02831cam a2200313 4500 936586782 TxAuBib 20230830120000.0 221123s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2022053643 9780593317211 HRD 24.00 0593317211 HRD 24.00 TxAuBib eng kor Tyuna, author, (Djuna.) P'yŏnghyŏngch'u English. Counterweight [BOOK] / Djuna ; translated from the Korean by Anton Hur. 1st American ed. New York : Pantheon Books, [2023] viii, 160 pages : illustration ; 22 cm. "For fans of the worlds of Philip K. Dick, Squid Game, and Severance: An absorbing tale of corporate intrigue, political unrest, unsolved mysteries, and the havoc wreaked by one company's monomaniacal endeavor to build the world's first space elevator--from one of South Korea's most revered science fiction writers, whose identity remains unknown. On the fictional island of Patusan--and much to the ire of the Patusan natives--the Korean conglomerate LK is constructing an elevator into Earth's orbit, gradually turning this one-time tropical resort town into a teeming travel hub: a gateway to and from our planet. Up in space, holding the elevator's "spider cable" taut, is a mass of space junk known as the counterweight. And it's here that lies the key--a trove of personal data left by LK's former CEO, of dire consequence to the company's, and humanity's, future. Racing up the elevator to retrieve the data is a host of rival forces: Mac, the novel's narrator and LK's Chief of External Affairs, increasingly disillusioned with his employer; the everyman Choi Gangwu, unwittingly at the center of Mac's investigations; the former CEO's brilliant niece and his power-hungry son; and a violent officer from LK's Security Division, Rex Tamaki--all caught in a labyrinth of fake identities, neuro-implant "Worms," and old political grievances held by the Patusan Liberation Front, the army of island natives determined to protect their sovereignty. Conceived by Djuna as a low-budget science fiction film, with literary references as wide-ranging as Joseph Conrad and the Marquis de Sade, The Counterweight is part cyberpunk, part hardboiled detective fiction, and part parable of Korea's neocolonial ambition and its rippling effects"-- 20230830. Artificial intelligence Fiction. Corporations Corrupt practices Fiction. Indigenous peoples Fiction. Korean fiction Translations into English. Science fiction. Hur, Anton, translator.