Your views on "Origin of Species & Other Stories" by Bo-young Kim (2021)

[Peter]

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This Club's September 2025 book is:

ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES & OTHER STORIES
- By Bo-young Kim
- Published by Kaya Press (University of Southern California) ("a publisher of Asian Pacific Diasporas")
- Publication date: April 2021
- Main translators: Sora Kim-Russell & Joungmin Lee Comfort
- "Additional translation by": Jihyun Park, Gord Sellar, Melissa Mei-Lin Chan, & Eunhae Jo.

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This collection Origin of Species & Other Stories has seven stories plus an Author's Introduction and Afterword.

The stories are:

-- "On the Origin of Species" (originally published March 2005 as <종의 기원> in a webzine);

-- "Scripter" (originally published Nov 2008, as <스크립터>, in a magazine);

-- "Between Zero and One" (originally published Feb 2009, as <0과 1사이>, in a webzine);

-- "An Evolutionary Myth" (originally published Nov 2006, as <진화신화>, in a magazine);

-- "Last of the Wolves" (originally published Nov 2007, as <마지막 늑대>; appeared in a multi-author science-fiction volume, put out by Changbi Publishers, titled <잃어버린 개념을 찾아서>);

-- "Stars Shine in Earth's Sky" (originally published Dec 2009, as <지구의 하늘에는 별이 빛나고 있다>; appeared in a multi-author science-fiction collection, put out by Omellas Publishing [Seoul], titled <백만 광년의 고독>);

-- "On the Origin of Species--And What Might Have Happened Thereafter" (originally published Fall 2005, as <종의 기원: 그 후에 있었을지도 모르는 이야기>, in a webzine).

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This particular collection of Bo-Young Kim's stories had never been published in Korean. That is to say, it's a compilation original to English. It was meant as a best-of compilation, of an unknown-on-English Korean science-fiction (SF) author who had been active mostly between the mid-2000s to mid-2010s. Although she had some devoted readers through the webzine format of the 2000s, science-fiction was not prominent, widely popular, or respected as a literary genre (until, at earliest, the late 2010s).

The English-translation and compilation project was by Kaya Press. Kaya Press can be thought of as an academic press, being housed at the University of California. The project dates, I assume, to 2019-2020, ahead of the April 2021 publication.

Origin of Species & Other Stories appeared just as the popularity of Korean SF (in written-fiction) was gathering strength abroad. The genre's popularity and profile gaining strength, notably and noticeably, really every year starting in 2021 and continuing to 2025.

(See also: "List of Korean science-fiction novels published in English and Thoughts on the recent rise of Korean SF literature" at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... ).

Origin of Species &Other Stories found surprise-success in English in 2021-22. The same collection was then published in Korean in June 2023. It is one of many examples, able to be found by the mid-2020s, of the direct back-influence from the international translated-fiction market back onto the "home" market.

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TO ALL: Feel free to share any thoughts or reactions here, before or after reading. 👍 (for "after" commentary: spoiler warnings welcome, if applicable).
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