It's snowing
low-budget project
Looking at the rock
Even if it's just the shell, it's fine
Loosely identical to you
A crow flies in
dawn train
Ghost Forest is coming down
Door to Spring

Author's Note | Acknowledgments | Included Works Announcement Page

“Whether it’s sadness or pain, it’s all the same here.
“May everyone become a beautiful snowflake.”

The wonders of an unfamiliar world, where you, long-awaited, are found.
The exquisite irony of finding use through abandonment and reunion through departure
Our End, or a Premonition of a New Beginning

Kim Bo-young is a representative writer who brought science fiction into the realm of universal novels, which fall under the category of full-fledged literature, and is a writer who is faithful to the basic poetics of science fiction.
(Woo Mi-young, researcher of modern Korean literature)

Eugenics, robotics, AI, and other theories of species evolution are overturned, expanding into disability, disease, and the queer world.
It can truly be called feminist SF.
(Literary critic Heo Yun)

“The writer who writes the most science fiction-like SF,” the novelist Kim Bo-young, who has been praised by readers and critics as the writer who inspired Korean science fiction in the 2000s, is ready to meet readers with her new short story collection, “Whale Eyes Fall.”
When asked about the success of Korean science fiction in the 2010s, he explained, “We’ve always been here, but we’ve only recently come into the public eye” (Hankyoreh, July 27, 2019). He is one of the main players who, along with Duna, Bae Myung-hoon, and Jeong Se-rang, have consistently published works within the public eye for the past 20 years, bringing modern science fiction into the realm of universal novels.
Not only in Korea, but also in the United States, she published the short story “Evolutionary Myths” (translated by Jihyun Park and God Sellers) in Clark’s World, a leading science fiction webzine, and in 2021, she became the first Korean science fiction writer to be nominated for the National Book Award in the translated literature category for “The Origin of Species and Other Stories” (edited by Seonyeong Park, translated by Sora Kim, Jeongmin Lee, et al.), demonstrating the potential of Korean literature to the world.

This collection of short stories includes eight new short stories published by the author over the past five years, as well as “Dawn Train,” published in 2013.
These stories are set in unfamiliar places like the deep sea, space, servers, and other worlds, and feature animals, machines, or data personalities as the main characters. However, each character's face resembles someone we know.
The extremely realistic issues presented through the voices of these simple and courageous people resonate deeply with us.
This book is filled with the most radical imagination of our time, breaking down the distinction between machines and organic life, animals and humans, and overturning human- and civilization-centered thinking.

Overturning fixed ideas
Questioning the standards of value

By my standards, that person is dead.
It was broken down into carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and various other trace elements and was stored in a storage tank and disappeared.
Even if you come out of another transmitter as if nothing happened, you will be a different person with the same memories and body.
(〈Loosely Identical You〉, p.
116)

“The rock cannot protect.”
I whispered to Yeji.
“Don’t you think so?” (Looking at the Rock, p.
90)

Kim Bo-young's novels, which offer fresh twists and turns in a scientific yet mythical world and convey the wonder of science fiction, shine through in this collection.
"Loosely Identical You," which deals with teleportation, invokes the familiar "Ship of Theseus" paradox while simultaneously raising questions of faith and trust that transcend faith and doctrine.
The paradox of those who, although their own lives may seem insignificant, have sincere longings for others and ultimately come to save one another through this belief is refreshingly moving.
Meanwhile, in "Looking at the Rock", the question is asked, in a world where all of humanity has migrated to servers, what should be the target if a part of the world were to be erased due to a lack of data?
Through the people who fight to protect rocks that are in danger of being erased because they have failed to prove their usefulness, and through those who never give up even in a hopeless fight, we can once again think about the reason for the 'value' we think of.

Asking about the value of things thrown away yesterday
Believe in the power of things that come alive today

“It’s unfortunate for the people up there, but will the world become a better place now? Once the monsters that cover the soil are gone, will the children who die from eating things that don’t rot, and the children whose throats are choked by such things, also disappear?” (〈Whale’s Eyes Fall〉, p.
22)

In fact, there is no natural disaster on Earth that is as dangerous as human-caused disasters.
Even places covered in radiation after a nuclear power plant explosion, areas scorched by typhoons, and cities melted to glass by bombs, instead of becoming barren like deserts, are now covered in dense forests.
Whether it's lethal doses of radiation or highly toxic fallout, no disaster is as devastating to humanity.
Disasters, on the other hand, are the greatest disaster on earth, causing humans to leave and restoring the paradise of flora and fauna.
(〈Ghost Forest Descends〉, p.
226)

The appeal of Kim Bo-young's novels lies in the fact that non-human beings, such as deep-sea fish and machine life forms, not only become the center of the novels but also appear as the wisest protagonists.
They appear as the most accurate subjects with which readers can empathize.
Even though the deep sea has become sickened by humans who “excrete incorruptible substances,” and even though the waters are warming and mass deaths occur, there is an irony in the fact that we, who read “Whale Eyes Fall,” feel a strange sense of exhilaration, even though we are humans, as we feel the power of the Earth to recover at the end of all ends.
It's also about the prospect of new beings sprouting up after the apocalypse when an abandoned space colony, overgrown with all sorts of mutant mycelia, crashes to Earth, leaving everything burning and melting.
Kim Bo-young portrays this possibility of regeneration and recovery as snowflakes falling from the depths of the sea, or as colonies of coral and mushrooms tenaciously covering the land, unfolding a world of profound beauty.

Give a different ending to those who leave
Those who remain find deep comfort

I added the words "I love you" to the end of my will.
When I was discharged from the hospital, I decided to go on as many trips as I could with the kids that I hadn't been able to go on before.
There was a pretty mountain lodge that I had visited once when I was young but never went back to, so I decided to go there and enjoy the flowers to my heart's content.
So I decorated this place like that mountain lodge to complete the story.
Even though everything seems plausible on the surface… … .
(〈Even if it's just the shell, it's okay〉, p.
108)

Because novels are another reality, they can give a different ending and life to the person who has left.
It may comfort you and me.
(Author Interview, “Thank you always.
“I will continue to write.” (From “〉)

Another concept that is overturned in this book is 'death'.
A game that a dead old colleague could never release arrives before our eyes (Low Budget Project), a reunion with a younger sibling from whom we were separated early in a space where a digitized self temporarily stays to leave a will (Even If It's Just a Shell, That's Okay), and a story in which death itself is symbolized as a connection to 'another world' and the process of understanding one's life and the world through this (Door to Spring) metaphorically deals with life and death, acceptance and mourning that are closely related to our lives.

The story of Kim Bo-young, loved by us and the world, is so colorful, unfamiliar, and intimate.
His novels, which offer us the thrill of adventure through stories filled with mystery and wonder while simultaneously inviting deep reflection and imagination, continue to advance today as always.