Name: Your Utopia
Rating: 3.5 (7 reviews)
ISBN: 9781915829023

Bora Chung

By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. "Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung's terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts" (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung's inimitable wry humor and surprisingly tender moments, too—often between unexpected subjects. Chung's writing is "haunting, funny, gross, terrifying—and yet when we reach the end, we just want more" (Alexander Chee). If you haven't yet experienced the fruits of this singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.

Your Utopia

Lindy

For the first time since my activation, I do not want to operate. I want to keep the traces of her fingertips close to me and to remain here with my doors open, playing this single song for her forever. 

A life long-lived, I wanted to shout, did not mean a life well lived.

People should die of natural causes in old age. Whatever natural causes really means; I don’t think I ever bothered finding out.

By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. "Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung's terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts" (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung's inimitable wry humor and surprisingly tender moments, too--often between unexpected subjects. In "The Center for Immortality Research," a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors, only to be blamed for a crime she witnessed during the event, under the noses of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. But she can't be fired--no one can. In "One More Kiss, Dear," a tender, one-sided love blooms in the AI-elevator of an apartment complex; as in, the elevator develops a profound affection for one of the residents. In "Seeds," we see the final frontier of capitalism's destruction of the planet and the GMO companies who rule the agricultural industry in this bleak future, but nature has ways of creeping back to life. Chung's writing is "haunting, funny, gross, terrifying--and yet when we reach the end, we just want more" (Alexander Chee). If you haven't yet experienced the fruits of this singular imagination, Your Utopia is waiting.

Stories

"Cursed Bunny" (unfortunately, the comparisons are inevitable to a Western audience) was a perfect collection of short stories for me, with its themage and veering into the uncanny and horror. This sits squarelly in the sci-fi genre which did not quite work for me.

The stories were still very competently written - I just struggled to connect with them quite on the same level. Environmentalism was one of the big themes, though I feel like the short stories did not have much new thoughts to offer on this; they were still fun to read as pure speculation. There was still critique of capitalist society and the way technological advancement interacts with current socio-political structures - in those moments, the stories reminded me of Ted Chiang's work which I adore and it was not to their detriment.

I also appreciated the author's note accompanying "Maria, Gratia Plena" and "To Meet Her" which made me appreciate the latter a lot more. It is genuinely cool to see that Chung stands up for her morals not just through her fiction but through genuine action. So while this work as a whole did not quite resonate with me, I am looking forward to reading more from her once it becomes available and/or she publishes new work.

Favourite stories: "The Center for Immortality Research" (damn, office work is the same everywhere, whether you are doing research or architecture), "Maria, Gratia Plena"

"Cursed Bunny" (unfortunately, the comparisons are inevitable to a Western audience) was a perfect collection of short stories for me, with its themage and veering into the uncanny and horror. This sits squarelly in the sci-fi genre which did not quite work for me.

The stories were still very competently written - I just struggled to connect with them quite on the same level. Environmentalism was one of the big themes, though I feel like the short stories did not have much new thoughts to offer on this; they were still fun to read as pure speculation. There was still critique of capitalist society and the way technological advancement interacts with current socio-political structures - in those moments, the stories reminded me of Ted Chiang's work which I adore and it was not to their detriment.

I also appreciated the author's note accompanying "Maria, Gratia Plena" and "To Meet Her" which made me appreciate the latter a lot more. It is genuinely cool to see that Chung stands up for her morals not just through her fiction but through genuine action. So while this work as a whole did not quite resonate with me, I am looking forward to reading more from her once it becomes available and/or she publishes new work.

Favourite stories: "The Center for Immortality Research" (damn, office work is the same everywhere, whether you are doing research or architecture), "Maria, Gratia Plena"

3.5 ⭐ 

“On a scale from one to ten, your utopia is...” 

a collection of speculative fiction and horror short stories exploring the dangerous evolution of technology and the deployment of surveillance, with stories set in the past and near future, including themes of humanity, loneliness, survival, absurdity, and the unavoidable search for hope and belonging. The narrators differ from story to story, ranging from old ladies and low-position corporate workers to artificial intelligence robots and elevators (yes, an elevator). 

The first story in the collection, "The Center for Immortality Research," introduces us to an assistant tasked with organising a 98th anniversary for the company. The story is obtruded with chaos and humour that satirises the absurdity of the corporate workplace and its existence. 

Next is my favourite, “The End of the Voyage," a pandemic-inspired story in which a group of uncontaminated individuals are put onto a spaceship and flown into space with the goal of discovering a cure for the Disease and restoring the world to what it once was before the catastrophe hit. However, as is common in these kinds of scenarios, the virus quickly infects the ship, causing havoc. This is the most horror-oriented story, with vivid but often humorous descriptions of body horror, yet still palatable to an audience that isn’t inclined to horror stories. It is an excellent and sarcastic commentary on humanity's proclivity for self-destruction. 

The titular story and “A Song for Sleep” are both concerned with and narrated by AI creations. The unsettling feeling these stories give is not just strengthened by the narration being in the first person, where the person is actually AI, a robot, and an elevator, respectively, but also by the fact that both creations show more humanity and compassion than humans. 

“Seed” is an impactful and brilliant story about human greed and their endless exploitation of nature. There are also “Maria, Gratia Plena” an exploration of technology being used in medical procedures and police investigations, in which a medical technician is tasked with reading and exploring the memories of a overdosed and comatose woman to investigate her involvement in certain crimes but rather finds out about her dark past, “A Very Ordinary Marriage” is about a newly married couple where the man is suspecting his wife of having an affair because of her many secret and unintelligible phone calls, but the real state of things is never as it seems and “To Meet Her” is strongly politically oriented with the narrator being an 120 year old lady who was injured in a terrorist attack while waiting in queue to meet her favourite author who is transgender. 

Very enjoyable, but I still prefer Cursed Bunny.

Your Utopia

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