Series: SF in South Korea

Wackiest Korean Book I Ever Bought

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This entry is part 31 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

If you’re curious, I found the wackiest Korean book I’d ever seen this past weekend  at the Kyobo Bookstore in Gangnam, and got myself a copy while I could, because I don’t imagine it’s going to sell too well and will likely end up sold off for cheap before long, at which point it’ll be easier to find hunting in discount book stands (in one of which Miss Jiwaku and I found several books of translations of Lovecraft stories this past winter, for example)… but who has time for that? The book is titled 도해 쿠툴루 신화 (Zukai Cthulhu Shinhwa) …

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Geek Out

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This entry is part 32 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

“You know you’re with a bunch of geeks when…” was the line I said most often last night. Being among SF geeks is salutary, though; it’s normal for everyone to totally geek out over an iPad (as we did — trying out a bunch of bookreader and comic book reader applications in sequence), or to check out the bookshelves and talk about all the great books and authors contained thereupon, and so on. There was a party including a nice chunk of Seoul’s SF fandom population, including a number of my own friends and acquaintances. I supplied a sampling of …

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Boyran, a novel by “World’s Youngest Fantasy Writer Wonje Song”

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This entry is part 33 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

UPDATE (9 Feb 2010): Yeah, I know he’s not really the world’s youngest fantasy writer. The book was marketed this way, though, and I wanted to include that in the title of the post. It’s exactly the kind of hyperbole one sees in Korea all the time, absolutely not fact-checked or anything. Anyway… ORIGINAL POST: On Friday last, my friend Nick and dropped by that jazz festival I mentioned. I’ll post more about that soon — I have some pics I want to add to the post, but it’s already written up. On the way back to the subway station, …

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박민규의 지구 영웅 전설과 카스테라

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This entry is part 34 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Park Min Gyu is a Korean author that has been recommended to me by several people, independent of one another. After hearing about my novella “Wonjjang and the Madman of Pyongyang,” Stephen Epstein recommended Park’s book 지구 영웅 전설, which I’ll render here sloppily as World Hero Legend or, a little less sloppily, as The Legend of the Earth’s Superheroes, a novel featuring a Korean supe who supposedly sets out to become a superhero and ends up calling himself “Banana-man” and ends up being a kind of gopher or page for American heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman (who sends …

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If Only I Were Part Robot…

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This entry is part 35 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

I’d have time to post constantly. But since I’m not: Here’s some vintage Korean SF action… well, for a broad definition of SF: Apparently the show is now retro-hip enough for indie rockers Go Go Star to do a musical (and cosplay) tribute: Another version of the song, with better video: As for me, I’ll be off to Melbourne for the Utopias 4 conference hosted at Monash University and WorldCon — I’m presenting (different) papers at each. I’ll post my schedule as soon as it’s finalized, in case anyone wants to meet up.

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Dancing Stormtroopers in Seoul?

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This entry is part 36 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

While it doesn’t surprise me to see a dancing stormtrooper video from Japan: … I must say I was surprised to see such a thing from Korea: and indeed there’s a whole channel of dancing Stormtrooper vids from Seoul. Anyone know who these people are?

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[Literary] SF: A Social Phenomenon (Plus Some Detours)

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This entry is part 37 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

So, I recently recounted my observation that SF is a social phenomenon, which was (though somewhat buried) basically the point of a recent presentation I made. I was thinking about this fact when I had a sudden realization, or what felt like one, anyway. It had to do with being asked what attracted me personally, to SF, but I noted that I was an unusual case, since I came to the genre as an adult. (That is, if we take SF to mean science fiction. If we consider SF in the sense of “speculative” fiction, ie. including fantasy and horror …

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Addendum to [Literary] SF: A Social Phenomenon (Plus Some Detours)

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This entry is part 38 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Over at the Livejournal mirror of this site, I was asked, just now, to clarify something about my last post, titled “[Literary] SF: A Social Phenomenon (Plus Some Detours),” why in the point I called Access I placed so much emphasis on foreign works in translation. I thought I would clarify that, as well as adding a point or two from the recent paper I presented at WorldCon. Note: I suggest you click that link, and see the original post first, before reading what follows. First: I emphasize foreign works in translation as an important part of “Access” to SF …

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Addendum #2 to [Literary] SF: A Social Phenomenon (Plus Some Detours)

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This entry is part 39 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

Note: This is an addendum to this original post, and to the first addendum I posted the other day. Some of the discussion that has cropped up in the responses to the earlier post and addendum to which this is appended (and which I want to address) is concerned with the “colonialism” or “imperialism” of the status I suggested American mainstream non-SF media have for average Korean viewers. That is to say, questions were raised as to whether this non-SF having a kind of pseudo-SFnal, utopian quality — in that it depicts a world not only radically different, but also …

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Coming Soon: Gwacheon International SF Film Festival!

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This entry is part 40 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

So I should have posted about this before, but there’s an SF Film Festival on soon. It’s starting in a few days (28 October) and runs until 7 November, down at the National Science Museum in Gwacheon, South Korea. There’s a twitter account that’s announcing events and so on, but unless you read Korean, it won’t mean much to you. Much better to head over to the website. It’s a chance to see all kinds of SF films on the big screen, from 2001: A Space Odyssey (and the sequel) to an all-night Back to the Future trilogy marathon this …

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