The wider discussion that The Korean and Rob have sparked off continues with two more recent posts on the subject, here and here. Along the way, a very interesting post was contributed by Matt, that reads almost like a “bitching expat blog” roundup, except all the complaints were made by foreigners in Korea a century or more ago, long before blogs ever existed. I loved this post, and I wanted to link it, but I had it in my head that I’d be posting it with another installment: that’s not going to happen, so I am posting the link as …
Month: August 2008
Reading The Host in Context, Part 2: How I Read The Host
NOTE: The following is a continuation of my earlier post on Reading The Host in context. You should probably start at part 1 first, and proceed here afterward. Though I have trawled through the books I’ve recently read for over a half an hour now, I cannot now find the passage that sticks out in my mind where an SF critic points out that American readings of Gojira, while they tend to correctly grasp the political subtext of the film — anxieties about nuclear weaponry, loss of colonial territory after the war, the threat of American power — miss out …
My Thoughts on SF in Korea (How and Why They’ve Changed)
Anyone who’s reading this series from the beginning will note that this post was written much later than the second post in the series. My thoughts on SF in Korea have changed somewhat, and I think it’s important to frame that. A few months ago, when I began looking into SF here, all I really had access to was a couple of websites, and the shelves of every bookstore I walked past. You see, everytime I saw a bookstore, I would hurry into it and look around for the SF section. Not the SF section in English, but the Korean …
Home With Split Head, But Good…
I’m just posting this to say I went to the festival both yesterday and today, met some interesting people, had fun, took a lot of pictures, and will be reporting back soon. (And looking into what I need to do to submit a notice to Locus about it, or whether that’s even possible…) But also to say that I was thinking back on my earlier posts on the SF in South Korea series, and will need to add a preamble to it, explaining how my impressions and opinions have changed since I started looking into this topic. Both those posts, …
Ian McHugh: Ass Kicking Writer
Kudos time! Australian writer Ian McHugh, the friend I visited in Canberra last year (photos here), not only won 1st Prize for the third quarter of 2008 in the WOTF (Writers of the Future) Contest, and word has it he also won the Gold Prize last night, thereby making, as Wikipedia notes, more money for his short story than most writers make for a first novel sale. Congratulations, Ian! That’s some powerful ass-kicking. Competitor (and fellow Clarion Westie — I would probably have met her if I’d been at WorldCon, as many Westies were about the place) Erin Cashier graciously …