Empire looms large in two recent major works of Korean SF in translation, one a science fiction novel by Bora Chung (Red Sword) and the other the first book in a fantasy trilogy by Sung-il Kim (Blood of the Old Kings). Both have been translated by the talented Anton Hur. In each, a faceless, nameless Empire has already swallowed entire kingdoms or planets and seems unstoppable. The conquered peoples have been forced to serve and fight for the Empire they hate, and the weapons that the Empire uses are unbelievably powerful. Despite this, a desire for freedom persists in the people, leading them to commit small acts of resistance whenever they can—and to look for someone who can break, or at least weaken, the power that oppresses them. Notably, it is a woman with a sword in both novels who emerges as the most likely person to bring down the Empire.
Popular resistance to a seemingly inevitable, all-conquering Empire is key to Korea’s own recent history, with Japanese control over the country extending from the late nineteenth century until the end of World War II. Despite the social, economic, and cultural sway that Japan held over the Korean people, protest movements and underground newspapers continued pushing back against an overwhelming power. That Red Sword and Blood of the Old Kings both explore this theme of resistance to empire through speculative fiction suggests that this traumatic history continues to have a hold on the Korean imagination.
Blood of the Old Kings tells the story of Arland, Kamori, Ledon, and the other kingdoms under the Empire’s control through the eyes of three major characters: Loran, a swordswoman bent on revenge after the Empire killed her family; Arienne, a sorcerer at the Imperial Academy determined to escape her fate; and Cain, a poor Arlander living in the Capital who is drawn to the downtrodden. The chapters flip between the three as they pursue their own paths, even as they converge on one another and the final great battle of the book approaches.
Fate is the thread that bind the central trio together—each has a part to play in the eventual overthrow of the Empire, whenever that might be. Loran, armed with an ancient, sword-sized dragon’s fang and its gift of the power to transform herself into a dragon, initially sets out to lay waste to forts and legions—but begins to gather supporters and ragtag groups of resisters, all telling her that it is her fate to lead them as their new king. Cain, who—having been left in the Capital as a child after his parents’ arrest for an unknown crime—had rarely thought about the Empire’s reach, realizes after a friend’s suspicious death that “the Imperial offices and ministries were not as omnipotent as everyone assumed … [they] seemed less like a force of fate, and more like ordinary people trying to do the jobs they had been assigned to” (p. 171). And Arienne—who escapes from the academy because she doesn’t want to accept the fate of all sorcerers, to be turned into a Power generator for the Capital after her death—finds that her true fate is to end the destructive, centuries-old rivalry between a powerful sorcerer and an Empire functionary. After encouraging these two scheming and ruthless men, Arienne realizes, as does Cain in his own plotline, that those who might seem powerful beyond measure are often just controlling others through fear and manipulation.
In many ways, Arienne is the most interesting because she shows the most growth. Starting off outside of the academy walls as a scared, desperate, manipulated young girl, she gradually begins to have more confidence in herself and less patience for the demanding, deranged old sorcerer (Eldred) who is using her for his own purposes—to escape from being used as a Power generator in the academy basement and kill the man (now a cyborg) who has dedicated himself to keeping Eldred down. Arienne draws on the few spells she knows, and then riffs on those few that Eldred teaches her, in order to build up her own powers to protect herself and then release the dragon (at Loran’s request).
Nevertheless, Loran, Arienne, and Cain have all been forced to construct their own lives and pursue their own fates after the Empire severed them from their pasts. Each must learn whom they can trust and avoid those who try to manipulate them through fear and guilt. In pursuing this effort, ultimately the Empire’s efforts to flatten the cultures of the surrounding kingdoms are made to fail: Escape—from walls, chains, and one’s own fear—allows the resisters to confront the Empire and see that it isn’t as intimidating as first thought. When it had conquered the small kingdoms, the Empire killed or rounded up any humans or creatures with magical powers, attempting to harness them for its own uses. Thus, Arienne has been kept in the academy with other sorcerers and tasked with useless work to fill the time before she can be used as a power source after her death; a powerful dead sorcerer assists Arienne in her escape, but only if she takes him with her in her mind. The dragon that gave Loran its powers had been chained and kept underground in case the Empire ever needed it; but even those chains are ultimately broken and the dragon set free to fight the Empire once more. And Cain is at times beaten and chained for his efforts to find out what happened to his friend Fienna, but only because he is drawing ever closer to finding out about a plan to blow up the Capital to release the kingdoms from the Empire’s grip.
The final battle of the novel between the Empire and the resisting kingdoms is indecisive, though, and leaves open the door to the second book in the trilogy. One can look forward, then, to learning more about how these characters will continue to push back against the Empire and demand more freedom despite the hazards that remain in their path. Despite the fact that Blood of the Old Kings is in many ways a formulaic work of fantasy and most of the characters lack much dimension (except for Arienne), Sung-il Kim has offered us a timeless story about resistance and friendship that enriches the corpus of translated speculative fiction.