Editorial Content for Your Utopia: Stories
Book
Contributors
Reviewer (text)
If one focuses on the word utopia as meaning perfection, you may not find that in YOUR UTOPIA, a collection of short stories by Bora Chung that has been translated from the Korean by Anton Hur. But you will find tales that instill fear --- of technology, our mortality, other people, life and death. And in many cases, you will find the opposite of a utopia. But perhaps that is the point, or the irony, of the title.
"If you are looking for stories that are reminiscent of 'Black Mirror' or that peek into the unknown, surrounding, burgeoning AI and make one generally question what it means to be human, then YOUR UTOPIA is for you."
In the opening story, “The Center for Immortality Research,” the adage of “too many cooks in the kitchen” leads to a frightening nothing. An assistant has been put in charge of creating a celebration for the 98th anniversary of the Center. She answers one board member after another, constantly revises the invitations to the event, and is tasked Sisyphus-like to a mind-numbing number of minor alterations. Until finally, what readers had to see coming does indeed happen: the invitations go out in multiple variations with numerous errors. The outcome? Nothing. Why? Because the immortal can’t be fired from the Center for Immortality Research.
“A Very Ordinary Marriage” it is not. A couple meets in a dentist’s waiting room. The man thinks he has found the perfect wife because “she was the kind of person who was sincere in everything she did.” But was she? he asks himself when he finds nothing but her hand --- which is still wearing her wedding ring --- behind the toilet. This comes only after she confesses who she is…or, more accurately, where she is from. Maybe this is a cautionary tale about whether or not we truly know the spouses we choose. Or the ones who are chosen for us, unbeknownst to us.
When a nascent disease begins to spread in “The End of the Voyage,” humans turn to cannibalism. In “Seed,” a new race of human-plant hybrids emerge. And deepfake technologies are a major theme in “To Meet Her.”
In the titular story, the narrator is asked what “your utopia is” with regularity by a machine known simply as 314. The question is an apt one for readers picking their next book. If you are looking for stories that are reminiscent of “Black Mirror” or that peek into the unknown, surrounding, burgeoning AI and make one generally question what it means to be human, then YOUR UTOPIA is for you.
Teaser
Bora Chung’s inimitable blend of horror, absurdity and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity. In “The Center for Immortality Research,” a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In “A Song for Sleep,” an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. “Seed” traverses the final frontier of capitalism’s destruction of the planet --- but nature always creeps back to life.
Promo
Bora Chung’s inimitable blend of horror, absurdity and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity. In “The Center for Immortality Research,” a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In “A Song for Sleep,” an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. “Seed” traverses the final frontier of capitalism’s destruction of the planet --- but nature always creeps back to life.
About the Book
From the acclaimed author and translator of CURSED BUNNY, a fresh, uncanny and utterly profound collection of stories set in near and distant futures that reflect our deepest fears --- and deepest desires.
Bora Chung’s inimitable blend of horror, absurdity and dark humor reaches its peak in these tales of loss and discovery, dystopia and idealism, death and immortality. In a thrilling translation by the acclaimed Anton Hur, readers will experience a variety of possible fates for humanity, from total demise via a disease whose only symptom is casual cannibalism to a world in which even dreams can be monitored and used to convict people of crimes.
In “The Center for Immortality Research,” a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors only to be blamed for the chaos that ensues during the event in front of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. In “A Song for Sleep,” an AI elevator in an apartment complex develops a tender, one-sided love for an elderly resident. “Seed” traverses the final frontier of capitalism’s destruction of the planet --- but nature always creeps back to life.
If you haven’t yet experienced the fruits of Chung’s singular imagination, YOUR UTOPIA is waiting.
