Everyone loves a good underdog hero story. Science fiction has always been a popular medium to portray outmatched human characters taking on formidable alien forces against impossible odds. In his most recent novel, Launch Something!, Bae Myung-hoon takes on this theme by presenting a band of misfits who work for a chronically underfunded branch of the Korean armed forces called the ROK Space Force, set in the undetermined future.

     In the opening chapter, the world is under existential threat by a second artificial sun that an unknown alien force has placed in the sky to radiate ultraviolet heat back to Earth. (The symbolic reference to today’s very real climate change crisis is not lost.) The Allied Space Force, characteristically dominated by the Americans, is mobilizing to attack this nefarious object. The puny ROK Space Force, desperate to contribute to the effort, is ordered to launch something—anything!

     After this intriguing setup, the story then focuses on a few leading characters who populate the ROK Space Force. There is Captain Um, an earnest intelligence officer who is forced by severe budget constraints to resort to paper origami to reverse engineer the construction of satellites spotted in orbit. Master Sergeant Han is one of several very strong female characters who is an ace remote pilot but with no actual ship to fly, effectively grounding her as an expert video gamer. Private Lee, or Oste, is a K-pop boyband member serving his mandatory military service in the ROK Space Force who hosts a radio show called Let’s Raise the Density! Other characters are trapped in the mundane existence of sprawling government and military bureaucracies. Major General Lee Jongro becomes a prominent character who, as former Vice Minister of Mars, returns to Earth and stirs up events that have global consequences. The atmosphere on Mars has been fully terraformed to support large populations of humans as a home planet alternative. And as always, when groups of people band together into societies, political tensions and rivalries develop. These conflicts provide a useful subtext for the story’s tension and satirical elements.

     In the first half of the book, the predominant theme is of restlessness and ennui. Despite the deadly threat facing humanity due to the artificial sun, the characters primarily focus on the boredom of their individual, day to day lives. The author portrays the harmful indifference that can afflict individuals when they lack the agency to deal with challenges confronting them. The characters’ sense of helplessness is compounded by both the marginal role of Korea’s Space Force as well as their own constricted roles in the larger bureaucratic machinery. Clearly, there are parallels being drawn to the real-world hierarchical work environment in Korean society that pervades large organizations. Bae also seems to be satirizing the uneven global response to climate change, where individual habits hold priority over communal goals.

     The narrative pace through most of this section is slow and measured. The lack of urgency can be disconcerting and incongruous when compared to the initial energetic set up. However, the reader gains deeper insight into the personalities of the protagonists as a large portion of the story is delivered through the mundane dialogue between the characters. The reader is left to wonder why their individual foibles matter so much when life on earth is at imminent risk. The emotional investment by the reader in the characters is partially established through feeling unsettled at their seeming indifference.

     In the latter third of the book, the pace quickens as the story pivots to become more thriller-esque. A sinister plot between Mars and Earth is clearly afoot, and our not-so-merry band of spacenautic characters is thrust into having to figure out what’s going on and who the culprits are. Ultimately, the seemingly insignificant Korea outpost of the Allied Space Force ends up playing an outsized role in trying to resolve the crisis. The story is thereby transformed into a David versus Goliath tale, or one of Rocky Balboa facing Apollo Creed. It pits Korea’s resourcefulness against the brute might that is America.

     As he makes his way toward a satisfying conclusion, Bae throws in some intriguing bits of real science. The difference in the duration of a Martian day with the Earth’s presents interesting challenges for the working hours and sleep patterns of some of the characters. The differing orbits of the Sun, Mars and Earth and the varying distances that result also pose challenges in communications and travel times. A fascinating scenario called the Kessler Syndrome—which postulates that the increasing density of orbiting satellites and their debris around the Earth can cause catastrophic damage to the entire system from collisions—needs to be overcome.

     The focus on the interior lives of the main characters is an unusual device in a science fiction tale, particularly one where so much of the personal attributes are conveyed principally through dialogue. However, in this particular story, Bae makes clear that the fictionalized technological setting is not as relevant as how people behave when feeling disenfranchised and powerless.

     The past few years of COVID and the accelerating threat of climate change demonstrate two different responses to crises by human beings. In the case of COVID, divergent groups of people from around the world collectively mobilized to develop vaccines and policies to mitigate loss. In the case of climate change, however, fear persists that powerful, entrenched interests and political forces are not providing—and are perhaps blocking—an adequate response. Bae’s novel explores the debilitating emotional consequences to individuals in the latter circumstance. There is always the fortunate possibility that a band of underdogs can come out of nowhere to save the world in the eleventh hour. However, hoping for that outcome while most people remain nonplussed is an unsettling emotion, a theme that sits at the heart of Bae’s story.

 

 

Phillip Y. Kim

Author, Nothing Gained (2013)

Managing Editor, Asia Literary Review