Korean Science Fiction in Translation To Add To Your TBR
For this last new releases Tuesday of the month, I’ve got new SFF releases and some Korean short science fiction in translation for you. It’s…sure been a month, huh? As my best friend recently told me, “It’s been weird, but I don’t hate it.” I certainly hope your July has shaken out the same, at a minimum. Feeling hopeful or feeling excited can be such strange things sometimes: you don’t realize how down you are until there’s suddenly a ray of light shining through the gloom. I hope there’s more light waiting for us all, just around the corner. Now, let’s get into the books!
Bookish Goods
TBR Jar by ADecalToRemember
As someone with a giant TBR, I’m always on the lookout for fun new ideas to point me at what to read next. Writing the titles on slips of paper and drawing them from a jar is a simple, elegant, and fun solution. $18
New Sci-Fi and Fantasy Book Releases
Navigational Entanglements by Aliette de Bodard
Việt Nhi of the Rooster clan is absolutely terrible at dealing with both people and politics, which means, of course, she gets sent on a mission that requires her to have a handle on both, thanks to being dumped on a team of squabbling rivals. Chief among them is Hạc Cúc of the Snake clan, who Nhi both wants to avoid and doesn’t. Hạc Cúc is better at a little light stabbing than making friends, let alone anything else. But they suddenly both need to work together and get their team whipped into shape when the imperial envoy in charge gets poisoned.
Saturation Point by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The “Zone” is a growing band of rainforest at the equator where warm-blooded animals can no longer survive thanks to the climbing heat and humidity. Dr. Jasmine Marks went on an exploratory mission twenty years ago to see what she could learn and if that knowledge could aide agriculture in the more livable zones. The research was cut short by deaths, with the only take-away that the Zone is a no-humans land. Now, she’s taking another run at it, but there are important things her corporation isn’t telling her, which could well prove deadly again.
For a more comprehensive list of new releases, check out our New Books newsletter.
Riot Recommendations
Today, I have two collections of Korean short science fiction in translation for you — the one by Djuna is brand new!
Everything Good Dies Here: Tales from the Linker Universe and Beyond by Djuna translated by Adrian Thieret
This is the first translated collection of Korean writer Djuna’s short stories, which includes six stories of the Linker Universe, in which a mutating virus fractures realities and humans alike.
I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories by Kim Bo-young translated by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu
This collection features two sets of linked novellas. The first is about an engaged couple trying to coordinate their relationship across space and time when they are sent on separate missions. The second is about the godlike beings that created all of Earth, their reaction to being questioned, and the nature of free will.
See you, space pirates. If you’d like to know more about my secret plans to dominate the seas and skies, you can catch me over at my personal site.
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