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 …
Series: SF in South Korea
It’s Not Just the Lateness of Industrialization: How and Why Korean SF Doesn’t Quite Work
I should be grading in-class essays, but my guilt at not yet having done so has been assuaged by the fact that another professor in the department, someone above me, confessed to not having graded her midterms either, and not feeling the slightest bit badly about it! So among all the other insanity of the last week, I also spent some time working up a couple of abstracts for a conference that I think I have no realistic shot at, mostly because I’m not an “official” Korea studies scholar, but at least one of my abstracts was for an essay …
Why SF Has Failed to Put Down Roots in Korea, Part I: To Start With, Questions…
I had a post I was going to write, about fantasy, SF, and the demonstrations going on in Seoul these days, but I decided to pitch it as an article idea. The editor to whom I pitched it liked the concept, so I’m binning that post to keep the juice for my article. That leaves me with two things to write this summer about SF and Korea. The article on the protests is a theme I’m putting off limits, but the paper on the general failure of the SF genre to take root in Korea in is something I can, …
K-Raelians plus The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas M. Disch, and The Men Who Stare At Goats by Jon Ronson
As part of my continuing adventures in figuring out what I want to say in my paper on SF cinema in Korea, this post discusses Raelianism in Korea whilst working through a review of two books on SF and their effects on the world. I’ve just finished reading Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats, kindly recommended to me by my friend and recent WOTF prizewinner, the lovely and talented Ian McHugh. It goes so well with The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas M. Disch — which I finished reading …
To All SF Geeks in Korea With [Patient or Interested] Korean Other Halves
Lime posts here about, “His Books, My Books.” For the relatively Korean impaired — for whom that page will be less than useful — here’s the image from the post: You can see I got her some Debussy, because Debussy rocks, and you can’t have too much Debussy in your life. This is the guy who was asked, once, by which theoretical principles he organized his music, and, I was told by one of my professors, he replied, “My taste, of course.” Make it sound good. And make it new, I’m sure Pound would add — and make it new …
PiFan Book Fair: SF/Fantasy/Horror/Thriller novels and Magazines… in Korean!
Well, I was told I could pick up my tickets at the ticket booth today, but of course, I couldn’t. Somehow, though, I ended up at City Hall and noticed a huge display of books and magazines near the ticket booth. It turned out to be the biggest collection of Korean SF, thriller, suspense, and horror novels I’ve ever seen. I had already picked up some of the books, but I still managed to grab the following titles (in translation) for Lime: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke (in hardback) Odd John by …
The KOFA 괴수 대백과
Unfortunately, I didn’t catch on to what was being played — or, rather, how very rarely some of it is seen — until the evening of the 3rd of August, when it was too late to see the legendary, much-sought-after first Korean monster movie, 우주괴인 왕마귀 (Giant Space Monster Wangmagwi), so I’ll have to just keep looking around and try to catch it next time around. Or, rather, get stomped by it. However, I did manage to see a few other Korean giant monster movies. I’m going to reserve comments on The Host beyond the few things that hit me …
Star Wars ROK Rock
The stunningly knowledgeable Helikkopter (of Indieful ROK), who was kind enough to remember I’ve been trying to get a handle on the status of SF fiction and film in Korea, very kindly notified me of the fact that in March of this year… a very odd little album was released by Ruby Record. It’s called Star Wars Project Compilation. SF fans, panic not! It features not some Korean form of the filk (perish the thought) but rather original works by (seemingly) competent musicians in homage to, reference to, or all about the Star Wars movie series. I can’t get the …
2008 SF&F Festival (Seoul)?
Oh my… Well, I missed Denvention (this year’s WorldCon), but there is this, at least, to give a look-see: The 2008 SF&F Festival is going on in Seoul. It’s a two-day event with a bunch of movie screenings, along with some lectures (or maybe more like panel discussions?) I’m sure will be mostly incomprehensible. But it’s W1,000 — about a buck — to join in on the fun, it’ll be a chance to see a few films I’ve not seen, it’ll feature Korean SF geeks in their native environment, and it’s only a couple of days long… so what the …
Reading The Host in Context, Part 1
Well, here I go. This is my attempt to provide a reading of the 2006 blockbuster Korean film The Host in context — that is , not only a Korean cultural and historical context, but also in the context of Korean Gwoesu (“Giant Monster”) movies, and those films which influenced the development of the genre in South Korea. Disclaimer — all images not cited to an photographer at copyright their respective owners. They are used in this post for educational/critical purposes, and thus their use falls under fair use. Thank goodness, because this essay would be hard to read without …