White night and blue moon
vaquita
blue dot
Cornfield and brother
Yes, yes
nameless body
-to
Bird flying through space
Two worlds
A tree whose roots grow to the sky

Author's Note

A Thousand Blues, A Certain Material's Love, The Savior Who Comes at Night, Nine
The shining star of Korean literature, Cheon Seon-ran, publishes her second collection of short stories!
*
People who are lonely so as not to be lonely
A terrifying and beautiful story that grew up in a nameless land.

From "A Thousand Blues," which shows the coexistence of robots, animals, and humans, to "The Savior Who Comes at Night," which depicts the romance between those trapped in loneliness and vampires, to "Nine," the story of an alien who hears the sounds of plants.
Readers who have been following the novels of author Cheon Seon-ran, who has been very active in many fields, will probably want to ask this question.
“Cyborgs, vampires, aliens… what’s next?” Next up is “Noland.”
This is a story about growing up in a nameless land.
Author Cheon Seon-ran, who has shown the love and recovery of wounded beings with elegant and wondrous novelistic imagination, has returned with a new collection of short stories, “Noland.”
"Noland" contains ten works that slowly but resolutely hold onto hope even in a world on the brink of destruction. Part science fiction, part pure literature, part apocalyptic narrative, part mystery, and part thriller, these stories are slow yet freeing, beautiful yet terrifying.


"We didn't fight, we protected", from "White Night and Blue Moon"
Humans who were implanted with wolf genes to save humanity from Krampus, who is half goat and half demon, became heroes for a short time, but soon after Krampus disappeared, they became mysterious beings who might try to control humanity at any time.
'Kangseol' goes to the base where the werewols are to meet his friend 'Myeongwol', who chose to go into space and continue to fight against strong beings rather than remain on Earth.

“I hope we never take anything away again,” Bakita
One day, the brightly shining sky splits open and 'Vakita' suddenly appears on Earth and begins to eat artificial compounds created by humans.
For the next 11 years, humans reverted to the era when they produced the most disposable products, handing over all their waste to the bakita.
But the vaquita's diet doesn't stop at artificial compounds; it eats anything made by humans.
Humans are divided into the civilized humans who have been tamed by the vaquita and the forest humans who have escaped from the vaquita, and decades pass like this.
I, an explorer who came to Earth to load the embryonic container for the construction of a second Earth, meet the bakita, the forest humans, and the humans of civilization one after another while waiting for the spaceship battery to charge, and record the changes on Earth... ... .

"Sometimes faith is more important than truth," from "Blue Dot"
The Satur is on a grand mission to leave Earth, which is in crisis, and find and settle on a planet similar to Earth.
Before passing through the wormhole, Sierra, the captain of the Satur, leaves the ship under the pretense of personally repairing the outer hull and bids farewell to Earth, which she will never be able to return to.
However, Russ, the artificial intelligence who manages the Saturho, blocks Sierra.
Sierra, who managed to get out of the ship despite Russ's interference, heads to the stern in search of a small blue glowing dot, but there is no blue dot anywhere...

"What if people are different but have the same memories?", "Cornfield and Brother"
Foucault, an autistic genius, lives with his father, mother, and affectionate older brother.
However, his older brother, who had leukemia, died after battling the disease.
Foucault, who was living in sorrow, heads to the cornfield that holds memories of his brother to forget him.
But then, his brother, who was thought to be dead, appears there in his original state before he became ill and tells 'Fouco' that he has a favor to ask.

“I still don’t know.
Is that okay?
“Can I ruin that kid’s plan?”, 〈Je, Jae〉
Jae, who has dissociative identity disorder, has another personality called Je.
'Jae' is a genius but lacks talent, and 'Je' is ordinary but affectionate.
The two who shared one body lose their balance when Jae becomes more engrossed in his research by increasing the time he stays awake.
Then one day, 'Je' suddenly opens his eyes and realizes that he has opened his eyes in 'Jae's' time.
And then he finds a strange note and a suspicious white powder on the desk… … .

"Why are some people forgotten even when they were born?", "Nameless Body"
'I', who was working part-time at the post office, forgetting all about the past, receives a call from a social worker saying that his mother has died.
After a small funeral, I head to my hometown, which I had been ignoring, to pack my mother's belongings.
My hometown, Oemyeon-ri, is a forgotten village shrouded in a strange, gloomy, and mysterious fog.
A village where people who are neither alive nor dead live.
The village is quiet.
I can't hear any birds chirping or dogs barking.
'I' look down the empty alley with a strange sense of desolation and open the front door of the house in front that I have never been in before.
But, fortunately, when I opened the warehouse door where there was a sound, what I saw was the grandmother eating the grandfather.

“Never forget your name in the next life”, 〈-에〉
'I', who had been wandering the underworld for so long without ever attaining enlightenment, having forgotten my name, came across a group of protesters chanting 'I will not forget' in Gwanghwamun one spring.
And at that moment, the messenger who had said, “A soul whose name cannot be called has no choice but to wander” appears again in front of me… … .

“The universe is empty.
There is no reality in existence.
“So what a wonderful world it is for such absurd things to happen?”, Birds Flying Through Space
On the day when the last transport ship leaving the Earth, which has been covered in black dust, arrives at the island, 'Hyo-won' decides to leave his younger siblings behind and stay at the temple with 'Monk Hyo-jong'.
That night, Hyowon heard noises outside, thought it was a wild boar, and opened the temple door. He found a magpie with a broken leg.
The bird was no longer living on this planet, and it was a bird with only one eye painted yellow, just like the bird that Monk Hyojong had saved decades ago.
Hyowon, who bandaged the bird's broken leg, lies down in the temple and falls asleep.
As soon as he saw the sky as bright as day, he was startled by the fact that he had missed the dawn service, and, forgetting that the bird had disappeared, he headed towards Monk Hyojong's residence, but no matter how much he called, there was no response from inside.

"Is there any reason I shouldn't be here?", Two Worlds
'Yura' receives a complaint from a reader that the ending of 'Arax', a book sold on the 'Noland' website, is different from the description.
The main character, 'Arax', dies by hanging himself from a warehouse pillar, contrary to the original ending.
Yura looks through the purchase list for "Arax" and soon discovers that a customer named "Shin Gyu-yeong" has read the book 35 times, and that his last purchase was just four days ago.
But, the 'Shin Gyu-young' whom I finally managed to contact and meet seems like a strange person from another world...

"It's not like everyone is hostile, like us," from "The Tree with Roots Growing to the Sky."
After the war with aliens that invaded Earth, Lee In, the only Korean soldier left in his unit, goes to the last known location of his comrade Ben, who died in battle, to commemorate him.
However, he falls off a cliff in an unexpected car accident and faces the threat of death.
But then, Lee In hears the sound of an alien life form making a 'click? Click?' sound...

'Do you trust me, sister?'
A novel that you read with a heart that blows from outside

“Could artificial intelligence possibly come out?”
So, outside means… … .
“To this world.
“The world we live in.” _From the text

Although it is clearly a fictional story, the characters in "Noland" are so vivid that they seem ready to jump out into our world at any moment.
That's probably because the author's heart of 'I read novels because I want to love, and I read novels because I want to know about life' is fully expressed throughout the collection of short stories.
But is this place they're about to arrive truly "outside their world"? Or perhaps it's an "inside" that's even deeper than "inside"?
If we could open the slow and weak heart within ourselves simply by reading a novel by a novelist, there would be no greater meaning to reading than that.
Author Cheon Seon-ran asks us through the mouths of characters in her novels.
'Do you trust me, sister?'
The question can be heard as a confirmation, "Do you trust me?", as a question, "Do you trust novels?", or as a cry, "Do you believe that novels, though slow, will surely make this world a better place?"

As we read Noland, holding firmly to our faith in the story, the cool, fresh breeze blowing from outside the novel can sweep away the dark, bitter misfortune that had blinded us.
And only then will we finally see the beyond, filled with blue dots, the beautiful land of Noland, where countless real stories are buried, not a virtual world.
With all those who “read novels because they want to love, read novels because they want to know about life, and sometimes read novels because they want to be more tired.”


I don't remember why I came to like space, but whenever I think of space, I like the Earth spinning noisily alone in that quiet place.
The thought that it was so quiet outside, but inside it was so noisy, so tiring, and so fast-paced made me feel like I could just listen to my favorite songs for the rest of my life and die.
I wanted to talk about happiness and love, but I don't think that's what happened, so I'm afraid it will be a book that people will feel tired of reading.
I read novels because I want to love, and because I want to understand life. Sometimes, I read novels because I want to be more tired. I believe that there are others like me, and I am sending you my second collection of novels.
_From the author's note