January 2023 Digest – Imaginarium Kim

Being nicer to myself.

I don’t know where the sentiment of “not enough” comes from. I swear, my parents never looked down on me. They never told me I wouldn’t ever amount to anything.

They didn’t do the opposite either. They didn’t smother me with great expectations.

Popular wisdom says that the sense of “not enough” comes, first and foremost, from bad bad BAD influences from parents–but, for the life of me, I can’t tie my feelings to my parents.

Well, no matter where these feelings come from, I gotta get rid of them. It was okay living with them while my vertex was “write a lot and write until the day I die,” because, well, that is doable anywhere and anywhen, pretty much. It is one of the beautiful aspects about writing–that it doesn’t take an inordinate amount of time, money, or manpower.

But now? Now. A bigger, brighter, shinier vertex. I can’t get there without dealing with this first.

Mainly, I gotta stop being so cruel to myself because I don’t produce as much fiction as in the years before 2022.

The two podcasts are continuing.

The two blogs are continuing.

Ithaka O. did fold her newsletter, but 한아임’s newsletter still exists. (Although not actively.)

고막사람 continues.

MODERN GROTESQUE TIMES continues in the background, as I translate our next book, Noir Urbanisms.

On top of that, I have enough fiction material to publish for the entirety of 2023.

So, objectively speaking, I should not blame myself so much.

This is my goal for the next month: get used to the new normal that I am okay with myself doing what I do now. There will be (more) time for new fiction. I aim to live to be 120 years old. (Yeah, I mean it.) I have decades left. No rush.

Ithaka O.

Pure Fiction

Destination: Detour

🤖 ✈️ 🏙

A life in service of a greater good is a life worth living…
…at any cost?

Aria, an aidbot technician, once again finds herself at the airport. She’s ready to leave this city behind and go wherever the next available flight takes her to. Nothing holds her back. Sometimes that’s freeing. But mostly, she feels terribly restless.

Lucky her, because she runs into the great bot engineer Antonius Wang. And when she sees that this old man needs help due to his malfunctioning aidbot, she gladly volunteers. Clearly, this encounter is mean-to-be.

Problem: Mr. Wang’s aidbot is 200 grams overweight and isn’t allowed on any aircraft. And because of those 200 grams, Aria’s travel plans take terribly unexpected turns in a world of intelligent bots, replaceable humans, and some beings in-between…

Band 1

“Band 1” is a chronological collection of previously published short stories by Ithaka O.

Each of those stories is available individually, with its own cover and blurb. If you would like to get a feel for each story, searching for them might be worthwhile.

But this collection has its own purpose. Mainly, it exists for the paperback version; some short stories are too short to exist as their own paperbacks and require being collected with other stories. After the creation of such a paperback version, there was no reason not to create an ebook version as well, for readers who prefer one handy collected title instead of many different titles on their reading device.

In short: pick and choose according to your preferences. Maybe you like individually-published short stories; maybe you like the collected version. The stories are the same in both cases; how you feel might be a different matter.

Either way, enjoy.

List of stories in this collection

Sponge

020 📻 To fall in love with pain leads to no gain.

021 📻 What does Ithaka sound like in German and Korean?

한아임

퓨어 픽션

묶음 1

“묶음 1”은 Ithaka O.의 이미 출판된 단편 소설들의 연대순 모음집이다.

각각의 이야기들은 따로 따로도 제공되며, 개별 커버와 줄거리 설명을 갖고 있다. 각 이야기가 어떤 느낌인지 알고 싶다면, 검색해 보는 것이 도움이 될지도 모른다.

하지만 이 모음집에도 기능이 있다. 가장 대표적으로는, 페이퍼백 버전 때문에 존재한다. 어떤 단편 소설들은 너무 짧아서 홀로 페이퍼백이 되지 못하고, 다른 이야기들과 모일 수밖에 없다. 그런데 그러한 페이퍼백 버전을 만들자, 전자책 버전도 만들지 않을 이유가 없었다. 그러면 독서 기기에 여러 출판물을 담기보다는 하나의 모음물이 있는 것을 선호하는 독자들에게 도움이 될 테니까.

요약하자면: 취향 따라 고르면 된다. 개별적으로 출판된 단편 소설이 좋을 수도 있고, 모음 버전이 좋을 수도 있다. 이야기야 그대로지만, 느낌은 다른 문제일지도 모른다.

이렇든 저렇든, 즐겨주시길.

이 모음집에 든 이야기 목록

아임 드리밍

[Ep. 38] 아침사수: 나로만 물들이는 시공간

[Ep. 39] 저녁사수: 꿈나라까지 가는 간헐적 단식과 일기

[Ep. 40] 몸뚱아리: 정신과 별개는 아닌 동반자

[Ep. 41] 피로사회: 그 너머의, 숨 쉬듯 하는 사랑

THE END.