Subdani's summer vacation
double-sided shell
Vibrating Bird and Handwritten Letter
Salt water frequency
Silence and noise
Sweet and lukewarm sadness
Following the rain clouds

Author's Note | Recommendation

Kim Cho-yeop's new novel collection, shining in seven colors
The most accurate temperature we've been waiting for

What Kim Cho-yeop creates is both a story and a sensory experience that will never fade. _Jeong So-yeon (novelist)

It offers hope that no matter what happens in any environment, we can always maintain our fundamental humanity.
Kim Cho-yeop's protagonists are very ordinary, affectionate, and yet extremely resilient. _Jeong Bo-ra (novelist)

I want to go wherever Kim Cho-yeop leads.
We complete the map together, following the quiet and tumultuous sentences left to us by the magician of observation. _Dahye Lee (Writer, Cine21 Reporter)

It's only natural to seek out Kim Cho-yeop's novels to understand how Koreans of this era understood life and the world. —Bae Myung-hoon (novelist)

I encourage your longing, your progress, your change.
The process of breaking and being destroyed is also change.
I support your entire life._Kim Bo-young (novelist)

Novelist Kim Cho-yeop, who expanded the realm of science fiction in Korean literature by setting a record for the longest-running bestseller with her first collection of short stories, “If We Can’t Travel at the Speed ​​of Light,” which received rave reviews from both the public and critics, has published a new collection of short stories, “The Double-Sided Shell,” after four years.
Over the past eight years since his debut, the author has focused on social alienation and exclusion by telling stories of transhumans, non-humans, and others who deviate from normal norms, and has displayed a powerful imagination that goes beyond personal overcoming to move toward social overthrow.
He has also constantly conducted novelistic experiments, depicting worlds and beings that ordinary people cannot experience, such as extreme disasters, unreachable times and spaces, the sensation of alien existence, imperfect communication, and deformed bodies.
The skill of disarming the reader through small miracles that occur in an unfamiliar world, the tender friendships of everyday life, and the love that does not fade even over time is also excellent.
By following the trajectory of Kim Cho-yeop's novels, we are learning about his literary individuality and achievements that he will continue to achieve today.

The seven short stories in this collection are a collection of multifaceted questions and explorations into the nature of humanity.
While connecting with the questions for a better world and the exploration of diverse selves and languages ​​raised by Kim Cho-yeop's novels, it focuses on the issues of humanity and existence.
In a recommendation by the novelist, Information, the author also noted that the characters in the novel “face their own mortality and find the meaning of existence in whatever mode of existence they find themselves, even if they live in a simulation, or are born as androids and equipped with artificial hardware.”

Kim Cho-yeop invites all of us readers to the heart of this question, wary of jumping to easy conclusions or engaging in abstract thought experiments, and invites us to join him on this journey aboard a hot air balloon built on a realistic sensibility and simple faith.
In it, readers can experience Kim Cho-yeop's new leap forward through contradictory emotions of sadness and happiness, loneliness and fulfillment.


Beyond narrow-mindedness and misunderstanding, beyond the edge of the world
A gap of possibility towards a small light

I still sometimes fantasize about becoming a cotton human.
When my heart is heavy, I cry a lot and become like wet cotton, and on a good day, I become like fluffy cotton dried in the sun.
When I'm angry, I can beat myself up.
For a cotton human, self-harm or self-destruction would be a little less dangerous and more pleasant.
A damp heart will dry over time.
So that I can live refreshingly again.
(Subdani's Summer Vacation)

The world of deep blue water overwhelms us.
In the vast space, only we face the sea.
I was afraid to face this immense loneliness.
But Lemon knew this all along.
This lonely world, and therefore how free it is.
(〈Double-Sided Shell〉)

“Summer Vacation in Subdani” and “Double-Sided Shell,” placed in the first half, question what we define as “normal,” the familiar desires that we take for granted and impose on everyone.
Do we need any special reason for our desire to become non-human, our feelings of dissonance with our biological sex, or our desire to form non-exclusive romantic relationships?
As we follow Kim Cho-yeop's novels, we naturally encounter these questions. Rather than simply receiving the author's message, the reader is provided with a space to directly empathize with, empathize with, and vibrate within the various positions.
The story comes to life as it moves through a range of emotions, including love, jealousy, possession, and hatred, and each character shines with their own three-dimensional colors.

A constant effort to understand myself and the world
A cutting-edge novel laboratory that breaks frames and overturns concepts.

“Even when I recorded the sound of the glacier as it was, the sound contained my intention and perspective as the listener.
If we think about it that way, the concept of the soul of things would be a trace of the human 'perspective' that could not be completely separated from the sound of purpose.” (〈Silence and Noise〉)

“Now, I can’t help but be aware that this world, you and I, are a simulation made up of qubits.
My senses have been wandering lately.
(…) red doesn’t seem red, and sweet doesn’t seem sweet.
“When I’m nervous, I feel strangely like I’m sweating or my heart is beating fast.” (Sweet and Lukewarm Sorrow)

I imagine countless worlds, but why am I so fascinated by them? They aren't utopias, nor are they more beautiful or romantic than this one, nor are they particularly kind to the weak. They harbor the same pain, oppression, and misery as this one.
For the people who live there, that world must also be a cage they want to escape from.
Is it okay if it's not just here now? (Following the Clouds)

In this collection of short stories, “Silence and Noise,” “Sweet and Lukewarm Sorrow,” and “Following the Rain Clouds” can be called a series of “explorations” that contain traces of the ceaseless effort to understand human existence and the universe that underlies it.
These works, which break free from the flatness and convenience of how we understand the everyday world, overturn existing notions and shatter rigid frameworks, are filled with the energy of persistently questioning reasons, establishing logic, observing, and proving.
Readers will also find themselves following the footsteps of those who, while persistently exploring questions that cannot be easily answered, such as 'the face of God that exists in a way that we do not want to believe', 'the possibility of existence in a world where life cannot be proven', and 'the leap of a person who is lost in the universe I belong to', little by little, approach the truth.

These novels, told through unreality, through disjointed voices, through bodies that exist and are sensed in inexplicable ways, take a decidedly unfamiliar turn.
This realistically demonstrates how the experience of unfamiliarity can bring about change.
With the illusion that maybe I could understand, that I might reach it someday.
- From Shim Wan-seon, “Knowing It Is Impossible, But Because I Know It - On Kim Cho-yeop”

Kim Cho-yeop takes us into the most unfamiliar worlds, encounters beings we never imagined, and awakens senses we never knew existed.
And yet, as I quietly gaze upon the long-awaited love and the small trust that has not been betrayed, it creates a huge ripple in a corner of my fragile heart.
We are ready to open our eyes to an unknown world.
This is why I've been waiting for Kim Cho-yeop's new work.