K-Fiction Series are bilingual (Korean-English) editions of texts by the most interesting contemporary authors from South Korea. The editors emphasize that the selection of the best stories is crucial for them – but everything in these books is enjoyable: careful editing, aesthetics or an interesting study in the form of a commentary/essay offered after the main text.
Chang Kang-myoung in The World You Want to See presents an intriguing picture of a world from an indefinite future, in which almost everyone is addicted to the use of “agents” – technology that allows you to see reality different than it really is (maybe it reminds you of VR and Facebook’s metaverse?) It’s hard to resist the temptation of being in a world detached from all problems, more beautiful than the real one, but the use of this technology is prohibited by law for people under the age of 15. The protagonist, a social worker, has to take away a child from his parents who is at risk of abuse of this technology…
As Hyun Ki-young writes in one of the featured commentaries, it is always interesting to see science-fiction texts that relate to the problems and questions of our modern world (you will find such commentary, albeit in a slightly more ironic version, in Tower). It is worth to look the possibilities and dangers of virtual reality available to us in the context of the dystopian vision presented in The World You Want to See.
