think so. I mean I liked it. I think science fiction fans would like it. Or at least be curious about it. So I'm guessing if you are reading this then you are a science fiction fan looking at expanding your reading experience, so I would recommend this to you! It's an easy read.

Korea (South) - Tower - Bae Myung-Hoon.

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.