Tower By Bae Myung-Hoon & Translated by Sung Ryu

First of all I would like to thank Lyndsey and Honford Star for being so kind and sending me a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Tower by Bae Myung-Hoon and translated by Sung Ryu centres on (official blurb): “Tower is a series of interconnected stories set in Beanstalk, a 674-story skyscraper and sovereign nation. Each story deals with how citizens living in the hypermodern high-rise deal with various influences of power in their lives: a group of researchers have to tell their boss that a major powerbroker is a dog, a woman uses the power of the internet to rescue a downed fighter pilot abandoned by the government, and an out-of-towner finds himself in charge of training a gentle elephant to break up protests. Bae explores the forces that shape modern life with wit and a sly wink at the reader.”

Tower comprises of 6 interconnected short stories along with some addition extras in the appendix which add so much more to the stories that they are linked too. I absolutely loved the premise of this whole book. The fact that it is based on a 674 story skyscraper that is also a sovereign nation in its own right is an absolutely brilliant concept.

I loved how Bae Myung-Hoon used his knowledge from his Master’s degree of International Relations and his thesis focusing on the Schlieffen Plan within Tower. Power dynamics within society play such a prominent role within the world throughout history as well as in the present day and most probably will play a major role within the future too.

I’m still fairly new to the world of Science Fiction books however, I can assure you that I definitely will be delving into this world a lot more in the future especially when it comes to translated Science Fiction. I really hope more of Bae Myung-Hoon works are translated into English because his writing and book concepts are not only brilliant but also stunning too.

Sung Ryu has done an absolutely beautiful job when it comes to translating Tower and I cannot wait to pick up more of her translations in the future (I already have my eye on her translation of Shoko’s Smile – due out later this year).

Tower has already made its place into my Top Books of 2021 and I’m so excited for more people to read it and can we just take a minute to appreciate this stunning cover art designed by Jisu Choi.