Counterweight (2023) by Djuna

 

Book Review

Counterweight (2023)

by Djuna

 Counterweight is a very interesting Korean export written by a pseudonymous author, Djuna.  It reads like an update of early William Gibson, taking place mostly on an island off the coast of Indonesia where a Korean mega corporation is building a first-of-its-kind space elevator to facilitate interstellar exploration (and mining nearby asteroids for metals).   The narrator is a security operative for LK corporation and the story involves the memories of the recently deceased corporation president and their implantation in the mind of a low-level LK employee.  Many people want those memories, and once the word gets out it is violent mayhem.   Like Walking Practice by Dolki Min, another work of Korean sci-fi, Counterweight emerges as a fresh take on the genre with literary aspirations that come from being a work in translation. It's worth a read for fans of the genre and fans of translated Korean lit.  I listened to the Audiobook, which wasn't amazing, but it is a good title for listening to as an Audiobook because of the rhythms of the prose in translation and the fact that the whole book is narrated in the first person.