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I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories
“Her fiction is a breath-taking piece of a cinematic art itself. Reminiscent of the world we experienced in Matrix, Inception, and Dark City, still it leads us to this entirely original structure, which is a ground-breaking, mystic literary and cinematic experience. Indeed, powerful and graceful.”—Bong Joon-ho, Oscar-winning director of Parasite
Two worlds, four stories, infinite possibilities
In this mind-expanding work of speculative fiction, available in English for the first time, one of South Korea’s most treasured writers explores the driving forces of humanity—love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence—in two pairs of thematically interconnected stories.
In “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” an engaged couple coordinate their separate missions to distant corners of the galaxy to ensure—through relativity—they can arrive back on Earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle. But small incidents wreak havoc on space and time, driving their wedding date further away. As centuries on Earth pass and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together. In two separate yet linked stories, Kim Bo-Young cleverly demonstrate the idea love that is timeless and hope springs eternal, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and the deepest despair.
In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike beings for which everything on Earth—from the richest woman to a speck of dirt—is an extension of their will. When one of the creations questions the righteousness of this arrangement, it is deemed a perversion—a disease—that must be excised and cured. Yet the Prophet Naban, whose “child” is rebelling, isn’t sure the rebellion is bad. What if that which is considered criminal is instead the natural order—and those who condemn it corrupt? Exploring the dichotomy between the philosophical and the corporeal, Kim ponders the fate of free-will, as she considers the most basic of questions: who am I?
Two worlds, four stories, infinite possibilities
In this mind-expanding work of speculative fiction, available in English for the first time, one of South Korea’s most treasured writers explores the driving forces of humanity—love, hope, creation, destruction, and the very meaning of existence—in two pairs of thematically interconnected stories.
In “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” an engaged couple coordinate their separate missions to distant corners of the galaxy to ensure—through relativity—they can arrive back on Earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle. But small incidents wreak havoc on space and time, driving their wedding date further away. As centuries on Earth pass and the land and climate change, one thing is constant: the desire of the lovers to be together. In two separate yet linked stories, Kim Bo-Young cleverly demonstrate the idea love that is timeless and hope springs eternal, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges and the deepest despair.
In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike beings for which everything on Earth—from the richest woman to a speck of dirt—is an extension of their will. When one of the creations questions the righteousness of this arrangement, it is deemed a perversion—a disease—that must be excised and cured. Yet the Prophet Naban, whose “child” is rebelling, isn’t sure the rebellion is bad. What if that which is considered criminal is instead the natural order—and those who condemn it corrupt? Exploring the dichotomy between the philosophical and the corporeal, Kim ponders the fate of free-will, as she considers the most basic of questions: who am I?
9 pages, Audible Audio
First published April 6, 2021
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About the author
Kim Bo-young
14 books118 followersKim Bo-young (Korean: 김보영; born 1975) is a South Korean science fiction writer based in Gangwon Province, South Korea. In addition to her novels and short story collections, she has worked as a script advisor for Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer in 2013.[1] She is the first Korean science fiction author to be published by HarperCollins.
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May 12, 2024
‘Not one of them lived for long.
Not one of them lived lightly.’
I’ve often found that science fiction can be an incredible vessel to deliver philosophical inquiries in an engaging and exciting way. I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories by South Korean author Kim Bo-Young and translated by both Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu is this sort of book and the impact is huge. Fans of films such as The Matrix or Snowpiercer (Kim Bo-Young worked on the latter film with director Bong Joon-Ho who provides the book’s cover blurb) will find similar philosophical melodies within these stories, which managed to bestow a intellectual euphoria like the kind I thought were forever packed away in late-night contemplation-of-existence conversations after taking your PHIL101 in college. This book is genuine joy that registers on every frequency of emotional and cerebral range, tugging the heartstrings as powerfully as its abstract visions scratch the brain. While technically a collection of short stories, there are overarching themes and philosophical undertones that thread this collection together in a way that becomes more than the sum of its parts as individuality, power hierarchies, assigning meaning to life, and the gift of memory are investigated Kim Bo-Young’s brilliant landscapes of thought.
First, a huge shoutout to Emily’s amazing review that made me drop my jaw and then drop everything to get a copy. I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories is full of fun, packed with sci-fi flair, logic puzzles and a great cast of characters where some of the most ones are ship navigation computers and walls that are having existential crises. Having a few instances of art and a flashback scene printed on grey paper to add a ‘memory’ filter aesthetic to it are other elements that bring this book to life. This is one mind bending and overwhelmingly satisfying ride.
‘Without the will to live, life is meaningless.’
The book opens with an epistolary story written by a man taking a quick lightspeed trip to arrive back on Earth a short flight his time, but 4 years later Earth time (fans of This Is How You Lose the Time War take note). It’s a now-normal journey to skip time, convenient for people that say, need the market to turn around or, like the letter writer, want to speed up to his wedding while he waits for his fiance on her several-year return journey to Earth. He is tossed about by fate, with their arrivals being offset and delayed as they fast-forward through time. Economies and nations collapse, and eventually humanity collapses as the story becomes a cosmic horror of survival and loneliness adrift in space still hoping to find his fiance. The story was written, according to the author in her afterword, for a friend who wished to use it as part of his proposal. It is a strong start where love is established as the emotion to sustain us and give purpose to what seems like meaningless futility, but it is only a teaser for the ways Kim Bo-Young can dazzle us.
‘There is no perishing. Only change.’
The centerpiece, and my personal favorite part of the book, is the second, longest story, The Prophet of Corruption. The story is eastern philosophies and Korean mythology (with a helpful appendix at the end giving context and categorizing book-specific terms) as sci fi worldbuilding that dives deep into the abstract for absolute astonishment. To talk about the premise too much would spoil the fun, as it is Kim Bo-Young’s slow-burn exploration of her world and the ways she deftly captures an abstract reality in accessible and cinematic storytelling that makes you really enjoy this story. Without saying too much, it is set in what we would consider the afterlife, but we quickly learn this is the true reality. Here an entity has been dividing itself into separate consciousnesses--the Prophets who divide into their students--that send themselves to the Lower Realm--life on Earth--simply to learn. In this realm there is no need to form, gender, etc. ‘Nothing ends. Nothing perishes. Only our interpretations change,’ these Prophets teach, as all existence is but one consciousness that we all perceive as individuals. Honestly, this section is so well articulated and examined you could see it being the prototype for a new religion, though clearly taking roots in many religions around the world.
‘Learning the hard way can be meaningful too.’
The book really excels in its investigations into individuality and if we can find meaning in a singular life. Can a single life be beautiful enough to sustain eternity, or is it just a passing memory in a great infiniteness? And is it wrong to value individuality when we know it may just be pure perception.
The varying philosophies of the Prophets revolve around ideas of leisure vs labor, pain vs comfort, power vs struggle in a theme that courses in the veins of each story and each life in the book. The narrator Prophet, Naban, teaches an ascetic life characterized by suffering and struggle. His lives and students lives are those of the lowest classes, preyed upon by the wealthy and privileged lives of their sort-of rival Prophet. When their student leaves to study under the other Prophet, they ask why they were always shown they must fight the powerful and greedy, but never had any power of their own to use. ‘If you were not poor,’ Naban replies, ‘you would not think to fight them in the first place.’
‘The more pain you inflict on others, the more sympathy you lose. You forget that the Other is the same as you.’
Power hierarchies and class violence are explored most prominently in the final story, which is a response to the first and told in letter’s from the fiance. Caught adrift in time as a refugee on a ship, the crew creates a brutal hierarchy ruled by force. The story takes direct aim at the absurdly wealthy and their megalomania, with the ship’s captain planning on abandoning uneducated children on the reblooming post-apocalypse Earth to create primitive societies so that when he returns centuries later he can be revered as a God and immortalized in their myths.
The story effectively shows how victims are made to feel powerless and complicit in order to enrich the ruling class. ‘People blame themselves when their rations are reduced,’ she writes, ‘rather than whoever’s in charge.’ There is a beautifully rebellious undertone to this story of a woman determined to find her lover and let her oppressors ‘see what a forceful woman I am.’ Crew revolts and missed connections with her fiance as they skip through time add a delicious spice to this story propelled by the undying power of love and finding your “home”. It’s a story that will have you throw your fist in the air in anti-establishment solidarity and also have you weeping all within 70pgs.
Through all this we see characters determined to succeed despite odds stacked against them. There is a real championing of the human spirit here, but what seems most important is the beliefs in what drives us, be it love of another or love of all and a desire to make everything better ever for the lowest. When a life touches us, we carry a piece of them forever resonating with us in memory.
In this was we keep each other alive in our collective memory, and while one story examines the beauty of the individual, the other shows how carrying each other in ourselves is just as beautiful.
In a book where much is quite dark, it still glows in loveliness.
The interplay between the two translators, each assigned to one pair of stories, adds an exciting texture to the book. Sophie Bowman translates the first and final stories while Sung Ryu translates the middle two. The variations on voice seem to enhance our scope in English on Kim Bo-Young’s prose and it is not jarring or distracting as, say, criticisms I’ve seen levied at the single-volume English version of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. One thing I quite enjoyed about this edition were all the author and translator notes with the translators exchanging letters about their decisions in the spirit of the title story. A quite interesting topic here is their choices for gendered language and how to best convey a world where objects can have personalities and gender is meaningless. I love when books include these resources.
While each story stands firmly on their own, the collective vision is an incredible success. The interplay of themes are unpacked through multiple angles and the emotional punches keep us gripped the whole way. Even when it is slow, those moments are so intellectually stimulating your heart races as if it were an action scene. While separate stories, the pairs seem to align, and I’d like to believe that the lovers story is a prime example of what Naban means about a singular life being of equal beauty and value as all eternity.
5/5
‘If we don’t believe life is real, what can we ever hope to learn from it.’
Not one of them lived lightly.’
I’ve often found that science fiction can be an incredible vessel to deliver philosophical inquiries in an engaging and exciting way. I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories by South Korean author Kim Bo-Young and translated by both Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu is this sort of book and the impact is huge. Fans of films such as The Matrix or Snowpiercer (Kim Bo-Young worked on the latter film with director Bong Joon-Ho who provides the book’s cover blurb) will find similar philosophical melodies within these stories, which managed to bestow a intellectual euphoria like the kind I thought were forever packed away in late-night contemplation-of-existence conversations after taking your PHIL101 in college. This book is genuine joy that registers on every frequency of emotional and cerebral range, tugging the heartstrings as powerfully as its abstract visions scratch the brain. While technically a collection of short stories, there are overarching themes and philosophical undertones that thread this collection together in a way that becomes more than the sum of its parts as individuality, power hierarchies, assigning meaning to life, and the gift of memory are investigated Kim Bo-Young’s brilliant landscapes of thought.
First, a huge shoutout to Emily’s amazing review that made me drop my jaw and then drop everything to get a copy. I’m Waiting for You and Other Stories is full of fun, packed with sci-fi flair, logic puzzles and a great cast of characters where some of the most ones are ship navigation computers and walls that are having existential crises. Having a few instances of art and a flashback scene printed on grey paper to add a ‘memory’ filter aesthetic to it are other elements that bring this book to life. This is one mind bending and overwhelmingly satisfying ride.
‘Without the will to live, life is meaningless.’
The book opens with an epistolary story written by a man taking a quick lightspeed trip to arrive back on Earth a short flight his time, but 4 years later Earth time (fans of This Is How You Lose the Time War take note). It’s a now-normal journey to skip time, convenient for people that say, need the market to turn around or, like the letter writer, want to speed up to his wedding while he waits for his fiance on her several-year return journey to Earth. He is tossed about by fate, with their arrivals being offset and delayed as they fast-forward through time. Economies and nations collapse, and eventually humanity collapses as the story becomes a cosmic horror of survival and loneliness adrift in space still hoping to find his fiance. The story was written, according to the author in her afterword, for a friend who wished to use it as part of his proposal. It is a strong start where love is established as the emotion to sustain us and give purpose to what seems like meaningless futility, but it is only a teaser for the ways Kim Bo-Young can dazzle us.
‘There is no perishing. Only change.’
The centerpiece, and my personal favorite part of the book, is the second, longest story, The Prophet of Corruption. The story is eastern philosophies and Korean mythology (with a helpful appendix at the end giving context and categorizing book-specific terms) as sci fi worldbuilding that dives deep into the abstract for absolute astonishment. To talk about the premise too much would spoil the fun, as it is Kim Bo-Young’s slow-burn exploration of her world and the ways she deftly captures an abstract reality in accessible and cinematic storytelling that makes you really enjoy this story. Without saying too much, it is set in what we would consider the afterlife, but we quickly learn this is the true reality. Here an entity has been dividing itself into separate consciousnesses--the Prophets who divide into their students--that send themselves to the Lower Realm--life on Earth--simply to learn. In this realm there is no need to form, gender, etc. ‘Nothing ends. Nothing perishes. Only our interpretations change,’ these Prophets teach, as all existence is but one consciousness that we all perceive as individuals. Honestly, this section is so well articulated and examined you could see it being the prototype for a new religion, though clearly taking roots in many religions around the world.
‘Learning the hard way can be meaningful too.’
The book really excels in its investigations into individuality and if we can find meaning in a singular life. Can a single life be beautiful enough to sustain eternity, or is it just a passing memory in a great infiniteness? And is it wrong to value individuality when we know it may just be pure perception.
’The Lower Realm is where we learn. There’s only one purpose to both misfortune and happiness, and that’s to learn.’
The varying philosophies of the Prophets revolve around ideas of leisure vs labor, pain vs comfort, power vs struggle in a theme that courses in the veins of each story and each life in the book. The narrator Prophet, Naban, teaches an ascetic life characterized by suffering and struggle. His lives and students lives are those of the lowest classes, preyed upon by the wealthy and privileged lives of their sort-of rival Prophet. When their student leaves to study under the other Prophet, they ask why they were always shown they must fight the powerful and greedy, but never had any power of their own to use. ‘If you were not poor,’ Naban replies, ‘you would not think to fight them in the first place.’
‘The more pain you inflict on others, the more sympathy you lose. You forget that the Other is the same as you.’
Power hierarchies and class violence are explored most prominently in the final story, which is a response to the first and told in letter’s from the fiance. Caught adrift in time as a refugee on a ship, the crew creates a brutal hierarchy ruled by force. The story takes direct aim at the absurdly wealthy and their megalomania, with the ship’s captain planning on abandoning uneducated children on the reblooming post-apocalypse Earth to create primitive societies so that when he returns centuries later he can be revered as a God and immortalized in their myths.
The story effectively shows how victims are made to feel powerless and complicit in order to enrich the ruling class. ‘People blame themselves when their rations are reduced,’ she writes, ‘rather than whoever’s in charge.’ There is a beautifully rebellious undertone to this story of a woman determined to find her lover and let her oppressors ‘see what a forceful woman I am.’ Crew revolts and missed connections with her fiance as they skip through time add a delicious spice to this story propelled by the undying power of love and finding your “home”. It’s a story that will have you throw your fist in the air in anti-establishment solidarity and also have you weeping all within 70pgs.
Through all this we see characters determined to succeed despite odds stacked against them. There is a real championing of the human spirit here, but what seems most important is the beliefs in what drives us, be it love of another or love of all and a desire to make everything better ever for the lowest. When a life touches us, we carry a piece of them forever resonating with us in memory.
‘You’re alive as long as I am.
That’s why I want to keep living. To make you like. To keep you, who I love most in all the world, alive….because I’m what’s left of you.’
In this was we keep each other alive in our collective memory, and while one story examines the beauty of the individual, the other shows how carrying each other in ourselves is just as beautiful.
In a book where much is quite dark, it still glows in loveliness.
The interplay between the two translators, each assigned to one pair of stories, adds an exciting texture to the book. Sophie Bowman translates the first and final stories while Sung Ryu translates the middle two. The variations on voice seem to enhance our scope in English on Kim Bo-Young’s prose and it is not jarring or distracting as, say, criticisms I’ve seen levied at the single-volume English version of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84. One thing I quite enjoyed about this edition were all the author and translator notes with the translators exchanging letters about their decisions in the spirit of the title story. A quite interesting topic here is their choices for gendered language and how to best convey a world where objects can have personalities and gender is meaningless. I love when books include these resources.
While each story stands firmly on their own, the collective vision is an incredible success. The interplay of themes are unpacked through multiple angles and the emotional punches keep us gripped the whole way. Even when it is slow, those moments are so intellectually stimulating your heart races as if it were an action scene. While separate stories, the pairs seem to align, and I’d like to believe that the lovers story is a prime example of what Naban means about a singular life being of equal beauty and value as all eternity.
5/5
‘If we don’t believe life is real, what can we ever hope to learn from it.’
October 28, 2020
The first story was very good. The second was complicated but worth it. The third was perfect.
I read this during the seventh month of quarantine in this, the year of the plague, and one line in the author's notes stuck with me: "What a comforting thought that we are on the same gigantic spaceship, sailing along the orbit of waiting." It feels like that's the whole world right now and that was exactly what I needed to read.
I read this during the seventh month of quarantine in this, the year of the plague, and one line in the author's notes stuck with me: "What a comforting thought that we are on the same gigantic spaceship, sailing along the orbit of waiting." It feels like that's the whole world right now and that was exactly what I needed to read.
March 21, 2022
This one is hard to rate because I LOVED the first short story, and then I DNF’ed the second short story, and the last one I thought was good. The first short story is beautiful and heartbreaking and I love getting to know the back story for why it was written in the first place. But ugh that second story draaaaaags. I was so bored. And I love the concept of the third story, it follows a similar format to the first short story but it wasn’t as great in my opinion.
I read this for a sci-fi reading vlog, which you can see here: https://youtu.be/uQL4pr2Z5Ac
I read this for a sci-fi reading vlog, which you can see here: https://youtu.be/uQL4pr2Z5Ac
March 2, 2021
This is a tricky book to review...
I keep coming back to “SO CUTE”....”SO ENDEARING”!
Please forgive me ahead of time while I attempt to share about this book:
It will be released April 2021. I have HarperCollins to thank for sending me a physical copy. I MEAN TRULY THANK! I enjoyed it LOTS....
Very happy I read the PHYSICAL BOOK.
I would have missed a few gems - had I read it in other formats.
This book almost looks like there’s four stories.... but really they are in TWO pairs of interconnected stories.
Themes cover Love, hope, creation, distraction, and the very meaning of existence....”who am I?”
Let’s start with the FIRST STORY...”I’m Waiting For You”....
....It’s about 60 pages long -
....a couple in love, engaged to marry, are separated by distant corners of the galaxy. (if it sounds too ‘science fiction’....it isn’t!!!!)...
It’s ADORABLE.....
.... The plan is for the couple to arrive on earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle: “Yes, I do, I do”.... hold this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, to love and to cherish till death do us part”.
....It takes fifteen of HIS LETTERS to HER...(absolutely charming letters).....before he saw her footprints and faded old squares of paper floating down the rustle....
Papers saying: “I’m right here”.... “I’m Waiting”.
If readers don’t fall madly in love with our Galaxy couple - something is wrong with them!!!
The SECOND STORY....”The Prophet of Corruption”..
‘First me’ begins speaking first:
“It was a warm dazzling day. A wheat filled stretched on beneath a white sky, the gold of the dry stalks so rich that it could tickle down like honey. Not one person wasn’t sight, not a single creature stirred in the endless expense. There were no buildings, mountains, or hills, not even rivers or streams. Nothing but the field lay between me and the distant horizon”.
This story kinda takes us on a spiritual inquiry ...
“—Teacher, I am losing because you’ve made me poor”.
“I can’t fight the powerful if I am powerless”.
“If you were not poor, you would not think to fight them in the first place”.
“—I can achieve anything with power. When will you stop letting those materialists run the world? I can reincarnate thousands of times in this state and everything would end up the same. We can’t change the world like this!”
‘Old me’....speaks next...
“As I divided into tens of thousands of entities Andy send it to Earth at every point in time, I thought:
“There it’s no death. We neither disappear nor parish. We simply change. This self never ceases to exist. Only our interpretation I have it changes. So, there is no murder, and no sin”.
‘Second me’, and ‘Third me’, take their turns speaking in this story.
“The Prophet who was entranced by the world of the living, the corrupted human who believed the false sensations relayed by their survival program to be pure truth”
“I am blessed with his corruption, so take me wherever you wish. I will learn something from that too”.
The THIRD STORY....”That One Life”...
“humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike like beings for which everything on Earth— from the richest woman to the speck of dirt—is an extension of their will”.
The FORTH STORY...”On My Way to You”...
....we return to fifteen more letters from HER ( whereas I was in the first story the letters were from HIM)....
..... I am waiting for you
..... come to the park. I’ll be there waiting.
..... I’m waiting for you
.....I’m waiting for you. Even if you’re already nowhere to be found . . .
....I love you
....I wait
for you.
The author’s notes helps explain the context and inspiration from which this book was written. It’s totally wonderful to read about ‘how’ and ‘why’ her science-fiction proposal story came about.
Kim Bo-Young shares about the writing development of each of these stories which I found fascinating.
Such a creative talent - she writes speculative fiction.....with genuine human feelings.
Kim Bo-Young is from South Korea and has won several awards for her novels and novellas.
I keep coming back to “SO CUTE”....”SO ENDEARING”!
Please forgive me ahead of time while I attempt to share about this book:
It will be released April 2021. I have HarperCollins to thank for sending me a physical copy. I MEAN TRULY THANK! I enjoyed it LOTS....
Very happy I read the PHYSICAL BOOK.
I would have missed a few gems - had I read it in other formats.
This book almost looks like there’s four stories.... but really they are in TWO pairs of interconnected stories.
Themes cover Love, hope, creation, distraction, and the very meaning of existence....”who am I?”
Let’s start with the FIRST STORY...”I’m Waiting For You”....
....It’s about 60 pages long -
....a couple in love, engaged to marry, are separated by distant corners of the galaxy. (if it sounds too ‘science fiction’....it isn’t!!!!)...
It’s ADORABLE.....
.... The plan is for the couple to arrive on earth simultaneously to make it down the aisle: “Yes, I do, I do”.... hold this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and health, to love and to cherish till death do us part”.
....It takes fifteen of HIS LETTERS to HER...(absolutely charming letters).....before he saw her footprints and faded old squares of paper floating down the rustle....
Papers saying: “I’m right here”.... “I’m Waiting”.
If readers don’t fall madly in love with our Galaxy couple - something is wrong with them!!!
The SECOND STORY....”The Prophet of Corruption”..
‘First me’ begins speaking first:
“It was a warm dazzling day. A wheat filled stretched on beneath a white sky, the gold of the dry stalks so rich that it could tickle down like honey. Not one person wasn’t sight, not a single creature stirred in the endless expense. There were no buildings, mountains, or hills, not even rivers or streams. Nothing but the field lay between me and the distant horizon”.
This story kinda takes us on a spiritual inquiry ...
“—Teacher, I am losing because you’ve made me poor”.
“I can’t fight the powerful if I am powerless”.
“If you were not poor, you would not think to fight them in the first place”.
“—I can achieve anything with power. When will you stop letting those materialists run the world? I can reincarnate thousands of times in this state and everything would end up the same. We can’t change the world like this!”
‘Old me’....speaks next...
“As I divided into tens of thousands of entities Andy send it to Earth at every point in time, I thought:
“There it’s no death. We neither disappear nor parish. We simply change. This self never ceases to exist. Only our interpretation I have it changes. So, there is no murder, and no sin”.
‘Second me’, and ‘Third me’, take their turns speaking in this story.
“The Prophet who was entranced by the world of the living, the corrupted human who believed the false sensations relayed by their survival program to be pure truth”
“I am blessed with his corruption, so take me wherever you wish. I will learn something from that too”.
The THIRD STORY....”That One Life”...
“humanity is viewed through the eyes of its creators: godlike like beings for which everything on Earth— from the richest woman to the speck of dirt—is an extension of their will”.
The FORTH STORY...”On My Way to You”...
....we return to fifteen more letters from HER ( whereas I was in the first story the letters were from HIM)....
..... I am waiting for you
..... come to the park. I’ll be there waiting.
..... I’m waiting for you
.....I’m waiting for you. Even if you’re already nowhere to be found . . .
....I love you
....I wait
for you.
The author’s notes helps explain the context and inspiration from which this book was written. It’s totally wonderful to read about ‘how’ and ‘why’ her science-fiction proposal story came about.
Kim Bo-Young shares about the writing development of each of these stories which I found fascinating.
Such a creative talent - she writes speculative fiction.....with genuine human feelings.
Kim Bo-Young is from South Korea and has won several awards for her novels and novellas.
April 22, 2021
“People said this was the end of the world. I disagreed. It was simply the end of the human race. People said the gods had abandoned the world. I disagreed. Divine attention had simply shifted from us to other creatures.” – ‘N+1’
Oh, fuck my heart. My first impression of the book was that it felt like a ‘literary burger’ – where the ‘love story’ sandwiches the ‘patty’ (arguably ‘trippy’) middle like two halves of a bun. Most reviewers preferred the ‘bun’, but the weird middle ‘patty’ was that that cannonball-ed this review to a 5-star rating for me. It gets so mad glorious in the middle – and completely fucking explodes into tiny particles of human affection and ‘love’ at the very end. If I wasn't so emotionally dysfunctional, I’d be bawling my eyes out – but go on and imagine me having a hardcore cry-sesh anyway. The author’s notes at the end of the book reveal a backstory of the ‘bun’ – it was actually tenderly composed for a real-life marriage proposal (friends of the author). And that blew my mind to bits. Shiny pastel purple brain goop – everywhere.
“Writing this second story, I was in a very different situation from when I wrote the first. The first time around, I’d written thinking that it would be for just two readers, with no hopes of publication. But even still, I kept writing thinking of the couple. This time around I was able to ask the bride to give me a song to be the background music, and she chose “Going Home,” sung by Kim Yoon-ah. Just like I listened to Yoo Young-suk’s “Just Pure Love” while I was writing the first story, I listened to “Going Home” over and over while writing this one. It might be nice to listen to it as you read this too. “On My Way to You” and “I’m Waiting for You” also form the story of the parents of the main character in “People Journeying to the Future.” Of course, the works aren’t tightly connected, so it’s fine to enjoy them independently. I just bring up “People Journeying to the Future” to mention that, in a very sweet gesture, the couple chose to name their daughter Seongha, after its main character.” – Author’s Notes
I would recommend reading all the notes at end of the book before actually reading the actual story of the book. Even if you don’t want to read the book, get your hands on a copy of it, read the notes, and then pass it on. The letters/emails exchanged between the translators are so worth-reading, and so wholesome it made my heart scream and trash about for a minute or two (yes, emotionally dysfunctional). To be clear about this – the best parts of the book for me are the legendary character ‘Tanjae’ (appearing only in the ‘patty’ section of the book), and the beautiful connection between translators. At first, I thought perhaps I prefer Bowman’s translations, but the collaborative work between the two translators were so wonderful – so seamlessly complementary that I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to appreciate Bowman’s work without Sung Ryu’s contribution to the whole thing. I appreciate a good translation a whole lot; I think it affects the whole experience of reading tremendously.
“Have you seen the “translations are sacred” meme on Twitter? The photo of K’s tattoo in “Okja.” I’m not sure about sacred, but this translation of ours sure was fateful. Thinking about it now, it brought us to new highs and new lows. You won your first Daesan translation award for “The Prophet of Corruption,” I got to take part in English PEN Presents project with “I’m Waiting for You,” and the stories broke us in different ways. I will always remember snivelling away whilst translating the ending scenes of the two novellas I worked on, listening to the super emotional “Lie Lie Lie” by Lee Juck and “Going Home” by Kim Yoon-ah on repeat, and how my heart sank when I heard what you’d been dealing with. It feels like a real privilege that you let me help with what I could.” – Sophie Bowman’s letter/email to Sung Ryu
I wish I had read all the notes before reading the story; it would have made the most ideal reading experience in my opinion. Kim even included her friends’ thoughts with regards to the ‘real’ proposal (before and after), which I thought was rather lovely. I may be stereotyping this, but it was very ‘Korean’ and diabetically-sweet – Han River and all – you have to read it – I won’t spoil it, but it’s better than a K-Drama (not like I watch much of that).
“Our surroundings chilled as I spoke. Corruption was devouring the universe. So what? The wall pitied me. The entire battleship sneered. Tanjae shook their head. “Nothing disappears. To believe you can disappear is in itself a corruption.” It was as if lightning struck somewhere in my heart. Tanjae went on, “There is no sin, and no sinner. There’s only learning. No entity should have to disappear. The only wrong in the universe is in destroying balance. Ignoring the law of conservation of mass. Forgetting that the universe has a constant total mass and trying to erase a part of it.” I stared at Tanjae, stunned. I knew the child was blurting out my teachings without understanding them, afraid that I would disappear.” – ‘The Old Me’
I found the ‘patty’ section mad impressive, especially knowing that it had to be translated. It didn’t feel like a translated work. The writing was brilliant; the translation was brilliant; and nothing felt out of place. The characterisation was beautifully complicated. It’s basically a collective of characters that are not too different from one another (esp. in terms of physical attributes); they have the ability to shape-shift and ‘merge’; and are all addressed with ‘non-gendered pronouns’. I’m not fluent enough in Korean to make a proper comparison to the original text; I can only order Jajjangmyeon with an accent, and watch Baek Jong Won’s cooking shows without subtitles. I’d be interested to know what readers who are fluent in both languages think about it, because personally – I didn’t feel like anything was lost in translation. And I’ve had those frustrated experiences with other books, such as Kim Ji-Young, Born in 1982. I think the translation work peaked (for me) when the fiancée in the second half of the ‘bun’ shouted ‘HONEY’ when she was writing a letter to her fiancé. In my head, I could literally hear her shouting ‘yeobo’/여보; I truly hope that it wasn’t ‘oppa’. Someone who’s read the original/Korean text, please tell me it wasn’t ‘oppa’.
“I DREAMED OF YOU FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AGES.
It was so vivid I was sure it was real.
You were trapped in a cramped, dark room.
“I never left you,” I said, feeling regret. “I was with you all along. I’ve been with you all the time.”
“Well, where are you, then?” you demanded, shaking your head. “You’re not here. If you were, you would’ve come to meet me.”
And then I opened my eyes.” – ‘On My Way To You’
The excerpt above is from the second half of the ‘bun’ – the fiancée’s perspective/side of the story. Unlike her fiancé who deals with his own problems (usually tied to his own loneliness), her challenges come from dealing with the people that she’s stuck with. As she endures her own pains, she holds onto her most precious possession – her tiny e-book reader – which surprisingly helped her to start a ‘rebellion’ (other than providing her with bookish, ‘robotic’ company). Although some of the ‘bun’ bits made me cringe, there are a lot more to appreciate. The couple’s separation/distance/disconnection reminds me of a quote from Margaret Atwood’s book, The Blind Assassin – “She imagines him imagining her. This is her salvation.” And the book as a whole reminds me of Patti Smith’s album, ‘Dream of Life’ (1988), but of course if I had read the Author’s Notes first, I would have known that I should have been listening to Yoo Young-Suk and Kim Yoon-Ah!
This is an extremely well-written book that I had wanted to love. And then ended up truly loving very much; and it's got nothing to do with how I find the fiancée’s very well-stocked e-book reader very relatable, or how much Bong Joon-Ho loves this book. Please be patient with the ‘patty’ section of the book as one may find it a little harder to digest compared to the ‘bun’, but personally it’s my favourite chunk.
“I’m struggling to put it into words, but there’s something in all of these stories that speaks to how small we are, how things can be awful, be gone, or everything completely transformed, but that somehow little things can still matter. I have no idea what havoc the coming weeks will bring, but I’m glad that we joined paths on this voyage, and that we get to carry on travelling forward in time at the same speed, on the same gigantic spaceship.” – Sophie Bowman’s letter/email to Sung Ryu (w/ ref. to COVID19)
January 28, 2023
This book is only pretending to be a story collection. Really, it’s more of a novella sandwich. Or call it scrambled novel with two slices buttered toast. This particular arrangement may have been the work of the books’ two translators, rather than the author. In any case, as stories, these are strong, but also lacking something hard to define (of course, this too could have something to do with our translators). As a book—complete with a wonderful set of epistolary translators' notes—it is something more compelling.
The characterization in the stories “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way” didn’t quite work for me. I think because of that, I wasn’t able to fully suspend disbelief—usually a fatal flaw in Science Fiction. At the same time, there is a playfulness here that more or less makes up for it. “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life” were stronger—so much further out, and yet so much more grounded at the same time, full of ideas so absurd they make all kinds of sense.
For me, these are fascinating four-star stories cleverly assembled into a five-star book.
The characterization in the stories “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way” didn’t quite work for me. I think because of that, I wasn’t able to fully suspend disbelief—usually a fatal flaw in Science Fiction. At the same time, there is a playfulness here that more or less makes up for it. “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life” were stronger—so much further out, and yet so much more grounded at the same time, full of ideas so absurd they make all kinds of sense.
For me, these are fascinating four-star stories cleverly assembled into a five-star book.
May 2, 2021
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
I'm Waiting For You and other stories, is a translated collection of four science fiction short stories that explore what it means to be human. The collection has a bookend feel with I'm Waiting For You and On My Way, two connected stories that have main characters tethered by love but separated by space and time. The middle two stories, The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life, blend Korean mythology, science, and science fiction. The latter half of the book gives us author, translator, and original reader's notes and a glossary. I would suggest reading the glossary before The Prophet of Corruption to familiarize yourself with the terms used in the story to get a stronger foothold in the world. However, I think the author and original reader's notes should be read after all the stories are read because of the different impact they will have and how it will make you want to go back and read two of the stories again.
I'm Waiting For You
Someone once said that space and time are actually the same thing.
The first story and my favorite, introduces us to a man traveling in the universe to get back to earth for his wedding. It's told in loose letter form, he's sending letters to his fiancée and the reader gets the essence and sometimes wording of those letters but also observations of what is happening to him. The short story gives us 15 letters but also centuries as mistakes, mishaps, and a mixture of good and bad luck keep the groom from, sometimes when and sometimes where, he needs to be. You'll feel his loneliness, frustration, and will as you'll question along with him what it means to survive.
The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life
“You'll know you're corrupt the moment you want to put clothes on.”
The middle two are the longest and shortest of the collection and probably the two that would give book clubs the most and varied discussions. The blend of mythology with theoretical framework like superstring theory, had this at times confusing and profound to me. As the reader follows along with the character of Naban, they'll question the 'corruption of man' and creation to be human.
They who were oblivious to the greatness of survival and scorned life's battles, who failed to see the sacredness of one person's individuality.
On My Way To You
They say that we're taking up food and clothing that should rightfully be theirs to enjoy. They even say that we'll endanger the lives of the women and children. A funny thing to say, really. Half of us are women and children, too.
While we started with the groom, this last story gives us the bride and her journey through her letters. She goes through the same give and take of good and bad luck. Having read the groom's story, this one has moments that hit even deeper as you'll see missed opportunities and how close and far away they were from each other.
Told through a science fiction lens, this collection was at turns bleak, hopeful, and questioning. The first story will have you thinking that hell is solitude, the middle two will have you thinking that hell is only our own creation, and the last will have you thinking hell is other people. The hopefulness comes from the author's ability to shine through the emotions of love and will. Don't skip the author and original reader's notes as they added an impactful layer to the first and second stories and like I said, will have you going back and reading them again. This is a collection that will have you debating and questioning, lingering in your thoughts, and revisiting, not to be missed even for the casual science fiction reader.
I'm Waiting For You and other stories, is a translated collection of four science fiction short stories that explore what it means to be human. The collection has a bookend feel with I'm Waiting For You and On My Way, two connected stories that have main characters tethered by love but separated by space and time. The middle two stories, The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life, blend Korean mythology, science, and science fiction. The latter half of the book gives us author, translator, and original reader's notes and a glossary. I would suggest reading the glossary before The Prophet of Corruption to familiarize yourself with the terms used in the story to get a stronger foothold in the world. However, I think the author and original reader's notes should be read after all the stories are read because of the different impact they will have and how it will make you want to go back and read two of the stories again.
I'm Waiting For You
Someone once said that space and time are actually the same thing.
The first story and my favorite, introduces us to a man traveling in the universe to get back to earth for his wedding. It's told in loose letter form, he's sending letters to his fiancée and the reader gets the essence and sometimes wording of those letters but also observations of what is happening to him. The short story gives us 15 letters but also centuries as mistakes, mishaps, and a mixture of good and bad luck keep the groom from, sometimes when and sometimes where, he needs to be. You'll feel his loneliness, frustration, and will as you'll question along with him what it means to survive.
The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life
“You'll know you're corrupt the moment you want to put clothes on.”
The middle two are the longest and shortest of the collection and probably the two that would give book clubs the most and varied discussions. The blend of mythology with theoretical framework like superstring theory, had this at times confusing and profound to me. As the reader follows along with the character of Naban, they'll question the 'corruption of man' and creation to be human.
They who were oblivious to the greatness of survival and scorned life's battles, who failed to see the sacredness of one person's individuality.
On My Way To You
They say that we're taking up food and clothing that should rightfully be theirs to enjoy. They even say that we'll endanger the lives of the women and children. A funny thing to say, really. Half of us are women and children, too.
While we started with the groom, this last story gives us the bride and her journey through her letters. She goes through the same give and take of good and bad luck. Having read the groom's story, this one has moments that hit even deeper as you'll see missed opportunities and how close and far away they were from each other.
Told through a science fiction lens, this collection was at turns bleak, hopeful, and questioning. The first story will have you thinking that hell is solitude, the middle two will have you thinking that hell is only our own creation, and the last will have you thinking hell is other people. The hopefulness comes from the author's ability to shine through the emotions of love and will. Don't skip the author and original reader's notes as they added an impactful layer to the first and second stories and like I said, will have you going back and reading them again. This is a collection that will have you debating and questioning, lingering in your thoughts, and revisiting, not to be missed even for the casual science fiction reader.
August 21, 2023
Ugh, I just didn’t get this one. I found the stories about the separated lovers melodramatic and vague – to me, it felt like reading about two disembodied souls speaking to one another, without us as readers getting a firmer sense of their environment or the context and history of their relationship. The second story confused the heck out of me. I’m giving this a generous three stars because maybe others who enjoy translated works as well as science fiction would understand these works of fiction more.
June 7, 2021
The title story is a proposal commission - something meant for one person to read to his prospective bride. It tells of a groom-to-be on an 8 week Orbit of Waiting rocket that sees him travelling at the speed of light for an equivalent 4 years Earth time. He's hoping to precisely time a reunion with his travelling bride who is headed on a round trip to Alpha Centauri with her family. Things go wondrously awry.
The collection is bookended with On My Way To You that details the story from the bride-to-be's perspective, written as an anniversary gift to the original couple since married and with a 2 year old. Both are wonderfully realized stories following a familiar narrative structure unlike some of the more oblique Korean short stories I've read in the past. Loved them both for what they are.
Sandwiched between is The Prophet of Corruption which was a little more challenging for me to parse. I loved the concept of our mortal Lower Realm as a school inhabited by members of the the Dark Realm. These handful of fourth dimensional Prophets become each other's mothers and sons, tormentors, saviours and killers - a vast interconnection of lives. It reminded me of a Buddhist spin on Andy Weir's classic sci-fi short The Egg.
Just some great old-school feeling sci-fi reads — and I really appreciated the copious author and translator notes that round out the collection.
The collection is bookended with On My Way To You that details the story from the bride-to-be's perspective, written as an anniversary gift to the original couple since married and with a 2 year old. Both are wonderfully realized stories following a familiar narrative structure unlike some of the more oblique Korean short stories I've read in the past. Loved them both for what they are.
Sandwiched between is The Prophet of Corruption which was a little more challenging for me to parse. I loved the concept of our mortal Lower Realm as a school inhabited by members of the the Dark Realm. These handful of fourth dimensional Prophets become each other's mothers and sons, tormentors, saviours and killers - a vast interconnection of lives. It reminded me of a Buddhist spin on Andy Weir's classic sci-fi short The Egg.
Just some great old-school feeling sci-fi reads — and I really appreciated the copious author and translator notes that round out the collection.
January 1, 2022
Crazy good. Mind blowing. RTC
September 21, 2021
내가 여기에 있어.
당신을 기다리고 있어.
그 생각을 하지 않았다면 자제하지 못했을 거야.
그러니까 당신이 나를 살린 거야. 당신이 지금 어느 시대에 있든, 이미 죽었든, 살았든, 무한의 별무리를 여행하고 있든.
I heard you say, “I’m here, I’m waiting for you”
I wouldn’t have been able to gain back control if I hadn’t had that thought.
So you saved my life.
Whatever age you are now, whether you’re dead already, or still alive somewhere, travelling among infinite clusters of stars.
I’m Waiting for You is the translation by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu of three novellas (and a short story) by 김보영 (Kim Bo-Young) which were originally published separately:
-당신을 기다리고 있어(2015) - I’m Waiting For You
저 이승의 선지자 (2017) - The Prophet of Corruption (more literally: The Prophet of That World)
당신에게 가고 있어 (2020) On My Way To You (more literally ‘Going to You’)
The book comes with praise from the Oscar-winning Director of Parasite 봉준호 (Bong Joon-Ho), and 김보영 acted as a script consultant for his 2013 work Snowpiercer / 설국열차, which was notably for blending Korean and English actors and dialogue.
The book comes with several author’s and translators’ notes.
The translators are both members of the Smoking Tigers collective (https://smokingtigers.com/sung-ryu/ and https://smokingtigers.com/sophie-bowman/). Their translators’ notes are in the form of an exchange of letters between the two - “Team Sungphie” - and as well as their impression of the stories, discusses topics such as the natural use in Korean of non-gendered pronouns (or even [my comment] omission of pronouns altogether - in the book’s title I’m Waiting for You, there is no ‘I’ in the Korean 당신을 기다리고 있어, the identity of the waiter would be by taken by context, and 당신 is an informal pronoun for you that usually denotes a close relationship such as between married couples).
The author’s note reveals that the first story I’m Waiting For You was actually the result of a rather unique commission, and originally only designed for two readers. An old friend of the author’s was preparing to marry, but his fiancee wanted a formal proposal and he commissioned Kim Bo-Young to write a story about an engagement which he could record and play to her as his proposal.
The resulting long-story/novella was eventually published, along with notes from the, now happily married couple, which are also included here.
The third story On My Way to You was a sequel to the first from the perspective of the woman the male narrator of the first is waiting for, and while intended for publication was also dedicated to the two original readers of the first, and the book comes with further notes from them. And both stories together function as the story of the parents of the protagonist of another Kim Bo-Young story, “People Journeying to the Future” (not included in this collection), so when the real-life couple had a child, they naturally named her 성하 (Seongha) after that character.
The author also suggests songs to accompany both novellas which I’ve added to a Spotify playlist here and which give a flavour of the tone of the narration: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4KE...
I’m Waiting for You is narrated in epistolary form by a man whose wedding with his love is planned for four years and six months time:
당신이랑 결혼한다는 생각을 하면 자다가도 좋아서 깨. 애처럼 바둥거리다 베개를 끌어안고 콧노래를 부르며 자곤 해. 아침에 눈을 떴을 때 당신이 옆에 누워 있는 상상을 하면 좋아 죽을 것 같아. 이불을 뒤집어쓰고 아빠가 된다는 상상을 하기도 해. 우리 사이에 누워서 칭얼대는 아기도 상상해. 어떻게 두 달을 기다리지? 하루도 더 못 기다리겠는데. 얼른 보고 싶어. 사랑해.
It might sound over-the-top but when I think about our wedding I’m too excited to sleep. I toss and turn in bed like a little kid, hug my pillow tight, and hum myself to sleep. When I open my eyes in the morning, I picture you lying next to me. Even just imagining us like that makes me so happy. Sometimes I hide under the blankets and dream about what it’d be like to be a dad. I even imagine a baby wiggling on the bed between us. I don’t know how I’ll manage to wait another two months. Another day is hard enough to bear. I wish I could be with you right now. I love you.
The reason for the delay - his fiancee has taken a short trip to Alpha Centauri - short for her, but on earth four years six months will elapse. The man decides that rather than wait he will take a trip of his own, on a spaceship that travels round the sun for that purpose:
Everyone on the ship is emigrating to a different time, not a different place. Trying to get to the future faster, for whatever reason. Some people are traveling to the year their pension plan matures, others hope real estate taxes will come down while they're away. There are artists too, who believe they were born in the wrong era. I even met a high school student who's wait-ing for the new university entrance exam that's supposed to be implemented soon. And there are other dopes like me, of course, traveling to arrive back on Earth at the same time as our fiancees flying in from other stellar systems.
But in practice things go wrong - a small change in the itinerary on board means a much larger shift in arrival time on earth and they fail to synchronise their arrivals. Further each time he returns to earth, years away stretching to decades, far from having improved, the planet is increasingly succumbing to entropy, rather like an abandoned house - the suggestion, although never explicit, is that increasingly large proportions of the population may be trying the ‘travel to a different time’ approach.
On My Way To You is similar told in a series of letters, this time from the woman to the man.
The science-fiction elements of these stories are potentially fascinating but rather underexplored and instead the dominant theme, reflecting the nature of the commission is a relatively simple, if unusual, and sentimental love story.
The Prophet of Corruption, and the follow-up short story That One Life, are very different in style. Narrated by a being, Naban, from the Dark Realm, it is perhaps best described as science fiction based around Buddhist-inspired world-building.
I must merge with Aman.
I see no other way to stop my corruption. To stop Aman’s corruption, and that of the universe.
I must, even if it leads to the demise of my individuality.
…
This place is me.
My bardo.
In some lives, I stumbled in here when I teetered on the brink of death. Then I went back and told everyone excitedly that I had seen the afterworld. But all I had seen was my bardo.
I could never properly recall even this small slice of the afterworld. I was trapped in a body no better than a crude chunk of meat whenever I returned to a life, a body that used every means possible to distract me from thought. A brain with poor cognitive skills, hormones akin to narcotics, a pitiful range of neurotransmitters, neurons with slow processing speeds. It was like having a cognitive disorder compared to my present state of heightened perception.
Everything is me, I repeated in my head. I had to, because I could not believe it.
“How fares Aman?” I asked out of habit. My kin instantly understood which Aman I was referring to and, as usual, shook their head.
“The same. Aman still can’t escape their own bardo. They’re convinced that it’s the entire afterworld.”
Despite having expected the answer, I was disappointed.
“There are also fragments of Aman that got away, but they don’t come back to the world of the dead. They choose to reincarnate from their bardos instead and each time they split into hundreds and thousands of smaller pieces. They don’t weave their destinies, they don’t care what they’ll be born into. All that seems to be left in them is the will to escape. Even Tushita has given up on tracking them down.”
That was a problem I was aware of…
“So, you’re really thinking of merging?” my kin asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “I am responsible for this mess.”
Potentially for the right reader, this is fascinating but it didn’t really click for me. The aspects relating to how the cosmology manifests itself on Earth (the Lower Realm) I found more interesting than the ideological debates in the Dark Realm, which rather I suspect misses the point of the story.
Overall, one of those ‘it’s me not the book experiences’. 2.5 stars
당신을 기다리고 있어.
그 생각을 하지 않았다면 자제하지 못했을 거야.
그러니까 당신이 나를 살린 거야. 당신이 지금 어느 시대에 있든, 이미 죽었든, 살았든, 무한의 별무리를 여행하고 있든.
I heard you say, “I’m here, I’m waiting for you”
I wouldn’t have been able to gain back control if I hadn’t had that thought.
So you saved my life.
Whatever age you are now, whether you’re dead already, or still alive somewhere, travelling among infinite clusters of stars.
I’m Waiting for You is the translation by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu of three novellas (and a short story) by 김보영 (Kim Bo-Young) which were originally published separately:
-당신을 기다리고 있어(2015) - I’m Waiting For You
저 이승의 선지자 (2017) - The Prophet of Corruption (more literally: The Prophet of That World)
당신에게 가고 있어 (2020) On My Way To You (more literally ‘Going to You’)
The book comes with praise from the Oscar-winning Director of Parasite 봉준호 (Bong Joon-Ho), and 김보영 acted as a script consultant for his 2013 work Snowpiercer / 설국열차, which was notably for blending Korean and English actors and dialogue.
The book comes with several author’s and translators’ notes.
The translators are both members of the Smoking Tigers collective (https://smokingtigers.com/sung-ryu/ and https://smokingtigers.com/sophie-bowman/). Their translators’ notes are in the form of an exchange of letters between the two - “Team Sungphie” - and as well as their impression of the stories, discusses topics such as the natural use in Korean of non-gendered pronouns (or even [my comment] omission of pronouns altogether - in the book’s title I’m Waiting for You, there is no ‘I’ in the Korean 당신을 기다리고 있어, the identity of the waiter would be by taken by context, and 당신 is an informal pronoun for you that usually denotes a close relationship such as between married couples).
The author’s note reveals that the first story I’m Waiting For You was actually the result of a rather unique commission, and originally only designed for two readers. An old friend of the author’s was preparing to marry, but his fiancee wanted a formal proposal and he commissioned Kim Bo-Young to write a story about an engagement which he could record and play to her as his proposal.
The resulting long-story/novella was eventually published, along with notes from the, now happily married couple, which are also included here.
The third story On My Way to You was a sequel to the first from the perspective of the woman the male narrator of the first is waiting for, and while intended for publication was also dedicated to the two original readers of the first, and the book comes with further notes from them. And both stories together function as the story of the parents of the protagonist of another Kim Bo-Young story, “People Journeying to the Future” (not included in this collection), so when the real-life couple had a child, they naturally named her 성하 (Seongha) after that character.
The author also suggests songs to accompany both novellas which I’ve added to a Spotify playlist here and which give a flavour of the tone of the narration: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4KE...
I’m Waiting for You is narrated in epistolary form by a man whose wedding with his love is planned for four years and six months time:
당신이랑 결혼한다는 생각을 하면 자다가도 좋아서 깨. 애처럼 바둥거리다 베개를 끌어안고 콧노래를 부르며 자곤 해. 아침에 눈을 떴을 때 당신이 옆에 누워 있는 상상을 하면 좋아 죽을 것 같아. 이불을 뒤집어쓰고 아빠가 된다는 상상을 하기도 해. 우리 사이에 누워서 칭얼대는 아기도 상상해. 어떻게 두 달을 기다리지? 하루도 더 못 기다리겠는데. 얼른 보고 싶어. 사랑해.
It might sound over-the-top but when I think about our wedding I’m too excited to sleep. I toss and turn in bed like a little kid, hug my pillow tight, and hum myself to sleep. When I open my eyes in the morning, I picture you lying next to me. Even just imagining us like that makes me so happy. Sometimes I hide under the blankets and dream about what it’d be like to be a dad. I even imagine a baby wiggling on the bed between us. I don’t know how I’ll manage to wait another two months. Another day is hard enough to bear. I wish I could be with you right now. I love you.
The reason for the delay - his fiancee has taken a short trip to Alpha Centauri - short for her, but on earth four years six months will elapse. The man decides that rather than wait he will take a trip of his own, on a spaceship that travels round the sun for that purpose:
Everyone on the ship is emigrating to a different time, not a different place. Trying to get to the future faster, for whatever reason. Some people are traveling to the year their pension plan matures, others hope real estate taxes will come down while they're away. There are artists too, who believe they were born in the wrong era. I even met a high school student who's wait-ing for the new university entrance exam that's supposed to be implemented soon. And there are other dopes like me, of course, traveling to arrive back on Earth at the same time as our fiancees flying in from other stellar systems.
But in practice things go wrong - a small change in the itinerary on board means a much larger shift in arrival time on earth and they fail to synchronise their arrivals. Further each time he returns to earth, years away stretching to decades, far from having improved, the planet is increasingly succumbing to entropy, rather like an abandoned house - the suggestion, although never explicit, is that increasingly large proportions of the population may be trying the ‘travel to a different time’ approach.
On My Way To You is similar told in a series of letters, this time from the woman to the man.
The science-fiction elements of these stories are potentially fascinating but rather underexplored and instead the dominant theme, reflecting the nature of the commission is a relatively simple, if unusual, and sentimental love story.
The Prophet of Corruption, and the follow-up short story That One Life, are very different in style. Narrated by a being, Naban, from the Dark Realm, it is perhaps best described as science fiction based around Buddhist-inspired world-building.
I must merge with Aman.
I see no other way to stop my corruption. To stop Aman’s corruption, and that of the universe.
I must, even if it leads to the demise of my individuality.
…
This place is me.
My bardo.
In some lives, I stumbled in here when I teetered on the brink of death. Then I went back and told everyone excitedly that I had seen the afterworld. But all I had seen was my bardo.
I could never properly recall even this small slice of the afterworld. I was trapped in a body no better than a crude chunk of meat whenever I returned to a life, a body that used every means possible to distract me from thought. A brain with poor cognitive skills, hormones akin to narcotics, a pitiful range of neurotransmitters, neurons with slow processing speeds. It was like having a cognitive disorder compared to my present state of heightened perception.
Everything is me, I repeated in my head. I had to, because I could not believe it.
“How fares Aman?” I asked out of habit. My kin instantly understood which Aman I was referring to and, as usual, shook their head.
“The same. Aman still can’t escape their own bardo. They’re convinced that it’s the entire afterworld.”
Despite having expected the answer, I was disappointed.
“There are also fragments of Aman that got away, but they don’t come back to the world of the dead. They choose to reincarnate from their bardos instead and each time they split into hundreds and thousands of smaller pieces. They don’t weave their destinies, they don’t care what they’ll be born into. All that seems to be left in them is the will to escape. Even Tushita has given up on tracking them down.”
That was a problem I was aware of…
“So, you’re really thinking of merging?” my kin asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “I am responsible for this mess.”
Potentially for the right reader, this is fascinating but it didn’t really click for me. The aspects relating to how the cosmology manifests itself on Earth (the Lower Realm) I found more interesting than the ideological debates in the Dark Realm, which rather I suspect misses the point of the story.
Overall, one of those ‘it’s me not the book experiences’. 2.5 stars
January 17, 2022
This is a collection of four SF novellas/novelettes, written by a prominent South Korean author, Bo-Young Kim. I read it as a part of monthly reading for December 2021 at Speculative Fiction in Translation group.
Four stories in this book are linked with two plots, so the first and the last and two in the middle create two groups. The first story, I’m Waiting for You is a collection of over a dozen letters a man sends to his fiancé, while he waits for their meeting and marriages. The problem is that she is travelling from another star system with the speed of light and due to the ‘twin paradox’ time goes for him much more slowly. Therefore, he also gets a ticket on a spaceship to limit the time disparity. As time goes on, he witnesses deterioration and regress of Earth as well as some issues prevent his girl timely arrival. The story is nice, but this trope of hoping to get to a better future, but seeing it worsen as well as ‘love at different speeds’ was used many times, including recently in The Vanished Birds (2020) and I'm Feeling Lucky (2021).
The Prophet of Corruption was the most mind-blowing story in the set, one of the most interesting SF short works I’ve read in the last few years. The idea is a rethinking of Christianity, Buddhism and other religions that say about our live on this world as a short period of learning and judging for the eternity after (be it heaven or nirvana). Here it is true and the story is from the point of view of demiurges, who created our reality. Very strong weird stuff!
That One Life this one just continues the earlier story, broadening it, but adding nothing really new, so that at the start of the first one I was all “wow, great!”, here it is “meh”…
On My Way to You the mirror to the first story, but this time letters from the fiancé to her broom from the first story. These dual stories fit together quite well exactly because the situations in them are both the same but quite different.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and plan to try her other works even if the prose sometimes was a bit too long for my taste.
Four stories in this book are linked with two plots, so the first and the last and two in the middle create two groups. The first story, I’m Waiting for You is a collection of over a dozen letters a man sends to his fiancé, while he waits for their meeting and marriages. The problem is that she is travelling from another star system with the speed of light and due to the ‘twin paradox’ time goes for him much more slowly. Therefore, he also gets a ticket on a spaceship to limit the time disparity. As time goes on, he witnesses deterioration and regress of Earth as well as some issues prevent his girl timely arrival. The story is nice, but this trope of hoping to get to a better future, but seeing it worsen as well as ‘love at different speeds’ was used many times, including recently in The Vanished Birds (2020) and I'm Feeling Lucky (2021).
The Prophet of Corruption was the most mind-blowing story in the set, one of the most interesting SF short works I’ve read in the last few years. The idea is a rethinking of Christianity, Buddhism and other religions that say about our live on this world as a short period of learning and judging for the eternity after (be it heaven or nirvana). Here it is true and the story is from the point of view of demiurges, who created our reality. Very strong weird stuff!
That One Life this one just continues the earlier story, broadening it, but adding nothing really new, so that at the start of the first one I was all “wow, great!”, here it is “meh”…
On My Way to You the mirror to the first story, but this time letters from the fiancé to her broom from the first story. These dual stories fit together quite well exactly because the situations in them are both the same but quite different.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and plan to try her other works even if the prose sometimes was a bit too long for my taste.
December 16, 2021
I read this along with the Speculative Fiction in Translation group. Here's our discussion thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
K-drama--and I mean its best examples, such as Dream High or It's Okay to Not Be Okay--has set the bar of my expectations for all things South Korean high. Perhaps too high. :)
The stories here, while offering their share of fresh ideas and insights into intimacy, couldn't vault over that bar. In fact, hadn't it been for the heartfelt epistolary afterwords, with their genuine sense of connection, I would've left the collection feeling more lonely than when I started it. Stories centered around a single couple can do that to me. I'm not a "couple" person. And even the "transcendent" ones felt too solipsistic--as if they didn't really care there's a grander cosmos out there.
You can tell those are very subjective grievances, right? :)
Anyway, here're the moments when I did feel connected to the texts and their inhabitants:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
K-drama--and I mean its best examples, such as Dream High or It's Okay to Not Be Okay--has set the bar of my expectations for all things South Korean high. Perhaps too high. :)
The stories here, while offering their share of fresh ideas and insights into intimacy, couldn't vault over that bar. In fact, hadn't it been for the heartfelt epistolary afterwords, with their genuine sense of connection, I would've left the collection feeling more lonely than when I started it. Stories centered around a single couple can do that to me. I'm not a "couple" person. And even the "transcendent" ones felt too solipsistic--as if they didn't really care there's a grander cosmos out there.
You can tell those are very subjective grievances, right? :)
Anyway, here're the moments when I did feel connected to the texts and their inhabitants:
https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...
April 9, 2021
South Korea is uncharted territory for me. I happily welcome author Kim Bo-Young to her first publication in the Western world. In South Korea, she's a renowned author, has her own wikipedia-entry there (I guess, you'll need to google-translate that).
This collection contains two pairs of linked stories which is a good teaser to get to know her work but by far not enough to understand this author:
★★+☆☆☆ • I'm Waiting for You and On My Way are two time travel novelettes in epistolary format. The bride has to travel in light speed from Alpha Centauri to Earth which takes years relatively for the waiting groom and a few months for the bride. He is the author of the first novelette, where he declares in letters to the bride that he'll go on a waiting travel to shorten the time. There are fifteen such letters in summary, each narrating yet another problem lengthening his journey. Which doesn't matter much, because his bride is hindered similarly, first by an emergency call which the ship has to follow, then ever more disgressions and plain dumb decisions. Both novelettes can be read independently of each other, but reading both brings forth the full drama. It's a story full of unfulfilled longing and romance - which I don't care for at all - with several unbelievable occurrences. A kind of time-travel story which you might love if you cared for This Is How You Lose the Time War (which I DNFed).
★★★★☆ • The Prophet of Corruption is a metaphysical novella with short story spinoff That One Life. The creators of the universe experiment a lot to find out what is possible. Earth is a kind of laboratory for them. One of them, Aman, is "corrupted", a disease contracted by those deeply immersed in life on Earth which lets them attach more importance to their "Lower Realm" lives and believe that the original Dark Realm is illusory. They think that they are individuums, something completely separate from the others, instead of being one with everyone else. Naban wants to cure Aman from corruptness by merging with him. An epic journey through several instantiations of herself follows, clarifying the gods' ways of thinking, their nature and understanding of the world. A truly innovative look from the completely foreign perspective of gods. Highly recommended for advanced readers of surreal, metaphysical stories.
The second pair of stories are worth the whole collection. I'd wished that the publication would have contained a broader view on the author's work.
This collection contains two pairs of linked stories which is a good teaser to get to know her work but by far not enough to understand this author:
★★+☆☆☆ • I'm Waiting for You and On My Way are two time travel novelettes in epistolary format. The bride has to travel in light speed from Alpha Centauri to Earth which takes years relatively for the waiting groom and a few months for the bride. He is the author of the first novelette, where he declares in letters to the bride that he'll go on a waiting travel to shorten the time. There are fifteen such letters in summary, each narrating yet another problem lengthening his journey. Which doesn't matter much, because his bride is hindered similarly, first by an emergency call which the ship has to follow, then ever more disgressions and plain dumb decisions. Both novelettes can be read independently of each other, but reading both brings forth the full drama. It's a story full of unfulfilled longing and romance - which I don't care for at all - with several unbelievable occurrences. A kind of time-travel story which you might love if you cared for This Is How You Lose the Time War (which I DNFed).
★★★★☆ • The Prophet of Corruption is a metaphysical novella with short story spinoff That One Life. The creators of the universe experiment a lot to find out what is possible. Earth is a kind of laboratory for them. One of them, Aman, is "corrupted", a disease contracted by those deeply immersed in life on Earth which lets them attach more importance to their "Lower Realm" lives and believe that the original Dark Realm is illusory. They think that they are individuums, something completely separate from the others, instead of being one with everyone else. Naban wants to cure Aman from corruptness by merging with him. An epic journey through several instantiations of herself follows, clarifying the gods' ways of thinking, their nature and understanding of the world. A truly innovative look from the completely foreign perspective of gods. Highly recommended for advanced readers of surreal, metaphysical stories.
The second pair of stories are worth the whole collection. I'd wished that the publication would have contained a broader view on the author's work.
August 10, 2025
Watch my review on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhYUK...
Watch some comments about the book here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh5Ow...
KBS Korea 24 @KBSKorea24
“On #KoreaBookClub @BarryPWelsh shares what he says is some of the best work he's ever read, #ImWaitingForYou(and other stories) by #scifiwriter @boida_SF. It explores relationships separated by the vastness of space as well as the nature of existence & the universe. Translated by
@sungarooo and @SophieOrbital, and published by @HarperVoyagerUS. #KoreanLiterature #한국문학 #김보영 #당신을기다리고있어 #SF소설”
19:10-20:00 KST, Mon-Fri on KBS WORLD Radio.
Download the KBS Kong / KBS WORLD Radio Mobile apps or subscribe to the Korea 24 podcast for your daily updates!
#KBSWORLDRadio #KBS월드라디오 #Korea24 #코리아24 #책스타그램 #북스타그램 #bookstagram #book #reading #KoreanLiterature #한국문학
(http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/progra...)
Watch some comments about the book here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh5Ow...
KBS Korea 24 @KBSKorea24
“On #KoreaBookClub @BarryPWelsh shares what he says is some of the best work he's ever read, #ImWaitingForYou(and other stories) by #scifiwriter @boida_SF. It explores relationships separated by the vastness of space as well as the nature of existence & the universe. Translated by
@sungarooo and @SophieOrbital, and published by @HarperVoyagerUS. #KoreanLiterature #한국문학 #김보영 #당신을기다리고있어 #SF소설”
19:10-20:00 KST, Mon-Fri on KBS WORLD Radio.
Download the KBS Kong / KBS WORLD Radio Mobile apps or subscribe to the Korea 24 podcast for your daily updates!
#KBSWORLDRadio #KBS월드라디오 #Korea24 #코리아24 #책스타그램 #북스타그램 #bookstagram #book #reading #KoreanLiterature #한국문학
(http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/progra...)
May 19, 2025
Niestety mnie nie porwała, liczyłam na coś znacznie lepszego..
March 6, 2022
I read this book blindly without even planning to. I just picked it up, read the first short story, bawled my eyes out, and tried not to sob so loudly in my favorite cafe. In the end, I have to go out and call my partner in order to calm down because it hit too close to home.
"What a comforting thought that we are on the same gigantic spaceship, sailing along the orbit of waiting."
I don't even know how to articulate everything I want to say! This book is so expansive, so wise, so heartbreaking, so hopeful, it's beautiful. I've never overidentified with a book more than this one, and I can now declare that this is my favorite book this year! It's uncanny because it felt like this book distilled every fear I have in my relationship and translated it into sci-fi. The yearning, the absence, the fear of the "orbit of waiting".
I don't know how to properly justify my love for this book because it's so personal for me. I'll have to rewrite this once I sort out my thoughts.
"What a comforting thought that we are on the same gigantic spaceship, sailing along the orbit of waiting."
I don't even know how to articulate everything I want to say! This book is so expansive, so wise, so heartbreaking, so hopeful, it's beautiful. I've never overidentified with a book more than this one, and I can now declare that this is my favorite book this year! It's uncanny because it felt like this book distilled every fear I have in my relationship and translated it into sci-fi. The yearning, the absence, the fear of the "orbit of waiting".
I don't know how to properly justify my love for this book because it's so personal for me. I'll have to rewrite this once I sort out my thoughts.
June 18, 2024
La primera y última historia, que se complementan, es un 5 estrellas y perfección total.
La 2da historia me costó trabajo, aunque al final pude fluir con ella, me pareció súper existencial y filosófica.
Vale la pena totalmente, espero pronto puedan traducirla al español.
La 2da historia me costó trabajo, aunque al final pude fluir con ella, me pareció súper existencial y filosófica.
Vale la pena totalmente, espero pronto puedan traducirla al español.
June 6, 2021
Two worlds and four stories that breathtakingly unique, revolves on the idea of timeless and eternal-- from a sci-fi fantasy that linking both a love story and a galaxy exploration to a mystical and spiritual narrative that questioning about one's way of creation.
I'm Waiting For You and On My Way To You--
Narrated in an epistolary format; a series of letters written by a guy (I'm Waiting For You) and a girl (On My Way To You)-- both from different stellar systems that went into a galaxy travelling mission to reach Earth at the same time for their wedding day. Quite intense and inventive, and the format making it more authentic and emotional. As I am not really a sci-fi reader I appreciate how the scientific aspect did not overwhelm the human side of the story that much. A well structured premise with exceptionally compelling characters.
The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life--
Mind-bending narratives that explore the creation of humanity in the eyes of its creator. A bit complex for me as it views the concept of reality, life and the after life, reincarnation and death. It fascinates me on how the author could structured it as both fantasy fiction and a philosophical argument about 'existence'. The glossary did help a lot; interesting references of Korean myth and the origins of names it used.
An engaging collection and I love the author's and readers' notes at the back (I'm Waiting For You was actually a requested story written for a friend). Glad that they also include the exchange notes between both translators because I did find it quite helpful in understanding these stories more.
"...there’s something in all of these stories that speaks to how small we are, how things can be awful, be gone, or everything completely transformed, but that somehow little things can still matter." (Sophie Bowman)
Huge thanks to Times Reads for sending me a review copy of this book in return for my honest review!
I'm Waiting For You and On My Way To You--
Narrated in an epistolary format; a series of letters written by a guy (I'm Waiting For You) and a girl (On My Way To You)-- both from different stellar systems that went into a galaxy travelling mission to reach Earth at the same time for their wedding day. Quite intense and inventive, and the format making it more authentic and emotional. As I am not really a sci-fi reader I appreciate how the scientific aspect did not overwhelm the human side of the story that much. A well structured premise with exceptionally compelling characters.
The Prophet of Corruption and That One Life--
Mind-bending narratives that explore the creation of humanity in the eyes of its creator. A bit complex for me as it views the concept of reality, life and the after life, reincarnation and death. It fascinates me on how the author could structured it as both fantasy fiction and a philosophical argument about 'existence'. The glossary did help a lot; interesting references of Korean myth and the origins of names it used.
An engaging collection and I love the author's and readers' notes at the back (I'm Waiting For You was actually a requested story written for a friend). Glad that they also include the exchange notes between both translators because I did find it quite helpful in understanding these stories more.
"...there’s something in all of these stories that speaks to how small we are, how things can be awful, be gone, or everything completely transformed, but that somehow little things can still matter." (Sophie Bowman)
Huge thanks to Times Reads for sending me a review copy of this book in return for my honest review!
Read
March 7, 2021rating and review to come!!
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happy days are upon us because i just received an ARC of this in the mail!!! thank you so much to the author, Kim Bo-Young, and Harper Collins publishing. i am SO excited for this collection!
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happy days are upon us because i just received an ARC of this in the mail!!! thank you so much to the author, Kim Bo-Young, and Harper Collins publishing. i am SO excited for this collection!
February 17, 2022
I loved half of this collection - the title story and it’s twin (4 stars), a charming love story in two acts that can only have gained resonance for being read after a year of life more or less on hold, and one I liked all the more for its theme of enduring hope. I persevered through the central story in the collection (The Prophet of Corruption) and found it rewarding in the end but not really to my taste - it’s more philosophical, an intellectual thought experiment that I found rather dry (3 stars)
3.5 stars
Full review
I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
3.5 stars
Full review
I received a free copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
August 12, 2021
Well-written but I'm just not a sci-fi fan.
September 17, 2024
1. I’m waiting for you - 4 stars
Such a powerful story about the timelessness of love and that hope keeps you alive. The life cycle of the earth was so interesting and how many years he traveled to the future was insane. Damn
2. Prophet of corruption - 4.5 stars
Oh how the mighty have fallen. I loved how the concept of corruption was completely flipped in that it’s actually a good thing. Corruption makes you more human and your life have meaning. If we are all one, we’d have no individuality. No personality. No uniqueness. And all those qualities are what make life worth living
3. That one life - 3 stars
An interesting companion/accompaniment to prophet of corruption. I’m glad we got to see naban’s positive perspective of corruption and the fight for his own individuality while still somehow maintaining separation from aman
4. On my way to you - 5 stars
Yup this destroyed me. Holy hell. Reading about her journey was so heartbreaking. The lengths she went to survive, for him. For her man. And that ending! Oh god i hope they found each other. In my mind, they did, and they’re finally happy
Such a powerful story about the timelessness of love and that hope keeps you alive. The life cycle of the earth was so interesting and how many years he traveled to the future was insane. Damn
2. Prophet of corruption - 4.5 stars
Oh how the mighty have fallen. I loved how the concept of corruption was completely flipped in that it’s actually a good thing. Corruption makes you more human and your life have meaning. If we are all one, we’d have no individuality. No personality. No uniqueness. And all those qualities are what make life worth living
3. That one life - 3 stars
An interesting companion/accompaniment to prophet of corruption. I’m glad we got to see naban’s positive perspective of corruption and the fight for his own individuality while still somehow maintaining separation from aman
4. On my way to you - 5 stars
Yup this destroyed me. Holy hell. Reading about her journey was so heartbreaking. The lengths she went to survive, for him. For her man. And that ending! Oh god i hope they found each other. In my mind, they did, and they’re finally happy
August 5, 2023
4 short stories tied together and told from different perspectives. They're separated, waited for each other and bound by promise to be together. Prepare to weep.
July 23, 2021
Waiting is a part of the modern world. There’s been research recently that occupied time feels shorter than unoccupied time, and that’s more or less why we find comfort in spending time with eyes glued on the screens of our laptops, smartphones, e-readers, and yeah even our books. In public places where waiting is a part of the quotidian activities, such as patients waiting for their turns for the doctor appointment or passengers waiting for a flight’s delayed departure, waitings could cause anxieties. Uncertain waits often feel longer than known, finite waits. And that’s the kind of waiting that Kim Bo-young brings to us in this volume, which contains four stories, with the two universes.
“I’m Waiting For You” is the first story in this volume which captivates me to read further and dig the three other stories. The titular and “On My Way” form a world that could be read separately, but nicely complement each other, about a couple separated soon after their engagement on Earth with a plan to get married four months in the woman’s time and several years on the man’s end. Circumstances happened after the woman returned from Alfa Centauri on a short transit only meant to drop off her abusive family, which caused their original plans to thwart. Due to the theory of relativity and time differences in interstellar travel, they need to carefully plan out the time coordinates to meet at exactly the same moment on Earth. It’s in the letters that they exchanged while ‘waiting’ and ‘on the way’ that we could see how beautifully crafted science fiction could meet romance in these ambitious interstellar love stories.
“The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life” form a godlike universe, free from the reign of time and space. The prophet Naban observes as the world being made in the Dark Realm, while they keep reliving various forms of life in the Lower Realm as they became a stabbed archer, an animal, a plant, and see through their various forms. As the original being, Naban came into the state of corruption as a young god they created questions if controlling the human world is indeed the right thing and if indeed the people in Lower Realm have been existing independently from the invisible hands of beings in the Dark Realm. In some ways, these two stories are both abstract and mythical in retelling the origin of the world by mimicking the doctrine of ‘pandeism’ with the belief that a creator deity became the universe itself and ceased to exist to separate and conscious entities.
Originally published in Korea as three separate books, the English translation of this volume was brought by two translators, Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu. The ideas in the four stories are far from simple and they explore novel themes such as interstellar travel and pandeism which intersect between abstract metaphysics, philosophy, and modern science fiction. The two translators crafted the stories to be enjoyed easily, with little need to dig deep into contexts. The most difficult one to catch up on at first was “The Prophet of Corruption” since the story is lengthy and abstract, but “That One Life” complements it and provides the much-needed context.
I have yet to find an author who could write in a logical way, but still, be able to grab the emotional part really well. If you enjoy science fiction and romance, this is a book to go. Much of this volume contains abstract thoughts, so details are not essential to understand the whole storyline. Albeit written by a Korean author, this volume discusses something beyond national boundaries, about a dystopian future when lovers could be separated by a distance several speeds of light and a godlike creature doubts their place in the universe.
“I’m Waiting For You” is the first story in this volume which captivates me to read further and dig the three other stories. The titular and “On My Way” form a world that could be read separately, but nicely complement each other, about a couple separated soon after their engagement on Earth with a plan to get married four months in the woman’s time and several years on the man’s end. Circumstances happened after the woman returned from Alfa Centauri on a short transit only meant to drop off her abusive family, which caused their original plans to thwart. Due to the theory of relativity and time differences in interstellar travel, they need to carefully plan out the time coordinates to meet at exactly the same moment on Earth. It’s in the letters that they exchanged while ‘waiting’ and ‘on the way’ that we could see how beautifully crafted science fiction could meet romance in these ambitious interstellar love stories.
“The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life” form a godlike universe, free from the reign of time and space. The prophet Naban observes as the world being made in the Dark Realm, while they keep reliving various forms of life in the Lower Realm as they became a stabbed archer, an animal, a plant, and see through their various forms. As the original being, Naban came into the state of corruption as a young god they created questions if controlling the human world is indeed the right thing and if indeed the people in Lower Realm have been existing independently from the invisible hands of beings in the Dark Realm. In some ways, these two stories are both abstract and mythical in retelling the origin of the world by mimicking the doctrine of ‘pandeism’ with the belief that a creator deity became the universe itself and ceased to exist to separate and conscious entities.
Originally published in Korea as three separate books, the English translation of this volume was brought by two translators, Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu. The ideas in the four stories are far from simple and they explore novel themes such as interstellar travel and pandeism which intersect between abstract metaphysics, philosophy, and modern science fiction. The two translators crafted the stories to be enjoyed easily, with little need to dig deep into contexts. The most difficult one to catch up on at first was “The Prophet of Corruption” since the story is lengthy and abstract, but “That One Life” complements it and provides the much-needed context.
I have yet to find an author who could write in a logical way, but still, be able to grab the emotional part really well. If you enjoy science fiction and romance, this is a book to go. Much of this volume contains abstract thoughts, so details are not essential to understand the whole storyline. Albeit written by a Korean author, this volume discusses something beyond national boundaries, about a dystopian future when lovers could be separated by a distance several speeds of light and a godlike creature doubts their place in the universe.
April 2, 2021
[4.5/5 stars]
This is a mind-expanding collection of speculative fiction formed by two pairs of interconnected stories which Bo-young explores the driving forces of humanity - love, hope, relationship, creation, destruction, identity and the search for the meaning of existence.
In "I'm waiting for you" and "On my way to you", it is a story about a groom and a bride who will get married after they are back from their space voyage. We get to see different perception of time and space (since the bride would have to wait 4 months and the groom, 4 and half years to see each other again) and some things happen like delay and stellar system travel. Both collections contain letters between the couple and reading them made me feel less attached to the material things and value person/sentiments. Ultimately, it left me sad and hopeful.
In "The prophet of corruption" and "That one life", it is rather an elaborative worldbuilding where people forge bonds, merge (with people or inanimate things) and divide into different entities. While in the Dark Realm (world of the dead), it is debated teaching methods, there's a reincarnation training which students are sent to the world of living (Lower Realm) to go through tests in order to learn lessons. Dark Realm doesn't intervene with Lower Realm and both have different perspectives of the meaning of life.
Bo-young paints meaningful observations on the existentialism, using complex concepts involving religion, prophets, realm, disciple, corruption and next life that brought me a philosophical and spiritual experience. I recognized some sci-fi/fantasy elements also shared in Chinese mythology while there were unexpected new concepts that fascinated me. If you are not used to reading very abstract ideas, you might find it a bit hard to digest.
In short, I found this collection utterly refreshing, thought-provoking and I was overall very satisfied. I would highly recommend it to readers who love a well-written sci-fi or those wanting to read incredible unique stories.
P.S.: make sure to read the author's note at the end
[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - Harper Voyager - exchange for an honest review ]
This is a mind-expanding collection of speculative fiction formed by two pairs of interconnected stories which Bo-young explores the driving forces of humanity - love, hope, relationship, creation, destruction, identity and the search for the meaning of existence.
In "I'm waiting for you" and "On my way to you", it is a story about a groom and a bride who will get married after they are back from their space voyage. We get to see different perception of time and space (since the bride would have to wait 4 months and the groom, 4 and half years to see each other again) and some things happen like delay and stellar system travel. Both collections contain letters between the couple and reading them made me feel less attached to the material things and value person/sentiments. Ultimately, it left me sad and hopeful.
In "The prophet of corruption" and "That one life", it is rather an elaborative worldbuilding where people forge bonds, merge (with people or inanimate things) and divide into different entities. While in the Dark Realm (world of the dead), it is debated teaching methods, there's a reincarnation training which students are sent to the world of living (Lower Realm) to go through tests in order to learn lessons. Dark Realm doesn't intervene with Lower Realm and both have different perspectives of the meaning of life.
Bo-young paints meaningful observations on the existentialism, using complex concepts involving religion, prophets, realm, disciple, corruption and next life that brought me a philosophical and spiritual experience. I recognized some sci-fi/fantasy elements also shared in Chinese mythology while there were unexpected new concepts that fascinated me. If you are not used to reading very abstract ideas, you might find it a bit hard to digest.
In short, I found this collection utterly refreshing, thought-provoking and I was overall very satisfied. I would highly recommend it to readers who love a well-written sci-fi or those wanting to read incredible unique stories.
P.S.: make sure to read the author's note at the end
[ I received a complimentary copy from the publisher - Harper Voyager - exchange for an honest review ]
January 27, 2021
I’m Waiting for you is a collection of short stories by Kim Bo Young. “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” the first and third stories, are two halves of a whole; a story and relationship divided. They both tell of a fiancee traveling across space and time to reunite with their love for their wedding. Complications arise and both must deal with separation, isolation, and different aspect of being an outsider. At its core, this is a classic romance, but Young brings a fresh perspective with brilliant prose and sci-fi elements focused on dystopian predictions of the future, scathing commentary of technological progress in abundance, and an unforgiving look at the worst and best of human nature.
The middle stories follow the existential crises of an infinite being attempting to reconcile their own identity with the concept of the interconnectedness of all. “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” incorporate philosophy, religion, psychology in a fusing that reads like spiritual madness. It tackles ideas of individuality and identity all while presenting a view of the nature of life, death, and reality that feels deeply compelling. The philosophy and storytelling recall for me Richard Bach’s Johnathan Livingston Seagull or Illusions: The Adventure of a Reluctant Messiah. While the shifting identities and ideologies of the ever merging and dividing characters in the second story confuse and complicate the narrative this is one I look forward to reading for a second time, as I am sure there will be more to take away from it upon further reading.
I’m Waiting For You is part true sci-fi and part supernatural philosophy (albeit there are still robots and spaceships). This collection of stories is fun to read and emotionally captivating. It feels new even as the author embraces tropes of both the sci-fi and romance genres. “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” are really the highlight of the collection. The other two stories are slower and at times overly complicated, but still a worthwhile read. Overall, I highly enjoyed this collection!
The middle stories follow the existential crises of an infinite being attempting to reconcile their own identity with the concept of the interconnectedness of all. “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” incorporate philosophy, religion, psychology in a fusing that reads like spiritual madness. It tackles ideas of individuality and identity all while presenting a view of the nature of life, death, and reality that feels deeply compelling. The philosophy and storytelling recall for me Richard Bach’s Johnathan Livingston Seagull or Illusions: The Adventure of a Reluctant Messiah. While the shifting identities and ideologies of the ever merging and dividing characters in the second story confuse and complicate the narrative this is one I look forward to reading for a second time, as I am sure there will be more to take away from it upon further reading.
I’m Waiting For You is part true sci-fi and part supernatural philosophy (albeit there are still robots and spaceships). This collection of stories is fun to read and emotionally captivating. It feels new even as the author embraces tropes of both the sci-fi and romance genres. “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way,” are really the highlight of the collection. The other two stories are slower and at times overly complicated, but still a worthwhile read. Overall, I highly enjoyed this collection!
December 18, 2023
A collection of 4 short stories, with 2 stories being interconnected. Getting started can be tough, but these stories transport you across the universe once you get in the groove.
- The origin of "I'm Waiting for You" and "On My Way to You" are interesting, they are commissioned by a married couple to write a love story for them.
- "The Prophet of Corruption" and "That One Life" contain heavy philosophies and lessons about life. I think I got the message, but I'm also lost in the sci-fi elements.
Rating: 3 stars
- The origin of "I'm Waiting for You" and "On My Way to You" are interesting, they are commissioned by a married couple to write a love story for them.
- "The Prophet of Corruption" and "That One Life" contain heavy philosophies and lessons about life. I think I got the message, but I'm also lost in the sci-fi elements.
Rating: 3 stars
February 20, 2021
I have more recently begun reading Sci-Fi outside of the "YA" realm, and I have to admit this book was immensely enjoyable. It was easy to pick up and pause when needed, and provided really peculiar yet unique stories.
February 5, 2022
Oh man, I didn't think it could be possible to successfully dramatize the tensions within and the concept of I and Thou or of Oneness, but somehow Korean sci-fi writer Bo-Young Kim did just that within two of the four short stories that comprise this collection. When I first started reading these two stories I was NOT in the right frame of mind for the intellectual headiness of it and almost abandoned. It wasn't until I discovered that in the appendix that there was a glossary of key terms that I felt more confident to try again and I am glad I did!
The other two stories were a love story that I found to be okay+, but not super compelling - however, again, the information in the appendix about why the author came to write these stories elevated my feelings for it - and also made the author's title page dedication have such lovely meaning.
The other two stories were a love story that I found to be okay+, but not super compelling - however, again, the information in the appendix about why the author came to write these stories elevated my feelings for it - and also made the author's title page dedication have such lovely meaning.
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