Tag: books

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

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This entry is part 4 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

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 …

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Bikeman: An Epic Poem by Thomas F. Flynn

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As a would-be writer of epic poems myself, and a once-avid cyclist to boot, I took an interest in what purported to be an “epic poem” about the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center when the book appeared on the Librarything Early Reviewer Program list of books available for review. After all, a modern “epic poem” in hardback? The last time such a thing appeared was long ago, at least on my radar screen. So I signed up for Bikeman — among other books — and suddenly, I found myself in possession of a copy. (So, yes, disclosure, I …

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Why SF Has Failed to Put Down Roots in Korea, Part I: To Start With, Questions…

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This entry is part 3 of 72 in the series SF in South Korea

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, …

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Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge

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Whenever people talk about The Singularity, one reaction I always feel in my gut is, “Okay, describe it.” Of course, by its very definition, the Singularity is [relatively] indescribable, since it’s what is as incomprehensible to our minds as our world is to the mind of a goldfish. In this way, The Singularity is, I suspect, simply a piece of SFnal dogma, or perhaps, holy doctrine is a better word for what it is. We can’t show you it, but we can hint at it, point at it, hope you get it. The Singularity is what makes things go way …

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Where Dead Voices Gather, by Nick Tosches

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I have a couple of novels I haven’t reviewed, but I’m going to leave off discussing those till I have my thoughts gathered. For now, I want to write about the book I finished today, which is <i>Where Dead Voices Gather</i>, by Nick Tosches. It’s been a funny week, one of those weeks where whatever you’re into kind of shows up no matter where you look — like when you learn a new word and then hear it used a bunch of times soon after — everyone else either just learned it, like you, or else you were walking around …

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The Arrival by Shaun Tan

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“You have to read this!” I said to Lime as I finished this book. “Mmmm,” she said, nonplussed. I say this sometimes about books I know would take her ages to read — English, after all, being her second language. “No, no, you can read this easily. There are no words in the book.” “Then how can I ‘read’ it?” she said. “Trust me. There’s a story. And it’s beautiful, and moving, and good. You’ll love it.” Tobias Buckell’s mention of the book; warning, it was the review linked above that got me excited about it, and you’ll probably end …

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The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice by Christopher Hitchens

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I rarely inhale books, but today was one of those days. I whipped through this book, disillusioned — who’d have thought I could be more disillusioned than I had been? — yet not really surprised. Doubtless, some interpreted this text as an attack on Mother Teresa, but if you read it carefully, it’s much more an attack on the media — conservative and liberal alike — that, during the woman’s life, glossed over major issues in her work and beliefs, issues that the majority of human beings would probably take issue with if presented directly, and beatified Mother Teresa in …

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I Have the Right to Destroy Myself by Young Ha Kim (Translated by Chi-Young Kim)

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Having read and very much enjoyed the Portable Korean Library translation of “The Photo-Shop Murders” and especially “Whatever Happened to the Guy in the Elevator,” I went into this book expecting something dark, funny, and entertainingly disturbing. Kim scores on about half of those expectations: this “novel” (at 120 pages, it’s more of a novella, really) is somewhat disturbing and rather dark. There are entertaining and funny moments, but I was in fact a little bewildered by the book. It certainly didn’t seem to me to be written by the same person who’d written “Whatever Happened to the Guy Stuck …

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Education Fever: Society, Politics, and The Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea by Michael J. Seth

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I’ve decided to stop doing the “bookdumps” I’ve been doing, where I briefly review a ton of books, and instead give individual reviews — however brief they might sometimes be — their own individual posts. I’m starting with the Hawai’i Studies on Korea series hardback Education Fever: Society, Politics, and The Pursuit of Schooling in South Korea by Michael J. Seth, an academic text about the history of education, attitudes towards it, and its development in South Korea. This book should, in my opinion, be required reading for anyone who’s coming to work as a teacher of any kind in …

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