The RAS Korean Literature Club discussion
List of Korean science-fiction novels published in English --- and, thoughts on the recent rise of Korean SF literature
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Mod
Some summary-data of the "Korean science-fiction literature published in English trend," based on the above.
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THE COUNT. Korean sci-fi literature (novels and short-story collections) published in English over the last decade (2015 to 2025), by year:
- 2016: 0
- 2017: 0
- 2018: 0
- 2019: 0 (or 1, see first entry in the list)
- 2020: 0
- 2021: 3 (one each by small presses Honford Star and Angry Robot, both successes; the third a "best of" volume by the previously untranslated Bo-young Kim)
- 2022: 1 (Honford Star; a minor success)
- 2023: 3 (one -- Counterweight -- was a major release by Penguin, but a critical failure)
- 2024: 4.5 (two were major releases, of which one a Young Adult / YA book)
- 2025: 5.5+ (too early to say how many will be successes; at least two adult and one YA book among the 2025-published books look likely to be successes)
(* note: The half-point divided between 2024 and 2025 is because of the unique publication-history of The Black Orb; see its entry below.)
2015-2025 GRAND TOTAL: 18.
Of these eighteen, some are minor, some major.
At least 5 of the books on the list fit the bill as "considerable successes," being: (1.) major-release, (2.) non-YA, (3.) widely read, and (4.) relatively favorably reviewed/received.
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THE RATE of "major titles of Korean sci-fi novels in English" shows a clear up-swing in the first half of the 2020s:
- 0 titles/year before 2020;
- 1.5 titles/year rate for 2020-23;
- 2.5 titles/year rate for 2024-25.
- (2026: signs point to the market at least sustaining the 2024-25 rate in 2026.)
--> "Major" is subjective. For purposes of this list I include all big-publisher titles (which have gotten many GoodReads reviews, including the two YA books), PLUS the three by Honford Star and the one by Angry Robot, given their early role in driving the trend (i.e., in demonstrating, to the major publishers, that there is a viable market).
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Mod
COMMENT: The success or prominence of "Korean science-fiction literature" (Koreans use the acronym "SF") is a very-recent phenomenon.
The genre might be said to have hardly existed before the middle of the 2010s, or even before the end of the 2010s. SF writing did technically exist (of course), but the point is that as a genre it was obscure; its audiences, small; critical attention, scant and dismissive. Korean SF literature found practically no footing and got no respect.
To put it another way, virtually all science-fiction attention such as there was among Koreans was directed towards foreign science-fiction. That basically held through the middle of the 2010s at least.
Only in 2009 do we have (what's seen as) the first successful Korean science-fiction novel, with Tower. (It is also among the very-first published in English, 2021.) The success of Tower (i.e., as a successful Korean-SF novel) would not be repeated on a sustained basis until about a decade later.
Jumping ahead to the mid-2020s, "SF" has become a significant, respectable part of the Korean literary landscape Literary journals take it seriously, its titles sell, publishing houses are interested, and so on. At the 2024 Seoul Book Expo to be held at Coex Mall in mid-June 2025, there are even full sessions about Korean SF literature, something unlikely-to-impossible 10 years earlier (except as a pure novelty), and unlikely (if no long impossible) even just 5 years earlier.
But it really is interesting that the "mainstreaming" of science-fiction in Korean literature happened so much later than it did in the West. In the USA, the mainstreaming may date to around the 1960s. (If you had to choose a single critical-turning-point period, maybe it's near the mid- and late-1960s, although with these things it's always a multi-decade process involved and trends always overlap and have sub-trends and so on.) Western readers and publishers can be said to have embraced "SF" literature some 50+ years before "Korea" (Korea's literary world) did, before the same sort of movement or "mainstreaming"-into-success happened in Korea for Korean authors.
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QUESTION 1: Why did the Korean SF-literature trend happen when it did? Another way of asking this is, Why did "Koreans," and I really mean the Korean literary world, resist or reject or disdain SF for so long?
We see it emerging into its own, slowly in the 2010s, and carrying forward strong in the 2020s. Actually a rapid rise (although that is not overly surprising with trends in Korea). Why this timeline and not one x decades earlier, or something more gradual?
The "when" question, and the usual who/where/why/how questions, are of interest. I don't have the answers, although I could toss out certain ideas that sound plausible to me. As always, am interested to hear good ideas or from those who know more.
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QUESTION 2: (This one is easier.) Why did English-language publishers embrace the Korean SF trend?
The "who," we know: It started with some academic interest in the late 2010s. By the close of the 2010s decade, interested observers were noticing the trend, although no one yet imagined it would have any appeal in English-translation; that would wait, really, for the mid-2020s.
In commercial publishing, it started with the small-time independent publisher Honford Star (UK), who published Tower in February 2021. Tower was a relative success and one of the first publishing salvos that put Honford Star "on the map." By 2025, the market now sustains a rate of several major Korean-SF novels a year in English translation.
The answer to why English-publishers would like Korean-SF material I think are straightforward: (1.) Western audiences already like SF, and (2.) There continues to exist a certain K-Culture consumption-trend popular in some quarters, with demonstrated market-power.
(The danger in these two conditions aligning is the market may overshoot. Projects of relatively lesser literary value may be released here in the second half of the 2020s.)
The interesting mid-2020s trend is seeing titles placeable within the new quasi-genre "Korean SF" being produced in English originally, as with Anton Hur's novel Toward Eternity (July 2024) and this new novel Luminous (March 2025, by Silvia Park), praised quite highly by prolific and knowledgeable Korean-literature reviewer John Armstrong (see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...).
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Thanks - interestingComprehensive list. I'd add The Proposal, 3rd in translation from the author of Tower and Launch Something
And from one of the authors in Readymade Bodhisattva there is
On the Origin of Species and Other Stories and I'm Waiting for You and Other Stories
Otherwise depends on what one takes as boundaries of sci-fi and there are more speculative fiction/dystopian type works or things like Magical Girl literature.
Minor quibble but Serpent's Tail as 'minor'?! - Pete Ayrton who founded it has been a massive influence on translated literature. And it's the UK publisher of authors like Krasznahorkai, Alain Mabanckou, Christian Kracht etc and frequently prize featured, indeed rather more for translated work than the Penguin Random House empire.
Mod
Hi Peter, thank you for starting this discussion about the rise of SF novels in Korea. I’m not a regular science fiction reader, but here are some noteworthy points I’ve encountered.- The rise of Korean SF may also relate to a broader popularity of the genre in East Asia, which publishers are tapping into. I’m thinking especially of the Chinese writer Liu Cixin and his book The Three Body Problem which was very popular. The following article also notes how the reach of Chinese SF books abroad may be greater than domestic consumption. Would this also be the case for Korean SF? https://daily.jstor.org/whats-so-chin...
- Just like the title from that same article, it would be interesting to explore “What’s so Korean About Science Fiction from Korea?” I don’t know myself, but I hope they discuss it in the panel at the literature convention!
- From my experience, I also know that in humanities and social sciences there has with climate collapse and existential risks there been an interest in post-anthropocentric worldview and speculative fiction to make sense of the world and question dominant narratives. Especially feminist SF has had a resurgence. Which can of questions are being tackled in your list of books? My impression of *Red Sword* is that it covered fairly clichéd science fiction themes, such as interstellar empires, clones.
PS: Bong Joon Ho’s movies may also have been contributing to popularity of SF in Korea? (Snowpiercer, Okja, and now Mickey 17, which is also about clones)
Mod
Thanks, Wouter, for sharing your good ideas on this matter.
When I was actively seeking out answers on Korean SF, the huge success of Three-Body Problem that you mention also came up. I haven't read it. (Published in Chinese, 2008; translated into English, 2014; made into a Netflix series, released March 2024). You're right that the trend driven especially by that Three-Body Problem book aligns approximately chronologically with the Korea trend, of minimal awareness in the middle-2010s to something big starting around the late-2010s (I refer to foreign-Western awareness of the trend).
Your question: "What is so 'Korean' about Korean SF?"
The English-language magazine Korean Literature Now devoted its Summer 2024 issue to the rise Korean science-fiction. They had three major "feature" articles about the topic, of which one was directly about what makes "Korean SF" Korean. (I was dissatisfied with the writer's answer, but judge for yourself.)
If interested in those articles, see:
Korean Literature Now [published by KLTI, the Literature Translation Institute of Korea, Seoul], Vol. 64, Summer 2024.
https://kln.or.kr/issues/issuesView.d...
"Cover Features"
-- "Korean SF Now," by Sang-keun Yoo.
-- "Every Possible Thing Bar One: Four Keywords for Recent Korean SF," by Yang Yoon-eui.
-- "Korean SF is Always Korean," by Kim Bo-young.
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Mod
Pasting part of the article on Chinese SF that Wouter linked to:
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Daily JSTOR | Arts & Culture
"WHAT'S SO CHINESE ABOUT SCIENCE FICTION FROM CHINA?"
Commentators have latched onto science fiction to explain all manner of social phenomena in China, from unemployment and the economy to air pollution.
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By: H.M.A. Leow
November 5, 2024
From a recommendation by former US President Barack Obama in The New York Times to a Netflix adaptation that premiered this year, Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem trilogy has become the standard bearer for the mainstream success of Chinese science fiction (SF). But how did novels like Liu’s overcome the disreputable status of pulp fiction and gain an international reputation as serious literature?
Chinese literature and film scholar Angie Chau has a theory: contemporary Chinese literature carries “cultural currency,” she writes, as “the most accurate lens through which to view and truly understand China.”
In the last decade, authors Liu Cixin and Hao Jingfang have successfully won foreign readers over thanks to English translations of their fiction by Chinese American author Ken Liu. According to Chau, these works can be analyzed through the concept of “littérisation,” which comparative literature scholar Pascale Casanova explains as the process by which “a text from a literarily deprived country comes to be regarded as literary by…legitimate authorities.”
But in the case of Chinese SF texts, “an additional layer of literary transmutation has taken place: the English translations of these works facilitate a shift in perception of SF from genre fiction to literary fiction,” Chau writes.
Another Chinese SF writer, Chen Qiufan, surmised that SF is gaining international traction because of “the rise of China as a whole, in politics, the economy, and culture.” From this, Chau suggests that China’s promotion of Three-Body and Chinese SF “can be traced to the long-standing desire for Chinese literature to be considered on a par with Western literature.”
That’s as today’s writing carries the baggage of twentieth-century “de-elitization,” “vulgarization,” and “anti-spiritualization” trends, which have led literature to be commercialized and commodified.
To be sure, the genre of science fiction isn’t necessarily popular with readers in China. Three-Body sold more than 2.1 million copies in the decade after its release—but that feat pales against a Chinese collection of short love stories that accomplished the same volume of sales in just half a year.
All the same, the level of domestic popularity that SF enjoys domestically “is, in a way, irrelevant for its afterlife in circulation outside China,” Chau comments. That’s because, while works like Three-Body win overseas acclaim for “fulfill[ing] generic SF conventions,” they’re also interpreted “[a]s a way of making China comprehensible” to outsiders.
Indeed, Chau points out that commentators have latched onto SF texts to explain all manner of social phenomena in China, ranging from unemployment and the economy to air pollution. Three-Body, for example, stands out for how the Chinese Cultural Revolution is incorporated into its plot. In the novel, an astrophysicist, as an act of revenge for her father’s murder by Red Guards, chooses to put Earth at risk by sending out a provocative interstellar message to hostile aliens.
[...] “[D]espite the shortcomings of applying an essentialist nationalistic reading to contemporary Chinese SF, the Chinese label combined with the genre conventions of SF is one way to draw in readers who would otherwise not read contemporary Chinese literature.”
(end quote, H.M.A. Leow, 2024)
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MY COMMENT: There are some excellent points here that align with what I've come to think.
I am looking at it through the ostensibly-different "lens" of South Korea and not China (specifically the People's Republic of China is referred to by the analyst). South Korea and China today are majorly different cultural-political entities in some ways. Different, but both East Asian. That could be a key mutually reinforcing driver, in this case.
To my awareness, there is no rise of SF-in-translation from Armenia or Angola or Antigua (or 'even' Austria or Argentina) during the same period we are interested in (early-or-mid 2010s to mid-2020s so far). But if we do see it in East Asia (not sure about Japan), that's a big clue something is going on similar to what will be seen at the Seoul International Book Fair this week.
The Book Fair in 2025 is hosted by Koreans but highlights a number of Taiwanese authors; "bypassing the West" if one wants to think of it that way; definitely there is active cross-pollination with Japanese literary trends. It's so significant, the Korea-Japan literary cross-pollination, that many bookstores in Korea I've noticed display new Korean novels and new Japanese novels (in Korean translation) together on one display-shelf. In other words, marketers expect demand for one heavily overlaps with demand for the other.
The process of cross-pollination with the West, with Western demand or taste as a key driver of Korean SF, seems particularly likely in this (SF) case. It doesn't, however, seem like enough to answer the "Why now" question. Because this kind of Western demand existed earlier.
Why are old episodes of Star Trek never shown on any of South Korea's hundreds of tv channels (that I know of)? Because in the USA they are still remarkably easy to find.
Mod
On the "Why now" question, Wouter writes:
"[W]ith climate collapse and existential risks there been an interest in post-anthropocentric worldview and speculative fiction to make sense of the world and question dominant narratives. Especially feminist SF has had a resurgence."
This is an interesting idea.
The overlap with Feminism is particularly puzzling, from our (my; generic-Western) perspective. Over the past century, it's fair to say, I think, that SF writers and readers alike have traditionally been very-highly male (and, as often as not, "right-wing," I am thinking of Robert Heinlein). It seems, however, that the large majority of Korean science-fiction writers active today are women.
Climate Change concern could lead to SF creative-output. If feminism and climate change politics are considered an "idea cluster," the two trends would reinforce one another.
We are now onto questions of the political trends among b.1980s, b.1990s, and b.2000s Koreans. "Is Korean SF political: How and why?" is the kind of essay I'd like to read. (I think I could even write that essay, but don't have time.)
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Mod
On the screen-adaptations: As usual, I think they lag behind literary trends but reinforce them. Those who perceive these trends first are those following literary output (as with novels).
Snowpiercer, released in 2013, was very-specifically made for Western audiences (it had only one Korean on-screen character, I believe; all others Westerners; its setting had nothing to do with Korea; it was based on a French graphic-novel). Flashing forward twelve years, none of those qualifications would be necessary: a big Korean director could have made an all-Korean SF movie easily.
What is the threshold-moment it became true that a Korean production company could produce a "Korean SF" movie? A chronological list of important Korean SF movies or series compared to the same for novels and short-stories, I am confident would reveal the latter began its up-trend years earlier.
A side-note on the cross-pollination idea: The Mickey 17 movie by the high-prestige Korean director, released this year, is based not a Korean story but on an science-ficiton story originally published in English (by someone named Edward Ashton; book released February 2022).
Mod
It's notable how strong the presence of science-fiction (SF) books and publishers was at the Seoul International Book Fair, June 2025.
(See the event-reports from two of our members, especially the one by S.H., here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...)
Let me relate one small anecdote. I had the chance to browse through the independent-authors section at the Book Fair. In that section, far to the back of the exhibition-space, independent-authors could register for a small single table (about what my grandparents called a "card table"). The tables were comfortable space for a single person and but cramped for two. (A number of these tables were not really about books at all, but about vaguely-book-related trinkets of some kind. A trend all will have seen out in the world of bookstores.)
The tables formed a number of long rows, and people could go through and run into chance encounters, similar perhaps to that age-old mysterious experience of walking through the "stacks" of a good library and seeing what hits you.
A fair number of the tables in the independent-author section which were definitely about books, were by SF authors.
One example, a man I talked to at random, was someone calling himself Song Hanbyul. Presumably that is his real name (but you never know with authors). Missing Archive is what he calls his "one-person press," according to his promotional material. The name Missing Archive refers to "A record of things that will one day disappear" (but isn't that all things?) -- and Song Hanbyul calls himself the "CEO." It's hard for me to judge Koreans' ages but he couldn't been older than mid-30s. It seemed he had a female friend, perhaps girlfriend, co-running the booth with him.
Talking with him for a minute or two, Song Hanbyul gave me a list in English of titles he had published. They are mostly by himself, or short-story collections with himself as a featured author. But -- and thanks for your patience, this is the point -- almost all of the Missing Archive catalog is sci-fi!
From the list of Missing Archive's books, brief descriptions and titles:
- "AI and Lyling [?] Fiction Collection": Forget All the Prompts You've Entered So Far
- "Earthsphere Sci-Fi Quadrilogy": Waiting in Orbit
- "Chilling Sci-Fi Short-story Collection": Heartless and Indifferent
- "Comedy Sci-Fi": Get That Dog out of the Ship
About five others works are not evidently sci-fi, making his early-2020s efforts half science-fiction and half other. (A typical example of the others is one titled: Summer, Ice Cream. "[A] collection of stories about the highs, lows, and giddy moments of summer, centered around two things: summer and beer...")
But there were hundreds, at least, of such "SF" encounters as the one I've briefly sketched, that were possible to make at the Book Fair.
I have said it many times, but I'll say it again here: This kind of scene, in which "SF" is so conspicuous within the world of Korean Literature (chance-encounters often yielding SF), would've been effectively impossible in 2015, ten years ago. And not very strong yet in 2020 (in which year, in any case, the Book Fair was cancelled).
The strength of the trend raises the question of its staying power. Is "Korean SF" just an attention-grabbing gimmick? If anyone's reading these words in 2035, let us know.
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Mod
With the Club reading On the Origin of Species & Other Stories for its September 2025 session, attention is again due to the rise of popularity of the Korean-SF-in-translation phenomenon.
On the Origin of Species & Other Stories is a science-fiction (SF) compilation by Bo-young Kim. She is an "early" SF author, active primarily 2004-2016. She has a small core of devoted fans. But her period of main activity was decidedly before the rise of SF in popularity even in Korean, much less in English-translation.
The master-list of Korean SF novels published in English-translation (compiled by me; the first post here), there are 18 entries as of mid-2025. Five to ten can be considered notable or major (depending on how strict you are).
The Club will now have read four of the SF novels:
- for the June 2021 gathering: Tower (by Bae Myung-hoon; tr. Sung Ryu; original, June 2009; published in English, Feb. 2021, by Honford Star);
- for the July 2023 gathering: The Cabinet (by Kim Un-Su; tr. Sean Lin Halbert; orig., Dec 2006; published in English, Oct 2021, by Angry Robot Press);
- for the June 2025 gathering: Red Sword (by Bora Chung; tr. Anton Hur; original, Jan 2019; published in English, May 2025, by Honford Star);
- for the Sept 2025 gathering: On the Origin of Species & Other Stories (by Bo-young Kim; tr. Joungmin Lee Comfort, Sora Kim-Russell, and others. Published in English in May 2021 by Kaya Press, as an original compilation of stories previously published separately, here and there, in Korean, ca.2005-2016).
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To repeat the big-picture narrative for Korean Science-Fiction in English translation:
--> 1.) Korean-SF was at something near "zero" as of the mid-2010s. An obscure or 'underground' genre considered strange and foreign, outside the realm of attention or acclaim, and with few readers. Even by the close of year 2020, there had been zero book-form publications of Korean-SF in English-translation! (With one possible asterisked exception in 2019; one of those "exceptions proving the rule.")
--> 2.) A quiet breakthrough for Korean-SF happens in Korean starting around the very-end of the 2010s and sustains energy over the coming few years;
--> 3.) By some point in the early 2020s, a major positive-feedback loop comes into being, involving foreign readers in foreign markets, sustaining the genre/market to unimagined levels attained by 2024-25. (A typically Korean story of explosive sudden growth driven by a kind of mania?)
--> 4.) Korean-SF-in-translation's turning-point may be the year 2021, when several early efforts find success. Spearheading the movement, in 2020-21, were minor publishers like Honford Star and Angry Robot Press. By 2024, the genre (or genre-in-translation) commanded the attention of major international publishers.
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The RAS Korean Literature Club (KLC)'s own records mirror or echo the narrative-arc for the genre (or genre-in-translation):
Korean-SF books read by the KLC:
- early 2010s: 0/year
- mid-2010s: 0/year
- late-2010s: 0/year
- early-2020s: 0.30/year
- mid-2020s: 1.25/year (annualized rate) !
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It's fair to say, too, that in the earlier generations of this Club's existence, none of the leaders or core members would have even thought of "SF" as a viable genre. This not out of literary bias, rather simply out of lack of any attention to it -- or any serious profile at all, even in Korean. And lack of any English translations before the 2020s.
(The anti-SF literary bias was overcome only slowly in the West, too, over decades in the late-20th century, but an important Rubicon seems to have been crossed ca.1970(s) into a degree of literary respectability; many decades before any similar development can be seen in Korea.)
As for the publication of On the Origin of Species & Other Stories in 2021, it was given as a kind of "best-of compilation" by Kaya Press, a small publisher known to put out "literature that is marginal but notable." Even the people behind that Origin of Species project didn't understand the cusp of Korean-SF popularity they were standing upon, already then.
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The RAS Korean Literature Club
Books mentioned in this topic
The Cabinet (other topics)On the Origin of Species and Other Stories (other topics)
Red Sword (other topics)
Tower (other topics)
On the Origin of Species and Other Stories (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Sora Kim-Russell (other topics)Joungmin Lee Comfort (other topics)
Sunyoung Park (other topics)
Bae Myung-hoon (other topics)
Sung Ryu (other topics)
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I've compiled a list of Korean sci-fi (SF) novels published in English, complete to my knowledge as of mid-2025.
The first successful Korean SF novel is Tower (2009 original; 2021 translation). The RAS Korean Literature Club has read Tower (June 2021), The Cabinet (July 2023), and Red Sword (June 2025). Not once, however, in the 2010s did the club read any true Korean SF literature. The genre was obscure and nothing had been translated before the 2020s.
I'll later add summary statistics of Korean SF books published in English by year and additional commentary.
Here is the list, complete to mid-2025:
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LIST OF KOREAN SCIENCE-FICTION LITERATURE PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH TRANSLATION up to August 2025
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Short list (by date of English publication):
- March 2019: Readymade Bodhisattva
- Feb 2021: Tower
- May 2021: On the Origin of Species & Other Stories
- Oct 2021: The Cabinet
- Oct 2022: Launch Something!
- March 2023: Walking Practice
- April 2023: Take My Voice (short story)
- July 2023: Counterweight
- Jan 2024: Your Utopia
- Feb 2024: Snowglobe (Young Adult)
- July 2024: Toward Eternity
- July 2024: Everything Good Dies Here
- Aug 2024 (minor) or Feb 2025 (major): The Black Orb
- March 2025: A Thousand Blues
- March 2025: Luminous: A Novel
- May 2025: Red Sword
- May 2025: Snowglobe 2 (Young Adult)
- Aug 2025: Roadkill
Detailed list:
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READYMADE BODHISATTVA: THE KAYA ANTHOLOGY OF SOUTH KOREA SCIENCE FICTION
- Authors and translators: multiple
- Editors: Sunyoung Park, Park Sang Joon
- - Released in English: March 2019
- - English-language publisher of Readymade Bodhisattva: Kaya Press, University of Southern California
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...
- GoodReads ratings: 111 / average rating: 4.03
- note: The short-story collection Readymade Bodhisattva (2019) was not a mass-market book, meant to analyze a still-obscure foreign literary trend (which hadn't quite fully lifted off the ground, yet, at time of the volume's preparation in 2018). It's notable that Readymade Bodhisattva was published by an academic press and not a commercial press. It has two editors: one, a professor; the other, the curator of the Seoul Science Fiction Archive.
Readymade Boddhisatva can be grouped with publishing trend in the 2000s and 2010s in which sets of "Important Korean Literature, which failed to have much reach in English" were produced and published by obscure, small, and/or academic presses. The timing, however, was auspicious: The Boddhisatva project came together in 2018 and was released in March 2019. It is a convenient bridge for Korean science-fiction (SF), between its up-to-mid-2010s baseline (low, marginal, neglected) to its position as a considerable force by the mid-2020s.
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TOWER
- Author: Bae Myung-hoon
- Translator: Sung Ryu
- - Released in English: Feb 2021
- - English-language publisher of Tower: Honford Star (UK)
- - Original published in Korean: June 2009?; re-published Feb 2020 by a major Korean publisher after years of obscurity.
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
- GoodReads ratings: 1,254 / average rating: 3.62
*** The Club read Tower in June 2021.
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ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES & OTHER STORIES
- Author: Bo-young Kim
- Translator: Joungmin Lee Comfort, Sora Kim-Russell, others
- - Released in English: May 2021
- - English-language publisher: Kaya Press
- - Original published in Korean: Never. (The 2021 English version was an original compilation of author's stories, ca.2005-2015; later RE-published in Korean, 2022.)
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
- GoodReads ratings: 856 / average rating: 4.32
*** UPDATE (mid-Aug 2025): The Club will read Origin of Species & Other Stories for its Sept 2025 gathering.
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THE CABINET
- Author: Kim Un-su
- Translator: Sean Lin Halbert
- - Released in English: Oct 2021
- - English-language publisher of The Cabinet: Angry Robot (UK), a small sci-fi press
- - Original published in Korean (as "캐비닛"): Dec 2006
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
- GoodReads ratings: 5,519 / average rating: 3.51
- note: A short-story collection both sci-fi and fantasy.
*** The Club read The Cabinet in July 2023.
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LAUNCH SOMETHING!
- Author: Bae Myung-hoon
- Translator: Stella Kim
- - Released in English: Oct 2022
- - English-language publisher of Launch Something!: Honford Star (UK)
- - Original published in Korean (as "빙글빙글 우주군"): Sept 2020
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
- GoodReads ratings: 254 / average rating: 3.17
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WALKING PRACTICE
- Author: Dolki Min
- Translator: Victoria Caudle
- - Released in English: Mar 2023
- - English-language publisher of Walking Practice: HarperVia (HarperCollins)
- - Original published in Korean: Feb 2022
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
- GoodReads ratings: 4,861 / average rating: 3.57
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TAKE MY VOICE (short story)
- Author: Chung Serang
- Translator: Anton Hur
- - Released in English: April 2023
- - English-language publisher of Take My Voice: Strangers Press
- - Original published in Korean (as "목소리를 드릴게요"): January 2020.
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
- GoodReads ratings: 38 / average rating: 4.03
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COUNTERWEIGHT
- Author: Djuna (듀나)
- Translator: Anton Hur
- - Released in English: July 2023
- - English-language publisher of Counterweight: Pantheon (Penguin)
- - Original published in Korean: Feb 2021
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
- GoodReads ratings: 1,655 / average rating: 3.04
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*** Korean science-fiction conference held at the University of Southern California (USC) ***
November 10-11, 2023. Conference title: "The Posthuman, the Human, and the Non-Human: New Narratives and Critical Perspectives in Korean Studies." /// The USC Korean sci-fi conference is believed to be the first major conference of its kind in the USA. Even in South Korea there had been few predecessors (one of the earliest being a 2021 conference on Korean literary sci-fi at Sunkyunkwan University).
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YOUR UTOPIA
- Author: Bora Chung
- Translator: Anton Hur
- - Released in English: Jan 2024
- - English-language publisher of Your Utopia: Algonquin Books (Hachette)
- - Original published in Korean: Aug 2021 (as "그녀를 만나다").
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
- GoodReads ratings: 3,915 / average rating: 3.65
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SNOWGLOBE
- Author: Soyoung Park
- Translator: Joungmin Lee Comfort
- - Released in English: Feb 2024
- - English-language publisher of Snowglobe: Delacorte Press (Penguin)
- - Original published in Korean: Oct 2020
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
- GoodReads ratings: 5,238 / average rating: 3.58
- note: Snowglobe is a Young Adult book.
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TOWARD ETERNITY
- Author: Anton Hur
- Translator: n/a (originally written in English)
- - Released in English: July 2024
- - English-language publisher of Towards Eternity: HarperVia (HarperCollins)
- - Original published in Korean: n/a
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
- GoodReads Ratings: 1,804 / 3.82
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EVERYTHING GOOD DIES HERE: TALES FROM THE LINKER UNIVERSE AND BEYOND
- Author: Djuna (듀나)
- Translator: Adrian Thieret
- - Released in English: July 2024
- - English-language publisher of Everything Good Dies Here: Kaya Press
- - Original published in Korean: 2021?
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
- GoodReads ratings: 27 / average rating: 4.22
- note: Everything Good Dies Here is a collection of short-stories, originally published between 1997 and 2015. The stories got minimal attention at the time but received fresh attention with the rise in SF-genre popularity in the early 2020s.
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THE BLACK ORB
- Author: Kim Ewhan
- Translator: Sean Lin Halbert
- - Released in English: Aug 2024 by a minor UK press; apparently bought in Feb 2025 by HarperCollins
- - English-language publisher(s) of The Black Orb -- Aug 2024 by Serpent's Tail (UK); and Feb 2025 by MIRA (HarperCollins)
- - Original published in Korean: Oct 2009?
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
- GoodReads Ratings: 333 / average rating: 3.18
- note: The Black Orb is said to be more in the fantasy genre than true science-fiction.
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A THOUSAND BLUES
- Author: Cheon Seon-ran
- Translator: Chi-Young Kim
- - Released in English: March 2025
- - English-language publisher of A Thousand Blues: Doubleday (Penguin)
- - Original published in Korean (as "천 개의 파랑"): Aug 2020
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
- GoodReads Ratings: 380 / average rating: 4.05
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LUMINOUS: A NOVEL
- Author: Silvia Park
- Translator: n/a (originally written in English but "very Korean")
- - Released in English: March 2025
- - English-language publisher of Luminous: Simon & Schuster
- - Original published in Korean: n/a
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
- GoodReads Ratings: 592 / average rating: 3.76
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RED SWORD
- Author: Bora Chung
- Translator: Anton Hur
- - Released in English: May 2025
- - English-language publisher of Red Sword: Honford Star
- - Original published in Korean: Jan 2019
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
- GoodReads Ratings: (not yet)
*** The Club read Red Sword for its June 2025 gathering.
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SNOWGLOBE 2
- Author: Soyoung Park
- Translator: Joungmin Lee Comfort
- - Released in English: May 2025
- - English-language publisher of Snowglobe II: Penguin
- - Original published in Korean: Dec 2021
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
- GoodReads Ratings: (not yet)
- note: Snowglobe 2 is a Young Adult book.
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ROADKILL
- Author: Amil
- Translator: Archana Madhavan
- - Released in English: Aug 2025
- - English-language publisher of Roadkill: Penguin
- - Original published in Korean, 2018-2023? (short-story collection, stories previously published separately)
- GoodReads entry: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
- GoodReads ratings: (not yet)
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I also have a list of ten or twelve successful Korean science-fiction (SF) works NOT been translated into English (as of mid-2025), but which may be in future (below).