Tower

Really enjoyed this. A sharp political satire, in the form of a series of interconnected stories set in Beanstalk, a 674-story skyscraper and sovereign nation. It mostly concerns itself with matters of (visible and invisible) power, mass media and information and hype, but is both touching (the elephant Buddha story) and funny (the dog as important power broker) as well as smart.

And the Appendix is fantastic: consisting of the full length versions of some of the stories and pieces of writing that were mentioned in the plot of a number of the stories in the “main” part of the book.

I think I may be missing a lot of the social and political commentary going on in these stories, not being very familiar with South Korea's culture and political landscape, but I still think The Tower was a really interesting read. While not overtly science fiction like Star Trek or Star Wars, The Tower builds this fictional country which exists solely within a massive tower and through a series of interconnected short stories creates a world I found myself becoming more and more fascinated with the more stories I read into it. I give credit to Myung-Hoon Bae for being able to spin all these very different stories into something that encompasses a whole world. I felt myself drawn into each story, even if I felt I may be missing the overall point. I couldn't wait for the inevitable appearance of the dog in each story and felt invested despite the length. I really think it was a refreshing and interesting way to world-build The Tower through the lense of its residents, visitors and work force - basically the every man. It was definitely a great example of show, don't tell. The world and society is slowly revealed while you follow a myriad cast of characters through their everyday lives and I enjoyed that a lot. While I don't think it blew me away, I found it an enjoyable read and a unique way of telling a broader story.