North Korean science fiction

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2023/08/the-strange-secretive-world-of-north-korean-science-fiction/

by isaacfrond • 3 years ago

193 150 3 years ago

gumby• 3 years ago

I look forward to reading some of this. SF is pretty much always about the current day.

Soviet SF was quite illuminating to me (back when anybody cared about the USSR). I’ve always wanted to read a couple of the Soviet equivalent of the James Bond novels.

calimoro78• 3 years ago

Can you share some examples of Soviet SF? Should be quite exciting.

AdamH12113• 3 years ago

"Roadside Picnic" is a well-known novel that was the basis for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of video games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadside_Picnic

throw12346512345• 3 years ago

"It's Hard to be God"

tetris112• 3 years ago

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky were pretty prolific during this time (often writing in secret, and reciting their works only to trusted friends).

"The Doomed City" is one of the best pieces of philosophical scifi I've ever read:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Doomed_City

pigscantfly• 3 years ago

"The Dead Mountaineer's Inn" is a fairly unique sci-fi noir also from the Strugatsky brothers that was my first introduction to their work. It interested me enough that I read all their other books afterwards -- worth checking out!

1. https://www.npr.org/2015/03/19/392634682/mountaineer-is-a-mu...

Mikhail_Edoshin• 3 years ago

For specifically Soviet look for Ivan Yefremov, "The Bull's Hour". Other interesting authors could be Genrich Altov and Sever Gansovsky.

jvb10005• 3 years ago

Kurt Vonnegut was accused once of ripping off George Orwell's 1984 with Player Piano. He responded by saying that he and Orwell had both just ripped off Yevgeny Zamyatin's We. Yevgeny Zamyatin was a Soviet author who ran afoul of Stalin and wrote We inspired by his perspective of the revolution.

winrid• 3 years ago

The Inhabited Island is an amazing book with a great ending. SF, government conflict/war, weird and fun machinery, etc.

Others are suggesting Hard to Be a God by the same authors, which is an okay book, but it's not really SF as most people think of SF IMO.

CuriousCosmic• 3 years ago

One example would be "The Invincible" by Stanisław Lem [1].

Worth noting that a video game [2] based on the novel (which looks very well produced) is releasing in November.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo7Ca6kXz08

totetsu3• 3 years ago

"the heart of a dog" is quite a good example of sci-fi as social critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_a_Dog_(1988_film)

worrycue6• 3 years ago

SF is pretty much always about the current day.

SF is often speculative fiction that extrapolate current trends into the future - frequently taking them to their logic conclusion - to explore and critique. Good SF anyway.

throw12346512345• 3 years ago

Is it even worth reading? Genuine question. I thought it was campty sort of satirical old-timey stuff, but I never read it.

Mainan_Tagonist2• 3 years ago

Well, for the soviet equivalent to James Bond, look no further than Vsevolod Vladimirovich Vladimirov, better known as Max Von Stierlitz.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stierlitz

orbital-decay• 3 years ago

Stierlitz is a typical noir character, entirely different from Bond. The entire premise of the James Bond series and of course Bond's lifestyle were completely incompatible with the ideology, so no real equivalent was possible.

rexpop• 3 years ago

SF is pretty much always about the current day.

I can't comprehend this. Scifi is famously occupied with the future, and not the current day. Space travel, advanced technologies, artificial intelligences, and generally things that don't yet exist are par for the course. Most of SF is literally not about the present.

Do you mean to say that SF's subtext reflects the zeitgeist at the time/place of its writing?

anon257832• 3 years ago

SF is set in the future. But its meaning is more directly relevant to the time in which it is written than the time in which it is set. Take for example, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. If people in the actual literal 25th century are able to read about Buck Rogers at all, they will probably be reading it to better understand the 20th century, not their own.

the_af3• 3 years ago

It means the future elements in scifi (when it is about the future at all; some scifi doesn't even pretend to be futuristic) are an extrapolation of the current time and used to explore an idea about today.

An author's scifi "gimmick" (it can be a technology, a societal norm, an alien encounter, etc) is often the way in which the author develops and extrapolates a preoccupation about the real world, be it war, or invasion, or social alienation, or consumerism, etc.

The most obvious (but least interesting) example of this is how all those "Mars attacks" / alien invasion / body snatcher stories really were about the Red Scare, basically "what if Communism was infiltrating our society!"

jvb10005• 3 years ago

Even if it's not true of all science fiction (especially the pulp traditions of American sci-fi), it is arguable that the origins of science fiction are thought experiments that exist to help think through and critique the present. A lot of influential writers have said exactly this, including Le Guin, Gibson, Vandermeer, Doctorow, and Palmer to name a few of the top of my head.

failuser• 3 years ago

“The air seller” by Belyayev reminded me a lot about the more wacky side of James Bond. The protagonist is not glamorous, can’t do that in USSR. But it does have a villain that tries to take over the world with revolutionary technology from his evil layer. The villain captures the protagonist to boast about his evil genius. Even a final battle between marines and henchmen is there. Could have been adapted into a golden-age Bond movie by adding a couple of tropical locations.

“The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin” has a similarly grand super-villain scheme. And with more locations and glamor.

NumberCruncher• 3 years ago

What a surprise to see “The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin” being mentioned on HN. I read some Soviet SF as a kid, unfortunately this is the only one I can recall by title.

p-e-w• 3 years ago

SF is pretty much always about the current day.

I'm not sure that's true, although in the past two decades or so it may have been.

But going back to the classics of 1960s and 1970s SF, I just don't see it. Sure, The Forever War is a thinly veiled allegory of Vietnam, but how are Lord of Light, Dreamsnake, The Left Hand of Darkness, or even Dune about their "current days"?

Dune seems prescient today because of its focus on natural resources, but back when it was written (long before the Oil Crisis) that wasn't really a political hot topic, or even something that most people thought about at all.

ShinTakuya• 3 years ago

Dune very much commented on the contemporarybproblems of its day. A big theme was around the scramble for Africa which, while over, was still affecting the continent in various ways as decolonisation continued.

I agree that the extent of the commentary varies, and Dune is light handed in terms of political hot topics, but it was certainly there.

weregiraffe• 3 years ago

In The Left Hand of Darkness, Genly Ai is at one point sent to a prison camp, in what is basically a communist country by a different name. Basically gulag, in Siberia.

5040• 3 years ago

Tangentially related:

NG You know, I was in China in 2007, and it was the first ever state-sponsored, Party-approved science-fiction convention. They brought in some people from the west and I was one of them, and I was talking to a number of the older science-fiction writers in China, who told me about how science fiction was not just looked down on, but seen as suspicious and counter-revolutionary, because you could write a story set in a giant ant colony in the future, when people were becoming ants, but nobody was quite sure: was this really a commentary on the state? As such, it was very, very dodgy.

I took aside one of the Party organisers, and said, “OK. Why are you now in 2007 endorsing a science-fiction convention?” And his reply was that the Party had been concerned that while China historically has been a culture of magical and radical invention, right now, they weren’t inventing things. They were making things incredibly well but they weren’t inventing. And they’d gone to America and interviewed the people at Google and Apple and Microsoft, and talked to the inventors, and discovered that in each case, when young, they’d read science fiction. That was why the Chinese had decided that they were going to officially now approve of science fiction and fantasy.

https://www.newstatesman.com/2015/05/neil-gaiman-kazuo-ishig...

contingencies• 3 years ago

While that article was written in 2015 about 2007, IMHO as a recent employer there and long term resident, the issues in China also stem from a lack of creativity in the educational environment, the political weaponisation of Confucianism, government-controlled media, a closed internet and the recent and unwaveringly vicious politically motivated disempowerment of high profile entrepreneurs. Nearly every single person a young person meets before the age of 25 is likely to scold them for original thinking, dreaming or playing: from their own parents to their state teachers, and all are co-witness to the public vilification, robbing or subsuming of successful innovators by the state. Meanwhile, the increasingly authoritarian government attempts to limit children's access to simple computer games. All are taught that the nail that sticks out is the one that is hammered down. In such an environment, who would dare to be different? Ideas are generally tolerated and evaluated on short term greed potential only.

More reflectively, it is such a shame to see the current situation because as Joseph Needham's classic series shows, the China region is perhaps historically the longest serving and arguably in many ways the most significant bastion of human inventive potential, period. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_Civilisation_in_Ch...

twic• 3 years ago

As an aside to this tangent, the World Science Fiction Convention is in China this year, for the first time in its history (by way of comparison, it's been in Kansas City twice):

https://en.chengduworldcon.com/

HDMI_Cable• 3 years ago

This seems to underlie their problem: if they're only supporting SciFi (and probably other creative outlets) as a means to an end, as a means to encourage innovation, they're doing it wrong. Asimov didn't write because he foresaw all of the tech entrepreneurs who would read his work, he wrote because he wanted to, and because the society where he wrote supported him—and promoted artistic works (though of course there is perverse incentive for art here in the West, in the form of monetary incentive for artists). If China only supports SciFi to innovate, they won't produce good enough works to innovate.

emodendroket• 3 years ago

Historically many or even most great works of work have been "compromised" by similar things, whether it's the politics of some King's court or flattering a rich patron or simply dealing with the vagaries of the market.

3np• 3 years ago

Why the CCP supports SciFi is can be detached from motivations of individual authors.

totetsu3• 3 years ago

Someone in China saw how well hollywood sci-fi could be used as a vehicle for PR and glorification of the American military and decided to follow suit.

swayvil3• 3 years ago

The inventors at Google and Apple and Microsoft also like to trip on the occasional LSD. That might be something else China will have to allow if they want to be a magical radical land of invention.

1shot37291007• 3 years ago

"Stories often touch on topics like space travel, benevolent robots, disease-curing nanobots, and deep-sea exploration. They lack aliens and beings with superpowers. Instead, the real superheroes are the exceptional North Korean scientists and technologists who carry the weight of the world on their shoulders."

Here is an interesting symmetry as reflected by ideological mirrors. In NK, the state sanctioned imaginal worlds lack others that are superior, and superheroes are loyal technocrats. Here in the West, "market driven" Hollywood insists superheroes are distinct tiny subset of humanity and that it is to our benefit that they are hidden but highly organized. And no, you can't just become one of the special superheroes. Both are aiming to pacify the target society.

dotnet006• 3 years ago

The difference that makes that much less logical being that in the West the government is not determining what people can watch, they're watching what they enjoy.

mcpackieh6• 3 years ago

Western writers (usually) aren't taking direct orders from the government, but that doesn't mean they're impartial weather vanes that reveal currents in society but never try to manipulate (or fabricate) those social currents as they see fit.

jacquesm3• 3 years ago

You watch from what's available.

cuteboy19• 3 years ago

That is not categorically true. There is a great diversity of superhero origins. Some are allegories for minorities (X Men), some are not secretive at all and a regular part of society, sometimes it turns out that the organisation is not to our benefit, sometimes they are just plain evil. Still others are secretive but not organized

mcpackieh6• 3 years ago

And no, you can't just become one of the special superheroes. Both are aiming to pacify the target society.

Worse: You aren't such a superhero, but by random chance you might be chosen to become one and you are invited to imagine yourself in that situation. Any common person who might want to limit your hypothetical powers is an awful bigot and many of the stories revolve around tension between those with powers who would oppress the plebs vs those with powers who wish to benevolently rule over the plebs (but certainly not cede their power to them.) Also, when the superheroes abuse their position and power it's okay when they're motivated by good intentions, because the ends justify the means and they'll surely revert back to being good once the crisis is over. Power doesn't corrupt everybody who gets it, you can trust the good superheroes with their unchecked power.

All of this mirrors the way Americans are encouraged to think about the ultra-rich, encouraged to believe they might randomly join the ranks of the ultra rich one day. Encouraged to believe that they could be a good and benevolent billionaire, and that the plebs who would limit their wealth are harmful bigots. Taught to believe that the meaningful conflict is between the good billionaires who would benevolently rule, opposed to the bad ones who can only be kept in check by the good ones.

darkmarmot• 3 years ago

Better: shows like "The Boys" at least provide a gruesome window into "realistic" superhero behavior in a corporate hellscape.

c_crank6• 3 years ago

Reality: Americans have not been ruled by the superhero-like ultra rich for decades, and are starting to notice that little is improving and much is getting worse.

worrycue6• 3 years ago

many of the stories revolve around tension between those with powers who would oppress the plebs vs those with powers who wish to benevolently rule over the plebs (but certainly not cede their power to them.)

Except not really. The most popular superheroes like Spider-Man has nothing of that sort going on. The tension in his story is the balance of his duty to use his gifts for good (with great power comes great responsibility) and the demands of his everyday life - with the latter often suffering to his detriment.

On DC’s side, Batman is probably the most popular. Frankly, Batman is more a plot device than a character, the most interesting characters in his stories are the villains.

Heck, in most cases, their super powers are not transferable.

narrator2• 3 years ago

Jules Verne is fun to read in this regard because the people who organized to go to the moon in "From Earth To The Moon" were simply part of a gun club that chose to fund the effort privately, not the government. It reflects how people had a different relationship with the government in the 19th century.

Before the income tax, people like Rockefeller would just bail companies out during panics from their personal bank accounts, much to the consternation of bankers like J.P Morgan. Private individuals were massively more economically powerful and that's were people looked for progress. Only Elon Musk comes close to this level of economic power in the modern era, especially because he is a hands on industrialist and not a financier, but there were probably a few hundred who had that level of influence back then and they were mostly industrialists.

philwelch3• 3 years ago

Before the income tax, people like Rockefeller would just bail companies out during panics from their personal bank accounts, much to the consternation of bankers like J.P Morgan.

To my understanding it was Morgan and not Rockefeller who engaged in these kinds of bailouts.

judge20202• 3 years ago

While Elon is the only one with the intuition to bail out a company as large as Twitter, there probably are a few dozen Rockefeller CEOs of various SV/tech-adjacent companies that can and do use their power to command acquisitions of medium size startups that have promising tech but suffer from issues of cash flow or business strategy.

rtpg• 3 years ago

Jules Verne is an interesting example, because his books often have themes about traveling more than anything. I feel like at the time (and now!) major projects to just go somewhere were seen as "rich people hobbies". Things are "easier" now for things like mountain climbing but even now most undersea exploration is just financed out of rich people's pockets.

In a world where artificial satelites aren't a thing that is a useful good, I doubt that NASA exists.

pjc504• 3 years ago

Private individuals were massively more economically powerful and that's were people looked for progress

Did they? The people themselves looked? Or did the private individuals get to fund a large amount of libraries and educational institutions with "[your name here] supports progress" instead?

The peak of this may have been Fordlandia, Ford's attempt at doing a private Latin American colony, which was a spectacular failure.

Interestingly, Verne has a book about private libertarian-separatist rich men: "Propeller Island". It ends in infighting and disaster.

jacquesm3• 3 years ago

Fortunately, the 'West' is larger than just Hollywood.

philwelch3• 3 years ago

And no, you can't just become one of the special superheroes.

Two of the most iconic superheroes, Batman and Iron Man, are normal human beings who became superheroes from hard work.

jborean93• 3 years ago

Luckily they both didn't have rich parents in charge of large companies. Not saying they didn't work hard but they certainly had help financially that unfortunately normal people probably don't have.

actionfromafar• 3 years ago

And with Batman, a healthy chunk of inheritance.

perardi• 3 years ago

“Normal” human beings, as in, the rich scions of super-genius hyper-capitalists who have a functionally unlimited amount of inherited capital to fall back on as they create their own super-hero enterprises.

anon257832• 3 years ago

They're billionaires. No one worth billions of dollars is "normal". Fewer than three thousand people alive are billionaires.

raincole2• 3 years ago

Both are aiming to pacify the target society.

You know what the big secret is? Let me tell you. Everything is aiming to pacify the society.

Movies, books, TV shows, video games: obviously tittytainment. Time wasters to waste your time and energy.

Education: to produce workers who are useful for the big system.

Religions: the ultimate form of brainwashing.

Yoga/Meditation/etc: religions but instead of gods we follow some gurus, even worse.

Unemployment: makes you at the mercy of welfare, a.k.a. the government.

Getting a job: becoming a slave for evil cooperations so they can lobby the government more. Also remember to pay your tax.

Voting: makes you feel you're in control and living in a democracy while you're just choosing from two equally bad guys.

Spedning time with your family: there are people you care? Great, now if you ever riot the gov knows who to keep as hostages.

If you swing the hammmer with enough force, you can make everything a nail.

mmmmmmtoes• 3 years ago

You can say that those all have pacifying effects, but how do they "aim" to do so?

worrycue6• 3 years ago

Both are aiming to pacify the target society

In the West it’s really to make money. No one cares if the target audience is pacified or not - might even be more profitable if they are riled up to spend more money.

raydiatian2• 3 years ago

I feel like Andy Weir did a phenomenal job with his handful of books. The Martian, Project Hailmary. Both of these felt more like team effort emphasis, which I liked.

w0de0• 3 years ago

He is a fastidious and interesting writer. I nonetheless found both these novels disappointing. They seem to be porn for engineers. Like all porn, the lead character is a cardboard cutout with monomaniacal motivation. (It seems revealing that both books place the protagonist in a position of complete social isolation.)

This was a more serious flaw in Project Hailmary, in which first contact - a profound event - is treated as a lone man’s engineering puzzle. The book is a good argument for sending poets, or at least properly thoughtful scientists, to meet our first aliens.

raydiatian2• 3 years ago

swayvil3• 3 years ago

I'd like to see what they have in the way of real science fiction.

(Yes, I know.)

I mean scifi that explores strange ideas. Like Egan, Banks and Hughes.

Rather than the usual dramas with added futuristic technology.

bradly• 3 years ago

@dang, Do you know why was the title changed from "The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction" to "North Korean science fiction"?

aqfamnzc• 3 years ago

They frequently change titles to reduce sensationalism and fluff.

wrp• 3 years ago

I sometimes watch/read South Korean SF and this description of Northern SF sounds familiar. Yes, there are often nefarious Americans behind the protagonist's problem. Yes, the plot often makes a hash of logical coherence. I think a study of both northern and southern SF would find there is still a significant shared culture.

zarroboogs• 3 years ago

Same as Chinese SF, although they also have global collaboration saved by the Chinese people’s honour as a big plot line too.

In fact it’s the same as Chinese martial arts movies too. Anyone seen the Ip Man series?

North Korean science fiction

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