Tag: Korean SF

Korean SF 2020: A Rushed Update

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This entry is part 69 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

The vagaries of full-time child-care and full-time work (online, thank goodness) on top of full-time pandemic and full-time global insanity have left me a bit out of the loop when it comes to Korean SF—and I feel a little less obligated to keep up this series now that more people out there in the rest of the world are paying attention to Korean SF—but I feel like it’s worth mentioning a few things: Back in September, FutureCon happened. It was a great series of panel discussions about SF all over the world, and I highly recommend checking out all of …

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Readymade Bodhisattva, “The Flowering,” Los Angeles/Riverside, and More

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This entry is part 67 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything to the SF in South Korea series on this blog, but that doesn’t mean that nothing’s happened in the field. It’s just that:  My interests have broadened out from SF to other forms of speculative or “genre” narrative (and, in a big way, to include tabletop RPGs in general), and a lot has happened in many other narrative genres and different media within Korea.   I’ve been a little less involved in the informal Korean SF world since 2013. We were abroad for a while, and then we had a kid and moved …

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Old Movie Promo Posters in Korea

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This entry is part 66 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

In Korean cinemas, upcoming and currently-running films are advertised using handouts (available on a stand within the cinema) that are A4 printouts of the film’s poster on the front, with a writeup and some still frames from the film on the back. Maybe these exist in Canada now too, but I’d never seen such a thing before I arrived here, years ago.  As long as I’ve been here, these flyers were always just a re-texted version of the film poster, with the title in Hangeul. (Sometimes, the title really is just “in Hangeul”—not translated, just written using English words in …

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Korean SF Translations, and Our Current Workflow

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So, my wife and I have been working on a couple of translations lately.  I mentioned, back in September, having finished up one of them. We just put the almost-final touches on the second one. (We sent off three questions to the original author of the second one we finished drafting, but otherwise, the translation’s pretty much done and just needs some proofreading before it’s sent off.) The two stories are: 레디메이드 보살 by Sunghwan Park (English title: “The Prefab Bodhisattva.” This is a story I’ve mentioned here before, as one of the tales adapted to the screen in The Doomsday Book omnibus …

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In Other News…

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It’s been such a busy time I haven’t updated much, but a lot has been going on, and not all of it relates to poo, diapers, 3:00am feedings, and baby wipes… There’s been some movement on several fronts, in fact: fiction writing & publication, RPG/game writing, and a workshop I attended just before Noeul was born. Publication News: Back in late September I got my copy of Cthulhu Fhtagn!, which contains my story “The Return of Sarnath” alongside new, original works by a number of Lovecraftian notables, as well as some authors new to me. Here’s the copy I got in …

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Boyoung Kim’s “An Evolutionary Myth”: Reviews and Comments, and Audio Version

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This entry is part 70 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I mentioned recently that our translation of Boyoung Kim’s “An Evolutionary Myth” was published in May, in the (excellent) 104th issue of Clarkesworld. Since then, a podcast of the story has been released—you can hear it here. It’s worth mentioning that, David Steffen deemed Boyoung’s story the #4 best of Clarkesworld’s story podcast episodes (out of a total of fifteen best) in his review of Clarkesworld’s podcast. In addition, the story has been reviewed a few other times since it was published, and very positively too! It was one of Lois Tilton’s recommended stories for the month. In her reviews column in Locus, she …

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Korean SF Festival 2014

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This entry is part 64 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Those tracking Korean SF might be pleased to note that the Gwacheon International SF Film Festival I blogged about a while back–and which has continued over the years since–has expanded into a kind of Korean SF Festival, full stop. There’s a big film component, but there seems to be much more than screenings and an exhibit nowadays, which is great! It runs from the 26 September to 5 October this year, and is being held at the same spot as the year I attended: the Gwacheon Science Museum which is a very good venue, as long as you don’t mind the trek out to Gwacheon. Here’s a link to …

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Seoul Comics World Convention #114 (December 2012)

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This entry is part 59 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Note: This is a post from late December. I was too busy to finish writing it, so I’m posting it a bit late.  Those following my SF in South Korea series have no doubt been wondering why I haven’t posted anything new in a long time. The fact is, not much has happened as far as I’ve heard about. I do have some reviews of older SF movies that Miss Jiwaku and I have dug into–specifically, Half-Moon Mask (Mask Bandal) and Wooraemae–but I’d rather talk about those once I’ve seen the whole series, and in both cases, that’s a lot of …

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사이코메트리 [Psychometry] — The Gifted Hands (2013)

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This entry is part 58 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

There is now a stereotype for psychics in Korean cinema. (Assuming there wasn’t already one, that is.) Psychics are tall and pale as Snow White. They are skinny and their eyes do weird, sparkly blue things. Even if they’re from a poor background or living in poverty, they are obviously plastic-surgeried, and they look as if they belong in the back line of the photographs of a Korean boy band. Also, when they do something psychic, they look kind of crazy, and their eyes get really big too. To be fair, it’s probably as much the investors pressuring the director …

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Korean “Disaster” Films: 연가시 / Deranged

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This entry is part 56 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I guess I blinked a week or two ago, as I missed Cabin in the Woods’ very brief release in Korea. This suggests it was a probably a good film, since good films here are rarely shown more than a week. Resignedly, Miss Jiwaku and I schlepped it down to the local cinema to watch 연가시 (apparently known in English as Deranged, which is not the best title choice, but then, it’s not the best movie so I don’t think the foreign title’s a problem). Deranged is, just barely, Korean science fiction, so I figured I’d give it a review here. In …

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