If We Cannot Go the Speed of Light

Kim makes her English-language debut with this exceptional collection of speculative shorts about scientific advancement and human limitations. The protagonists of these seven show-stopping pieces take great risks to achieve the impossible, only to butt up against humanity’s self-imposed barriers. In “Spectrum,” for instance, a scientist survivor of a space accident lands on an uncharted planet and spends four decades in the company of aliens. Upon returning to Earth, she refuses to reveal the planet’s coordinates and is ridiculed by colleagues who accuse her of lying about her encounter. The title story follows a once famous cryogenicist who is evicted from a defunct space station where she has been living, partly in self-imposed deep freeze, while waiting for a space shuttle that will never come. In “Symbiosis Theory,” an orphan’s drawings of an ancient alien civilization become the subject of a neurological study theorizing that an extraterrestrial life-form was able to penetrate human infant brains and teach them morality. Kim makes futuristic science both believable and accessible to the layperson while crafting plots that branch out in genuinely unexpected directions. Most arresting is the author’s refreshingly blunt prose, beautifully translated by Hur, which renders complex and wildly imaginative concepts with precision and realism. With its profound concern for humanity and masterful command of craft, this is a stunner. (Apr.)