A WIRED "BOOK YOU NEED TO READ" • For fans of the worlds of Philip K. Dick, Squid Game, and Severance: An absorbing tale of corporate intrigue, political unrest, unsolved mysteries, and the havoc wreaked by one company’s monomaniacal endeavor to build the world’s first space elevatorAn “antic, madcap noir with flair" (Wired) and “fast-paced cyberpunk story” (The New York Times Book Review) from one of South Korea's most revered science fiction writers, whose identity remains unknown.*** On the fictional island of Patusan—and much to the ire of the Patusan natives—the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth’s orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator’s “spider cable” taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And stashed within that junk is a trove of crucial data: a memory fragment left by LK’s former CEO, the control of which will determine the company’s—and humanity’s—future.   Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel’s narrator and LK’s chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac’s investigations; the former CEO’s brilliant niece and power-hungry son; and Rex Tamaki, a violent officer in LK’s Security Division. They’re all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implants called Worms, and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect Patusan’s sovereignty.   Originally conceived by Djuna as a low-budget science fiction film, with literary references as wide-ranging as Joseph Conrad and the Marquis de Sade, Counterweight is part cyberpunk, part hard-boiled detective fiction, and part parable of South Korea’s neocolonial ambition and its rippling effects.

The stories brought together in this collection introduce the dazzling speculative imaginings of Djuna, one of South Korea’s most provocative science-fiction writers. Whether describing how a species of interplanetary machines brings Korea’s North-South divide into the heavens or satirizing the vampiric nature of Confucian patriarchy, these stories evoke a universe at once familiar and clearly fantastical. Blending influences ranging from genre fiction (zombie, vampire, science-fiction, you name it) to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Djuna’s stories illuminate the past, present, and possible futures.Praised by Publisher’s Weekly as an “impressive collection which showcases the power of speculative fiction to illuminate the human condition,” Memoir of a Joseon Bride is an outstanding work by one of science-fiction’s most mysterious authors.

More mind-bending speculative fiction by one of South Korea's most provocative science fiction writersFollowing the landmark English-language publication of Everything Good Dies Here, Kaya Press delivers more provocative thought experiments by pseudonymous author Djuna, whose writings on internet culture have attracted a cult following in South Korea. Not Yet Gods explores the universe-shattering effects of teenage anger cross-pollinated with radiation-induced psychic powers, unscrupulous governments and corporate avarice.In the aftermath of a nuclear explosion set off in North Korea, an ordinary South Korean high school classroom becomes ground zero for the discovery of a radical new source of energy: children capable of conducting and amplifying the telepathic and telekinetic powers of those around them. Told as a series of interlinked stories, Djuna’s fractally unfolding thought experiments interrogate the nature of power, disability and illusion in the potential end of history.Film critic and speculative fiction writer Djuna first appeared as an online presence in the early 1990s. They have published nine short story collections, three novels and numerous essays and uncollected stories.

A WIRED "BOOK YOU NEED TO READ" • For fans of the worlds of Philip K. Dick, Squid Game, and Severance: An absorbing tale of corporate intrigue, political unrest, unsolved mysteries, and the havoc wreaked by one company’s monomaniacal endeavor to build the world’s first space elevatorAn “antic, madcap noir with flair" (Wired) and “fast-paced cyberpunk story” (The New York Times Book Review) from one of South Korea's most revered science fiction writers, whose identity remains unknown.*** On the fictional island of Patusan—and much to the ire of the Patusan natives—the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth’s orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator’s “spider cable” taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And stashed within that junk is a trove of crucial data: a memory fragment left by LK’s former CEO, the control of which will determine the company’s—and humanity’s—future.   Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel’s narrator and LK’s chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac’s investigations; the former CEO’s brilliant niece and power-hungry son; and Rex Tamaki, a violent officer in LK’s Security Division. They’re all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implants called Worms, and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect Patusan’s sovereignty.   Originally conceived by Djuna as a low-budget science fiction film, with literary references as wide-ranging as Joseph Conrad and the Marquis de Sade, Counterweight is part cyberpunk, part hard-boiled detective fiction, and part parable of South Korea’s neocolonial ambition and its rippling effects.

The stories brought together in this collection introduce the dazzling speculative imaginings of Djuna, one of South Korea’s most provocative science-fiction writers. Whether describing how a species of interplanetary machines brings Korea’s North-South divide into the heavens or satirizing the vampiric nature of Confucian patriarchy, these stories evoke a universe at once familiar and clearly fantastical. Blending influences ranging from genre fiction (zombie, vampire, science-fiction, you name it) to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Djuna’s stories illuminate the past, present, and possible futures.Praised by Publisher’s Weekly as an “impressive collection which showcases the power of speculative fiction to illuminate the human condition,” Memoir of a Joseon Bride is an outstanding work by one of science-fiction’s most mysterious authors.

More mind-bending speculative fiction by one of South Korea's most provocative science fiction writersFollowing the landmark English-language publication of Everything Good Dies Here, Kaya Press delivers more provocative thought experiments by pseudonymous author Djuna, whose writings on internet culture have attracted a cult following in South Korea. Not Yet Gods explores the universe-shattering effects of teenage anger cross-pollinated with radiation-induced psychic powers, unscrupulous governments and corporate avarice.In the aftermath of a nuclear explosion set off in North Korea, an ordinary South Korean high school classroom becomes ground zero for the discovery of a radical new source of energy: children capable of conducting and amplifying the telepathic and telekinetic powers of those around them. Told as a series of interlinked stories, Djuna’s fractally unfolding thought experiments interrogate the nature of power, disability and illusion in the potential end of history.Film critic and speculative fiction writer Djuna first appeared as an online presence in the early 1990s. They have published nine short story collections, three novels and numerous essays and uncollected stories.